Stephen Gano Burbridge was born on August 19, 1831 in Scott County, Kentucky and was the grandson of Captain George Burbridge (a Revolutionary soldier who settled in Kentucky during her early history), and the son of Captain Robert Burbridge (a soldier in the War of 1812) and his wife, Eliza Ann Barnes of Mississippi.
He attended Georgetown College and Kentucky Military Institute, and then studied law, but did not practise.
When the Civil War began he was a farmer in Logan County. Entering the Union Army as colonel of the 26th Kentucky Infantry, a regiment he himself had raised, he served with the Army of the Ohio at the battle of Shiloh. He was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, June 9, 1862, and commanded a brigade of the 13th Corps at the taking of Arkansas Post and in the Vicksburg campaign.
On February 15, 1864, he was assigned temporarily to the command of the District of Kentucky, with extensive civil as well as military powers. The post was one of extreme difficulty, for Kentucky was a border state; its people were divided in sentiment, and its territory was constantly subject to raids from the east and south. On the whole, his military operations were successful, forwarding the Union cause and reflecting credit upon himself.
He defeated and dispersed General John Morgan's forces in June 1864, thus turning into disaster a raid which had been highly successful in the beginning. An advance into southwestern Virginia in October, for the purpose of destroying the salt works and lead mines which were of vital importance to the Confederacy, failed to accomplish its purpose; but a second attempt, in December, made in conjunction with Generals Stoneman and Gillem, was more fortunate.
As civil official, however, Burbridge was shortsighted and injudicious, making no attempt to conciliate the disaffected, and actually antagonizing the moderate Union men by his severe and seemingly arbitrary measures. He sought to control the election of 1864 by the free use of the military, making numerous arrests (it was charged) of persons whose only offense was that they had opposed Lincoln.
He involved himself in what the people of the state regarded as a deliberate swindle when by orders issued October 28, 1864, and later, he practically forced the farmers to sell their hogs only to the Federal agents and at a price considerably lower than that offered in the Cincinnati markets. The injustice of the action was recognized by Lincoln and upon instruction from the War Department Burbridge revoked his orders (November 27, 1864).
He suppressed the "Home Guards" and disbanded the state troops raised to resist guerrillas, but the policy which won him the ardent hatred of the majority of the people of his state was the system of reprisals inaugurated as a means of suppressing guerrilla warfare--a system so rigorous that he was accused of the "murder" of many citizens.
Complaints of Burbridge's policies were made by the civil governor, Thomas E. Bramlette, and others, to Lincoln and to Grant--the latter as early as November 1864 earnestly advocated his removal--but at first his ruthless punishment of guerrillas was approved at Washington and for a time Stanton seems to have hesitated to yield to the Bramlette party in effecting his removal.
In December 1864, however, the Assistant Inspector General reported that though "his administration has been mainly a good one, " nevertheless "the substitution of a man stronger in capacity and character would be an advantage. " He was relieved from his command in January 1865, and resigned from the army in December. He was ostracized for the rest of his life. He applied for appointment as marshal of the District of Columbia, and later as commissioner of internal revenue, but without success.
He died in Brooklyn, New York, where he had resided for some time, and only one of the Louisville papers contained a notice of his death.
Stephen Burbridge took part in the battle of Shiloh and commanded a Brigade in the XIII Corps in the expedition which reduced Post of Arkansas and also in the Vicksburg Campaign. Early in 1864 he succeeded General Jeremiah T. Boyle in command of District of Kentucky. He was moderately successful in the field - he was, for example, awarded a brevet of Major General on July 4, 1864, for repulsing John M. Morgan's abortive invasion of the state but his administration of Kentucky earned him the enmity of the duly constituted civil authorities as well as of the populace.
Quotations: In 1867 Burbridge wrote that he was not "able to live in safety or do business in Kentucky"; and again, "my services to my country have caused me to be exiled from my home, and made my wife and children wanderers. "
He was married twice: first, to Lizzie Goff; second, to Sara R. Burbridge, who survived him.
