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Federal (USA)

Captain

Sullivan Wayne Burbank

(1838 - 1864)

Home State: Kentucky

Command Billet: Commanding Company

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 14th United States Infantry, First Battalion

Before Antietam

Son of Colonel Sidney Burbank (USMA 1829) he was born at West Point while his father was First Lieutenant and Instructor of Infantry Tactics there (1836-1839). He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant, 2nd United States Cavalry on 27 March 1861 and was promoted to First Lieutenant on 10 May 1861. He transferred to the 14th US Infantry on 22 June 1861 and was promoted again, to Captain, on 3 March 1862.

On the Campaign

He commanded Company A of the First Battalion, 14th US Infantry on the Maryland Campaign.

The rest of the War

He was mortally wounded and captured in action in the Wilderness, VA on 5 May 1864 ...

[The next day Lt. Daniel Brodhead] received his death-wound while in the noble effort to rescue a fallen fellow officer, Capt. Burbank, who had been wounded in the leg and was lying between the two contending armies. Lieut. Clay, who went out with Lieut. Broadhead to rescue their comrade, was killed. Capt. Burbank was subsequently captured by the rebels and had his leg amputated by his uncle, a surgeon in their service ...
He died of wounds on 9 June 1864.

References & notes

His service from Heitman.1 His role at Antietam from Captain Brown's after-action Report. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. The quote above from Lt. Brodhead's obituary in the Tri-States Union (Port Jervis, NY) of 17 June 1864. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

The surgeon uncle mentioned my have been Dr. Phillip C. Slaughter; I have not found a genealogy for him, but Burbank's mother was a Slaughter.

Birth

1838; West Point, NY

Death

06/09/1864; burial in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA

Notes

1   Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 262  [AotW citation 29157]