348 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 



Shorn of all exaggeration the story of old John Burns, gray 

 with age, standing on Seminary Ridge among the veterans of 

 the Army of the Potomac, loading and firing with the best of 

 them, is a thrilling episode of the late war. By correspondence 

 with those with whom he fought, and who would naturally 

 recollect the particulars of an incident so unique, and by per- 

 sonal inquiry of those who knew him, I have obtained the 

 details of the deed which made him famous. 



If what I have written will do anything towards perpetuat- 

 ing the memory of the citizen-hero of Gettysburg, and render 

 him less a mythical personage and more the gallant patriot 

 he was, it is all I ask. 





©If e >^iPfage ^tore, 



7,^-^^ HANGE is written on all things mundane. Speak- 

 ing in a particular way of man, we see a series of 

 ever-varying changes, from red-faced infancy to 

 wrinkled old age. Noting the human race in general, we see 

 with what ceaseless mutations it has advanced, from the 

 grinning pre-historic ape of Darwin to the self-complacent, 

 self-assumedly perfect man of to-day. The seasons follow one 

 another in one endless, shifting succession. Empires grow, 

 flourish and decay. Kingdoms arise from the ashes of past 

 governmental conflagrations, flap their confident wings into 

 futurity, knock their heads against the rock of popular will, 

 and die. Republics — those synonyms of ingratitude — run 

 their too brief existence, pass away, and emerge in some 



