Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
In Burnside’s official report, he described the actions of his command in the thick of the fight, and lamented several dead and wounded officers. “It is a sad duty to record a defeat accompanied with a loss of so many valuable lives.”
One man he did not mention, but whose loss he perhaps felt most keenly, was that of his long-time valet, Robert Holloway, a free black from Virginia. At some point during the confusion and chaos of the battle, his trusted servant fell into enemy hands. His whereabouts were unknown.
Holloway had attended Burnside for 11 years prior to his capture by the Confederates. The two men had become acquainted in 1850 in New Mexico Territory, a sprawling stretch of western lands that encompassed all or part of several future states. Burnside, then a 26-year-old West Point-educated lieutenant who had served in the recent war with Mexico, had been sent by the army to protect mail routes in the territory. He crossed paths there with Holloway, then about 35 years old. According to one account, the affable Burnside treated Holloway with great kindness, and a grateful Holloway responded with marked devotion and loyalty.
Over the next decade, Holloway acted as servant and bodyguard to Burnside, who participated in military missions on the frontier, and returned to civilian life in Bristol, R.I., as manufacturer of the Burnside Carbine, a popular breech-loading rifle.
Burnside reentered military service after the attack on Fort Sumter, organizing the First Rhode Island Infantry in April 1861. The regiment was among the first to arrive in Washington, with Col. Burnside in command and Holloway in attendance to his bewhiskered boss.
Burnside led the Rhode Islanders and the rest of his brigade at the First Battle of Bull Run three months later; he received a brigadier’s star soon after the engagement. And yet he was clearly aware of the disastrous consequences of the battle: “Defeat should only make us more faithful still to the great cause of humanity and civilization, in order that every disaster should be more than compensated for by an enduring victory.” For him, part of the victory would be personal: locating and rescuing Holloway.
As the whipped federals fled to Washington and safety, victorious Southerners carried Holloway to Richmond, the Confederate capital, and put him to work as a prison cook. Burnside eventually discovered Holloway’s whereabouts and initiated negotiations to gain his release. In December 1861, he sent an appeal through official military channels to the Confederate government. “My servant, Robert Holloway, a negro, was taken prisoner at Bull Run,” Burnside began. “As he has been with me for many years I of course am anxious to get him again.” Burnside also mentioned a conversation with fellow general George B. McClellan, who had told Burnside that he had released captured servants who belonged to Confederate officers in western Virginia earlier that year.
The appeal failed to produce immediate results.
A new opportunity presented itself on Feb. 8, 1862. Burnside, then in command of an amphibious expedition that put much of North Carolina’s coast under Union control, captured Confederate forces defending Roanoke Island. Among the prisoners were four Southern staff officers, who had become separated from their servants. Burnside, after relating his own situation, arranged to return their servants. The appreciative officers petitioned Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate secretary of war, to release Holloway:
General A.E. Burnside having released to us our servants, slaves included, we respectfully request that his servant, Ro. Holloway, captured at Manassas in July last and now held a prisoner in Richmond, be restored to him. This release of our servants by General Burnside being unconditional we consider it due to ourselves as well as just to him that we should make the above earnest request.
The Confederate government soon released Holloway, and he made his way to Washington after approximately seven months in captivity. Anxious to return to Burnside, he set out by ship for North Carolina. Holloway even skipped a visit to his wife Mary, whom he married in Bristol in 1857, and a daughter and son.
On March 9, 1862, the two men reunited on the Alice Price, a steamer used as headquarters for the ongoing coastal expedition. Burnside’s private secretary noted in a letter to Mrs. Burnside that Holloway “seems very much pleased to be with the General again and refused many offers in Washington, ‘preferring to be with his old master.’ He wishes to be remembered to you and says that he means to come home with the rest ‘through Richmond.’”
Holloway made good on his word. He followed Burnside’s rising star after his advancement to major general, appointment as commander of the Army of the Potomac, and demotion after the crushing defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862. He remained with the general after his forced retirement following the nightmare at the Battle of the Crater during the Union siege of Petersburg in 1864.
After the war, Burnside entered politics and won elections as Rhode Island governor, and later as a senator. Holloway remained at his side through it all. The men separated forever in 1877 after Holloway died at about 63 years old. Buried in Jupiter Cemetery in Bristol, his stone marker was engraved “30 years a faithful servant to Gen. Burnside, at Home and in the Field.”
Burnside died four years later. Holloway’s son, Robbie, tended the general during his final illness. Burnside’s remains reside at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence.
In 1886, former federal soldiers who belonged to the Bristol post of the Grand Army of the Republic , the leading veteran’s organization, commemorated Decoration Day, known today as Memorial Day, with a procession to town hall, followed by music and a speech. The final tribute, a recital of the Roll of Honor, included the names of 125 deceased comrades who served Rhode Island and the Union. Among those honored that day were Burnside and Holloway.
Note: In the original appeal by Burnside and the petition by the Confederate officers, Holloway is spelled “Halloway.” The spelling has been changed here for conformity.
Sources: Augustus Woodbury, “A Narrative of the Campaign of the First Rhode Island Regiment, in the Spring and Summer of 1861”; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; Bristol (Rhode Island) Phoenix, August 1, 1857; Daniel Read Larned Papers, Library of Congress; Benjamin P. Poore, “The Life and Public Services of Ambrose E. Burnside”; John R. Bartlett, “Memoirs of Rhode Island Officers Who Were Engaged in the Service of Their Country During the Great Rebellion of the South”; Grand Army of the Republic, Headquarters Department of Rhode Island, Proceedings at the Twentieth Annual Encampment; Bristol Historical Society, Bristol, R.I.
Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His forthcoming book profiles the lives of men of color who participated in the Civil War. He writes “Faces of War,” a column for the Civil War News.