John Burns

John Burns was 69 years old, a former constable of Gettysburg with a reputation for being difficult, and on 1 July 1863 he put on his coat, picked up an old flintlock musket and a powder horn and walked west out of town toward the sound of the fighting. He was the only civilian resident of Gettysburg known to have taken up arms in the battle. He reported first to the 150th Pennsylvania, who sent him forward, and he ended the afternoon on McPherson's Ridge with the Iron Brigade, having asked a wounded soldier for a more modern rifle and his cartridges. He was shot three times and left on the field. He survived, and the newspapers made him famous within weeks. When Lincoln came to Gettysburg that November he asked to meet Burns, and on the evening of 19 November 1863, hours after the address, the two of them walked arm in arm down Baltimore Street to the Presbyterian church for a patriotic meeting. The story is usually told as pure heroism, and it was not quite that simple. Burns was a contrary man who had already made himself unpopular in town, and some of his neighbours thought the fame went to his head. What is not in dispute is the walk out of town on the first morning, at 69, alone, toward an army. The bronze figure here on Stone Avenue shows him with his musket, facing the ground he fought over.