‘Come to the aid of your country.’
When are you too old to serve?
In 1861, when American men averaged a forty-year life span, John Burns found out the answer to that question was age 69.
John was a combat veteran who’d seen action in the War of 1812 and in the Mexican-American War.
And in 1861, the Southern states were bent on destroying America.
John wanted to do his part.
He still had his musket, powder horn and bayonet and still knew how to use them.
But the US Army refused to let him enlist.
If he wanted to serve, they said, he could drive supply wagons.
But that worked out for just a little while.
Before long, John was sent back home to his house in Gettysburg.
But two years later, in July 1863, the Civil War came to him.
On July 1, John heard the sound of distant gunfire.
He put on his very best, but very old, gentleman’s dress clothes and a silk top hat, picked up his flintlock musket and powder horn, and walked towards the scene of the fighting.
John reached the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry and spoke with the unit’s commanding officer, Col. Langhorne Wister.
Wister said John could fight alongside his regiment, but he should stay in woods next to the McPherson Farm, where there was a bit of protection from incoming fire.
John went into the woods.
And when he got there, he exchanged his old weapon for the rifle and ammunition cartridges of a wounded man.
He then hid behind the trees, working as a sharpshooter alongside Wisconsin and Michigan infantry units as Confederate forces advanced toward their position.
But these Union forces were overwhelmed and began to fall back.
And John received wounds in the arm, leg, and chest.
In the hurried retreat, he was left behind.
Alone on the field, John tossed his rifle and buried his ammunition.
When Confederate troops captured him, John said he was a civilian who was merely looking for help for his ailing wife.
And the Confederates believed his story.
They bandaged John’s wounds and then left him to find his own way home.
The fighting in Gettysburg would rage for two more days.
After the battle ended, word of John’s battlefield action spread, and he was featured on the cover of Harper’s Weekly magazine.
Mathew Brady sent his assistant to photograph him.
And writer Bret Harte told his story in a poem.
“…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 in November 1863, when Lincoln came to Gettysburg to dedicate the soldiers’ national cemetery, he asked to meet Burns.
Some accounts say John stood alongside Lincoln as he delivered his Gettysburg Address and later walked with Lincoln through the town.
John was a local hero.
John had been the only civilian in Gettysburg to take up arms against the invading Confederate forces.
As it turned out, he wasn’t too old after all.
And now, a statue of John stands near the place where the old man came to the aid of his country.
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I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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