December 22, 2008
Hero of Gettysburg, Heroes of the Revolution
John L. Burns, the 70-year-old man who showed up at the Battle of Gettysburg and volunteered his sharpshooting skills to the Union, recovers at home from the wounds he suffered during the fight. (Click on image for larger version.)
According to the National Park Service's Gettysburg National Military Park website:
The 70 year-old veteran of the War of 1812 took up his flintlock musket and walked out to the scene of the fighting that morning. Approaching an officer of a Pennsylvania Bucktail regiment, Burns requested that he be allowed to fall in with the officer's command. Not quite believing his eyes nor ears, the officer sent the aged Burns into the woods next to the McPherson Farm, where he fought beside members of the Iron Brigade throughout the afternoon until he was wounded. Injured and exhausted, the old man made his way through groups of victorious Confederates who remarkably allowed him to go home unmolested.
After the battle, he was elevated to the role of national hero. Hearing about the aged veteran, Mathew Brady photographed Burns while recuperating at his home on Chambersburg Street and took the story of Burns and his participation in the battle back home to Washington. Others soon became interested in the story and when President Lincoln came to Gettysburg to dedicate the Soldiers National Cemetery that fall, it was John Burns who the president wished to meet.
Burns' fame quickly spread and a poem about his exploits was published in 1864. His notoriety faded after the war, but Burns was proud of his service to his country and his hometown. John Burns died in 1872 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg.
I found a large version of this shot on Shorpy's Photo Archive, where it's impossible to look at just one picture. The comments featured a debate over who was the first person photographed, which led to this site, as well as
Take a look at these men, who fought in the American Revolution.
Captain George Fishley, left, and Conrad Heyer, right, fought in the War of Independence against King George III and his redcoats.
Captain George Fishley, born in 1760, enlisted in 1777. He braved the bitter cold at Valley Forge, fought at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, and watched as British spy Major John Andre was hanged. Fishley later served aboard a privateer, before the British captured and imprisoned him in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He died in 1850.
According to the Maine Historical Society, Conrad Heyer was born in 1749, joined the Continental Army and crossed the Delaware River with George Washington in 1776, before fighting in other battles of the Revolution. Heyer died in 1856, nearly 107 years old.
Among the other men featured on this page is a fellow who had discharge papers signed by George Washington.
It's astonishing that we can look into the same eyes that gazed upon the Founding Fathers.
BBC journalist and longtime host of PBS' Masterpiece Theater Alistair Cook was fond of telling people he met that, "You've just shaken the hand of the hand that shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln." Cook had met Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes when he was a young reporter stationed in Washington, D.C. Holmes had served during the Civil War and had met President Lincoln. So, from Lincoln to Holmes, Holmes to Cook, Cook to his new acquaintance.
It's entirely possible that one of these long-lived veterans of the Revolutionary War might have provided a direct link to George Washington, a handshake spanning three or four centuries.
The past is much closer than we think -- often just a handshake away.
Posted by Mike Lief at December 22, 2008 07:26 AM
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