John L. Burns: The Old Man Soldier at Gettysburg

getonthetrain (69)in #history • 8 years ago (edited)

The story of John Burns, a 69 year old town constable, fighting at Gettysburg is a tale that has lasted the passage of time.

Burns at his home recovering. Two weeks after the battle. (Photo Credit:Timothy O'Sullivan) Colorized link
He was born on Spetember 5th, 1793 and fought in both the War of 1812 and the Spanish-American War. When the Civil War broke out he volunteered for that too, but was declined because he was 67 years old! Still wanting to serve, he became a teamster driving supply wagons. After some time there, they decided he was too old for that too and, against his wishes, ended his employment. Burns travelled back home to Gettysburg where the people elected him town constable.

On June 26th, 1863 the Confederates took over the town and Burns, stubborn as he was, interfered in their operations. They locked Burns up for 2 days, only getting out after they left the town to raid northward. He ran around town locking up any Confederate stragglers he found.

When the Battle of Gettysburg started on July 1st, he grabbed his old flintlock rifle and headed towards the Union line. On the way there he encountered two wounded Union soldiers, and he convinced them to let him borrow one of their rifles and give him their ammunition.

Once at the battle line, he reported to Major Chamberlain of the 150th Pennsylvania. Chamberlain said that Burns walked with purpose and carried a regulation rifle, but dressed out of place:

”consisted of dark trousers and a waistcoat, a blue 'swallow tail' coat with burnished brass buttons, such as used to be affected by well-to-do gentlemen of the old school about 40 years ago, and a high black silk hat, from which most of the original gloss had long departed, of a shape to be found only in the fashion plates of the remote past”

He was allowed to fight, but sent to the woods so that he could be out of the sun. The woods were being held by the famous Iron Brigade from Wisconsin, whose soldiers took one look at the old man and laughed. He ignored their scoffs, and once they saw him in action their laughter stopped – he was a damn fine sharpshooter still, even at his age. He was reported to have several long range hits, and had shot a charging Confederate officer off his horse.

The fighting became fierce, and he was wounded five times in the arms and legs, as well as some minor injuries in the torso. The final injury was to his ankle, and the Union lines were falling back. Old man Burns, tired and injured, could not follow. He dropped his rifle and buried his ammunition and claimed to have been crossing the battlefield to find help for his wife when he was questioned by the Confederates. But at least they couldn’t prove that he was a fighting civilian, a bushwhacker, because if they did he would probably have been killed.

Later a Confederate officer found him, and had a surgeon attend to his wounds. He was given water and a blanket and slept the night on the battlefield. The next day he crawled to a nearby house, whose residents brought him back to his own.

His story propelled him to a level of national hero. President Lincoln met with him when Lincoln came to give the Gettysburg address, walking down the street together and attending church. Newspapers throughout the country circulated the story. A year later, Bret Harte wrote a poem about him. The only person who wasn’t impressed was his wife who called him an “old fool for risking his neck on a battlefield at his age.”

John L. Burns died on February 4th, 1872 of pneumonia. There is a statue of him at Gettysburg National Military Park.

John Burns Statue (By Fyre2387 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)

John Burns of Gettysburg

By Bret Harte

Have you heard of a story that gossips tell
Of Burns of Gettysburg? No? Ah, well:
Brief is the glory that hero earns,
Briefer the story of poor John Burns:
He was the fellow who won renown,—
The only man who didn’t back down
When the rebels rode through his native town;
But held his own in the fight next day,
When all his townsfolk ran away.
That was in July, sixty-three,—
The very day that General Lee,
Flower of Southern chivalry,
Baffled and beaten, backward reeled
From a stubborn Meade and a barren field,

I might tell how, but the day before,
John Burns stood at his cottage-door,
Looking down the village street,
Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kine,
And felt their breath with incense sweet;
Or I might say, when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell like a babbling flood
Into the milk-pail, red as blood!
Or how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees.
But all such fanciful thoughts as these
Were strange to a practical man like Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns,
Troubled no more by fancies fine
Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine,
Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact,
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
That was the reason, as some folks say,
He fought so well on that terrible day.

And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heady fight,
Thundered the battery’s double brass,—
Difficult music for men to face;
While on the left—where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all the day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the rebels kept—
Round-shot ploughed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there,
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,
The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And the brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest.

Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely, stood old John Burns.
How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient, long buff vest,
Yellow as saffron,—but his best;
And, buttoned over his manly breast,
Was a bright blue coat with a rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons—size of a dollar,—
With tails that the country-folk called “swaller.”
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.
Never had such a sight been seen
For forty years on the village green,
Since old John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the “quiltings” long ago.

Close at his elbow all that day
Veterans of the Peninsula,
Sunburnt and bearded, charged away;
And striplings, downy of lip and chin,—
Clerks that the Home-Guard mustered in,—
Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore;
And hailed him, from out their youthful lore,
With scraps of a slangy repertoire:
“How are you, White Hat?” “Put her through!”
“Your head’s level!” and “Bully for you!”
Called him “Daddy,”—begged he’d disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off,—
With his long brown rifle, and bell-crowned hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.

‘Twas but a moment, for that respect
Which clothes all courage their voices checked;
And something the wildest could understand
Spake in the old man’s strong right hand,
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
Of his eyebrows under his old bell-crown;
Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe
Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,
In the antique vestments and long white hair,
The Past of the Nation in battle there;
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
That day was their oriflamme of war.

So raged the battle. You know the rest:
How the rebels, beaten and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
At which John Burns—a practical man—
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.

That is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns:
In fighting the battle, the question’s whether
You’ll show a hat that’s white or a feather.