Title
Preview
Rank
Lt Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier general
Unit
6th Maine Infantry
Residence
Cherryfield
Creation Date Range
1861 - 62
Description
Hiram Burnham (1814 – September 29, 1864) was an officer in the Union Army who commanded a regiment and then a brigade in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. He was killed in battle while assaulting Confederate positions near Richmond, Virginia, during the Battle of Chaffin's Farm. Hiram Burnham was born in Narraguagus, later Cherryfield, Maine, in 1814. He formed and led a militia company as its captain in the Aroostook War of 1839. He subsequently worked as a lumberman and owned a sawmill. Active in local politics, he held public office as a county commissioner and a coroner. Burnham is described as a burly man with a strong voice, able to make himself heard on a battlefield. Early in the war Burnham became lieutenant colonel of the 6th Maine Infantry on July 16, 1861. He was promoted to the rank of colonel on December 12 of that year. He served with the Army of the Potomac in the Peninsula Campaign, starting out in Brig. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's brigade in a division of the IV Corps under Brig. Gen. William F. Smith. This division later became part of the VI Corps. At the Battle of Crampton's Gap and the Battle of Antietam, Burnham led his regiment in the 1st
Keywords
General
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Keywords
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Rights Statement
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