Married Rancie A.F. Austin (1840 - c. 1888) in November 1860 at Hallowell, Maine.

Enlisted 29 May 1861 at Wilton, Maine; mustered in 4 June 1861 at Augusta, Maine, as a Corporal in Co. E, 3rd Maine Infantry. Promoted to First Sergeant on 1 Nov 1862 and commissioned Second Lieutenant on 18 December 1863. Bursley was promoted to First Lieutenant on or about 1 January 1864, perhaps as a member of the Veteran Volunteers. His cartes-de-visite from the Maine State Archives hosted at the Digital Maine Repository are annotated with that rank.

KIA at the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. In a letter to his widow dated 2 June 1864, S.F. [Samuel Freeman] Chase, Chaplain, 3rd Maine Infantry, stated that "Lt Bursley was killed in the Battle of Spottsylvania [sic] Court House May 12 [sic] being shot through the breast...I tried very earnestly to get his body embalmed and sent home neither of which could be accomplished. I attended to his burial, had his grave marked and did all I could for him under the circumstances...His effects I think are in hands of Lt [George S.] Fuller & will be forwarded or brought to you soon."

Since his body was not sent home at the time of his death, and no burial has been found for him in Maine, it seems likely that he is interred at the National Park Service's Fredericksburg National Cemetery. According to the cemetery's webpage, "The Union Civil War soldiers buried here include those who died of illness in the camps around Fredericksburg, in the four major battles around Fredericksburg as well the Mine Run and North Anna campaigns. Only about 20% of the soldiers are identified."

Although the unit chaplain had had his grave marked, it is likely that the headboard vanished or was illegible before burial parties could transfer the remains to the national cemetery in 1866-67. Bursley is not listed in the roster of known Union soldiers buried at the cemetery. Nor, according to a 16 Jun 2015 email from the park's Chief Historian, does his name appear on the list of soldiers whose bodies were discovered and removed from various farms around Spotsylvania and claimed for transport and burial back home.

Reference for Hallowell Civil War memorial inscriptions: pp. 128, 172-3 in "Illustrated History of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1799-1892," edited by Henry D. Kingsbury and Simeon L. Deyo, Blake & Co., 1892, at https://archive.org/details/illustratedhisto00king

Story on the 27 July 1869 dedication of the Hallowell Soldier's Monument with the list of the 45 men and their units inscribed thereon published in the 5 August 1869 Hallowell Gazette (Hallowell, Me.), p. 1.