Bennet Burleigh

Bennet Graham Burley (c. 1840 – June 17, 1914) was a Scottish-born pirate, Confederate spy and journalist. Later in life, he changed his surname to Burleigh and became a celebrated war correspondent for London's The Daily Telegraph.

Biography

Born in Glasgow, he joined the British Legion of Giuseppe Garibaldi at the age of 20 and took part in the Expedition of the Thousand. After returning to the United States, he began work as a shipping clerk. Shortly afterwards, in March 1861, he was forced to marry one of the family's servants after getting her pregnant. Burley left for North America with another clerk to take part in the American Civil War. He joined the Confederates, disrupting Union ship traffic. Burley was captured in May 1864 but escaped a month later. He took part in a raid on Lake Erie in September 1864 led by John Yates Beall. Burley had convinced a Canadian cousin in Guelph, Adam Robertson, to manufacture munitions for use in that raid. He returned to Guelph but was later captured and extradited to the United States. The jury deadlocked at his first trial and he was returned to jail to await a second trial. Burley was able to escape to Canada and returned to Scotland. At this point, he changed his name to Bennet Burleigh.

Burley later sought to fight for Greece against the Turks in the Great Cretan Revolution of 1866–1869. He was involved in the efforts to create a foreign volunteer expedition and he successfully recruited Henry McIver.

In 1881, Burleigh was hired by the London Telegraph to cover the war in Sudan. He was a correspondent for the Central News Agency during the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. Burleigh was the first to report the failure of the Gordon relief expedition, which led to the slaughter of the Khartoum garrison.