The weekly Butte record., 1866-12-08
JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG.

Have you heard the story that gossips tell
OF John Burns Of Gettysburg! = No! All, 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 no 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 wa. in July. sixty three,
The very day General Lee,
Flower Of Southern chivalry,
Baftled and beaten. backward reeled
From a stubborn Meade and barren field.
I might tell how bat 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 kline,
And felt their breath with incense sweet;
Or might say when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell in babbling food
Into the milk-pail, red as blood;
Or, how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees
But all such fancifal thoughts as these
Were strange to practical man Ike Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns.
Troubled no more by fances fine
Than one of his calm eyed, longtaied kline
Quite old-fashioned and matterof fact,
Slow 10 argue, but quick to act.
That was the reason, as some folk say,
He fought so well on that terrible day.
And it was terrible. On the right
Ranged for hours the heavy yht,
Thuudered the battery double bass -
Difficult music for men 10 face;
While the left = where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all day unceasing swept
Up TO the pits the rebels kept -
Round shot ploughed the upland glades,
Sptru uxri.b tpl or nat hildpS
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 beloved on the plain,
The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And 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 rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons = size OF dollar =
With tails that countrv-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 John Burns country beau.
And went to the quilting long ago.
Close at his elbows all this 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 slangv repertoire;
- How are you, White Hatt' Put her through =
Your heads level and Bully for you"
Called him Daddy" - and begged he'd disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes.
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns unmndful of jeer and scoH,
Stood there picking the rebels off
With his long brown rifle, and bell crown hat,
And the swallow tails they were laughing at
Twas but moment, for that respect
Which clothes all courage their voices checked;
And something the widest could understand
Spake in the old mans strong right band,
nd his corded throat and the lurking frown
OF his eyebrows under his old belcrown;
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,
he Past OF the Nation in battle there.
Aud some OF the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar.
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarro,
That day their ori1amme OF war.
Thus ragged the battle. You know the rest
How the rebels beaten aud backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
At which John Burns practical man
Shouldered his rifle, unbeat his brows,
Aud then went back 10 his bees and cows.
This is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns;
In fighting the battle the questions whether
You'll show a hat that's white, or a feather.
F. B. HARTE.