336 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 



ZT has been shown that William Tell was a myth, and the 

 shooting of an apple from a son's head to save a father's 

 life a thread-bare reiteration, handed down through 

 generations of story-tellers. It has been demonstrated that 

 the account of the rescue of John Smith by the daughter of 

 Powhatan, which went undisputed for two centuries, existed 

 only in the mind of the narrator. It has been proven that 

 Whittier's poem of Barbara Frietchie was based on an act of 

 patriotic defiance which history does not corroborate. It is, 

 therefore, no wonder that John Burns, of Gettysburg, is re- 

 garded by those who look into the matter superficially, as a 

 fanciful creation, particularly when we reflect that it required 

 a poem to make his actions famous, and that there was a 

 probability of its being based on as unsubstantial a foundation 

 as was the story of the aged heroine of Frederick. That he 

 w^as not the " baseless fabric of a vision," but of as real flesh and 

 blood as a feeble man of seventy could be, and that Bret Harte 

 rather understated than overdrew the facts which connected 

 him with the Gettysburg battle, can easily be shown. Being 

 shown, let us remember, while honoring the memory of the 

 titled dead or living, who had such incentives to brave death 

 on the hills and in the meadows around that historic town, that 

 old John Burns, past the fighting age, and while his neigh- 

 bors were seeking subterranean seclusion from the gathering 

 storm, left his peaceful work, went amid our fighting lines, whose 

 movements were visible from his little home not a half mile 

 distant, and insisted on sharing the danger with veteran 

 soldiers, and w^ho fought until wounded past fighting. 



The greater stress should be laid on the actions of John 

 Burns on that eventful day, because his was an isolated case. 



