Frederick Russell Burnham - Early Life, First Matabele War, Second Matabele War, On Scouting, Second Boer War, Post Africa
| Frederick Russell Burnham | |
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| May 11, 1861 - March 11, 1947 | |
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| Nickname | Fred; near Mankato) |
| Place of death | Three Rivers, California |
| Allegiance | Scout for the British Army in Southern Africa; |
| Years of service | 1893-1896, 1900-1904 |
| Rank | Major |
| Commands | Chief of Scouts under Lord Roberts |
| Battles/wars | Apache Wars; Second Boer War |
| Awards |
Distinguished Service Order South African Medal Queens Scout Award Victoria Cross (declined) Boy Scouts Silver Buffalo Award Mount Burnham (in California). |
| Scouting Portal |
Frederick Russell Burnham, DSO (1861-1947), an American scout and world travelling adventurer is best known for his service to the British Army in Colonial Africa and for teaching woodcraft (i.e., scoutcraft) to Robert Baden-Powell, becoming one of the inspirations to the founding of the Boy Scouts. By all accounts Burnham was a humble man who refused to exploit his reputation and instead chose to live as Fred Burnham, scout, rancher, and oil man.
Early Life
Born to a missionary family the baby Fred witnessed the burning of New Ulm, Minnesota, by Red Cloud and his Sioux warriors in the 1862 uprising. During the uprising, his mother, Rebecca (Elizabeth) Russell Burnham, hid the not quite 2-year-old boy in a basket of green corn husks and fled for her life.
The young Fred attended schools in Iowa and there he met his future wife to be, Blanche Blick, but the family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1870. Edwin Otway Burnham of Kentucky, himself a long time pioneer and missionary along the boarder of the Sioux Indian reserve in Minnesota, died when Fred was only 11 years-old.
For the next three years the young Fred worked as a mounted messenger for the Western Union Telegraph Company in California and in Arizona.
In 1882, Burnham returned to Arizona and was appointed Deputy Sheriff of Pinal County, but he soon went back to cattle and mining interests.
In the 1880s the American press had been popularizing the notion that the West had been won and there was nothing left to conquer in the United States. This idea had a life changing impact on Burnham. When he heard of the work of Cecil Rhodes and his pioneers in building the Cape to Cairo railway in Africa, Burnham sold want little he owned and, in 1893, set sail to Cape Town, South Africa with his wife and young son. Burnham became well known in Africa for his ability to track, even at night, and the Africans dubbed him, he-who-sees-in-the-dark.
First Matabele War
Burnham’s first major test in Africa came in 1893 when the British South Africa Company went to war with the Matabele King Lobengula. Burnham and a small group of scouts were sent ahead to report on the situation in Bulawayo, While on the outskirts of town they witnessed the Matabele burn down and destroy everything in sight.
Shangani Patrol
Following the abandonment of Bulawayo, Jameson dispatched a column of soldiers to find and attempt the capture of Lobengula. Burnham, who served as the lead scout of the Wilson Patrol, sensed a trap and advised Wilson to withdraw, but Wilson ordered his Patrol to advance. In desperation, Wilson sent Burnham and two other scouts, Pearl “Pete” Wilson (a Montana cowboy) and Gooding (Australian), to cross the Shangani river, find Forbes, and bring back reinforcements. As Burnham loaded his rifle to beat back the Matabele warriors, he quietly said to Forbes, "I think I may say that we are the sole survivors of that party."
For his service in the war, Burnham was presented his first campaign medal, a gold watch, and a 100 mile tract of land in Matabeleland. It was here that Burnham uncovered many artifacts in the huge granite ruins of the ancient civilization of Great Zimbabwe.
Second Matabele War
In March 1896, the Matabele again revolted against the authority of the British South Africa Company in what is now celebrated in Zimbabwe as the First War of Independence. With few troops to support them, the settlers quickly built a laager in the centre of Bulawayo on their own and mounted patrols under such legendary figures as Burnham, Baden-Powell, and Selous.
Assassination of Mlimo
The turning point in the war came when Burnham and a young scout named Armstrong found their way through Motobo Hills to the sacred cave where Mlimo had been hiding.
Mlimo was said to be about 60 years-old, with very dark skin, sharp-featured, and had a cruel, crafty look. Burnham and Armstrong waited until Mlimo entered the cave and started his dance of immunity, and then Burnham shot Mlimo just below the heart. To distract the Matabele, Burnham set fire to the village.
Burnham’s young daughter, Nada, the first white child born in Bulawayo, died of fever and starvation during the siege of Bulawayo on 22 May 1897 (plot #144 in the Pioneer Cemetery in Bulawayo) --three of Sir H. a Zulu idyll’’ (1900) are dedicated to Burnham's daughter, Nada. Burnham, was staying with family in London and accidentally drown in the river Thames that same year. Burnham became so disheartened by events that he decided to leave Africa and return home. But ever the consummate adventure, Burnham left his wife in California and went to Alaska and the Yukon along with his last surviving offspring, Roderick, from 1898-1900, to prospect in the Klondike Gold Rush.
