I was helping my son with his shower, and as he applied shampoo to his head, I reminded him to scrub his sideburns. My son then asked, “why are they called sideburns?” I was stumped. I had no idea. In fact, the question never crossed my mind before. I told my son, we would try to look up the answer before bed. At bedtime, I googled “where does the name sideburns come from?” Up popped a paragraph from the sideburns wikipedia page stating “[t]he term sideburns is a 19th-century corruption of the original burnsides, named after American Civil War [g]eneral Ambrose Burnside, a man known for his unusual facial hairstyle that connected thick sideburns by way of a moustache, but left the chin clean-shaven.” Interesting. But General Burnside was even more interesting.
Burnside had quite the life, filled with highs and lows. He was left at the alter by a woman he later arrested – apparently she was a spy for the South during the Civil War. Burnside was a graduate of West Point and Union general. He designed and patented the .54 Burnside carbine and missed out on its financial success by having to declare bankruptcy and sell his patents to his investors to repay his debts. The gun would later make the investors wealthy as orders poured in during the Civil War. Burnside was also the president of the NRA. He would also become Governor and Senator of Rhode Island. Despite all the success mentioned above, General Ambrose is notably known for his facial hair that would be termed “burnsides.” Burnsides eventually would be called sideburns.
Who would have thought a simple question, from my son, about sideburns, would have led to all this interesting information? While my son was too young to appreciate all the accomplishments of Burnside, I am thankful my son asked me about sideburns. I know so much more because of him.