JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG
Have you heard the 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 folk 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 bass,--Difficult music for men to face While on the left--where now the graves Undulate like the living waves That all that 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 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 elbows 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-crown 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!
"HOW ARE YOU, SANITARY?"
Down the picket-guarded lane Rolled the comfort-laden wain, Cheered by shouts that shook the plain, Soldier-like and merry:
Phrases such as camps may teach, Sabre-cuts of Saxon speech, Such as "Bully!" "Them's the peach!"
"Wade in, Sanitary!"
Right and left the caissons drew As the car went lumbering through, Quick succeeding in review Squadrons military;
Sunburnt men with beards like frieze, Smooth-faced boys, and cries like these,--"U. S. San. Com." "That's the cheese!"
"Pass in, Sanitary!"
In such cheer it struggled on Till the battle front was won:
Then the car, its journey done, Lo! was stationary;
And where bullets whistling fly Came the sadder, fainter cry, "Help us, brothers, ere we die,--Save us, Sanitary!"
Such the work. The phantom flies, Wrapped in battle clouds that rise:
But the brave--whose dying eyes, Veiled and visionary, See the jasper gates swung wide, See the parted throng outside--Hears the voice to those who ride:
"Pass in, Sanitary!"
BATTLE BUNNY
(MALVERN HILL, 1864)
"After the men were ordered to lie down, a white rabbit, which had been hopping hither and thither over the field swept by grape and musketry, took refuge among the skirmishers, in the breast of a corporal."--Report of the Battle of Malvern Hill.
Bunny, lying in the grass, Saw the shining column pass;
Saw the starry banner fly, Saw the chargers fret and fume, Saw the flapping hat and plume,--Saw them with his moist and shy Most unspeculative eye, Thinking only, in the dew, That it was a fine review.