On Scouting
As a scout, Burnham was also a frontiersman, but only coincidentally. His training in tracking, stealth, marksmanship, ‘’woodcraft’’ (i.e., scoutcraft), and knowledge of guerilla tactics learned while fighting Apache and Cheyenne made Burnham invaluable to the British colonial efforts in Southern Africa. As a boy growing up in the American Old West, he had learned these skills from indian trackers, frontiersman, and cowboys, so as a scout in Africa, Burnham was simply practicing his art and applying it as a soldier. As a military scout, Burnham would act alone or in small groups to perform reconnaissance beyond lines to determine the location and operational conduct of the enemy, live off the land, attack only when objectives had been achieved, and on occasion conduct sniper-like assassinations. The rifle was the weapon of choice for Burnham and its vital significance to military scouting cannot be overstated.
Baden-Powell
Baden-Powell and Burnham first became friends during the Second Matabele War. During the siege of Bulawayo, the two men rode into the African hills on patrol and it was there that Burnham first taught Baden-Powell the art of ‘’woodcraft’’. So impressed was Baden-Powell by Burnham's scouting spirit the he fondly told people he "sucked him dry" of all he could possibly tell.
The young boy scouts envisioned by Baden-Powell and Burnham in 1896/97 was one of fighters first whose business it was to face their enemies with both valor and good cheer, and as social workers afterward. While Baden-Powell went on to refine the concept of scouting and become the founder of the international scouting movement, Burnham can legitimately be called the movement's father. For his noteworthy and extraordinary service to the international scouting movement, Burnham was bestowed the highest commendation given by the Boy Scouts of America, the Silver Buffalo Award, in 1936.
The low-key Burnham and Baden-Powell remained close friends for their long lives. In 1931, Burnham read the speech dedicating Mount Baden-Powell . Today their friendship, and equal status in the world of scouting and conservation, is honored, in perpetuity, with the dedication of the adjoining peak, Mount Burnham, in his honor.
Second Boer War
In January 1900, Burnham received a message from Lord Roberts requesting his return to South Africa to become the Chief of Scouts for the British Army to help him fight the Second Boer War. Burnham was in Skagway, Alaska at the time, but two and a half hours later he was on his way back to Africa. Unusual for a foreigner, Burnham was given a commission and the rank of Major.
During the war, Burnham was twice captured and twice escaped, but he was also invalidated for a time by his near fatal wounds. Burnham had been selected for the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military award, but he declined rather than forfeit his American citizenship – a requirement at the time.
Post Africa
Yaqui
Burnham returned to North America and for the next few years he became associated with the Yaqui River irrigation project in Mexico. It was there that Burnham, in 1908, made important archeological discoveries of Mayan civilization, including the Yaqui Stone.
Espionage
During World War I, Burnham was living in California and was active in counter-espionage for Britain. In a letter written to Burnham, Duquesne states: “To my friendly enemy, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the greatest scout of the world, whose eyes were that of an Empire.
Oil Wealth
In 1923, Burnham struck oil at Dominguez Hill, California. In the first 10 years of operation, the Burnham Exploration Company paid out $10.2 million in dividend. Although Burnham had lived all over the world, he never had a great deal of wealth to show for it. Ironically, it was not until he returned to the place of his youth that Burnham struck it rich.
Conservation
In his later years, Burnham filled various public offices.
Memorial
Burnham is buried at Three Rivers, California, near his old cattle ranch, La Cuesta.
Biographical, partial excerpt from Real Soldiers of Fortune, Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916)
Major Burnham, Chief of Scouts
Among the Soldiers of Fortune whose stories have been told in this book were men who are no longer living, men who, to the United States, are strangers, and men who were of interest chiefly because in what they attempted they failed.
The subject of this article is none of these.
In his home in Pasadena, California, where sometimes he rests quietly for almost a week at a time, the neighbors know him as "Fred" Burnham. Later, when he won an official title, they called him "Major Frederick Russell Burnham, D.
Some men are born scouts, others by training become scouts. From his father Burnham inherited his instinct for wood-craft, and to this instinct, which in him is as keen as in a wild deer or a mountain lion, he has added, in the jungle and on the prairie and mountain ranges, years of the hardest, most relentless schooling. Indeed, than Burnham no man of my acquaintance to my knowledge has devoted himself to his life's work more earnestly, more honestly, and with such single-mindedness of purpose. To him scouting is as exact a study as is the piano to Paderewski, with the result that to-day what the Pole is to other pianists, the American is to all other "trackers," woodmen, and scouts.
Besides being a scout, he is soldier, hunter, mining expert, and explorer.
Personally, Burnham is as unlike the scout of fiction, and of the Wild West Show, as it is possible for a man to be. They tell of him that one day, while out with a patrol on the veldt, he said he had lost the trail and, dismounting, began moving about on his hands and knees, nosing the ground like a bloodhound, and pointing out a trail that led back over the way the force had just marched.When the commanding officer rode up, Burnham said:
"Don't raise your head, sit.
"I see them now," Burnham answered.
"But I thought you were looking for a lost trail?"
"That's what the Boers on the kopje think," said Burnham.
In his eyes, possibly, owing to the uses to which they have been trained, the pupils, as in the eyes of animals that see in the dark, are extremely small.
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