On July 1, 1863, in the western outskirts of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a massive Confederate infantry force was bearing down on scattered Union troops. The fighting had not yet reached its full fury, but the lines were ragged, the gaps between regiments were visible, and the men of the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry knew that the enemy to their west outnumbered them in a way that was plain to see. During a lull in the cannon fire, something curious happened: an old man, a civilian from Gettysburg, appeared on the field, carrying a rifle and looking for a fight. That man was John Burns, a resident of the town who would be remembered for his extraordinary act of courage on that bloody day.

But the encounter might have passed into memory as little more than a colorful anecdote had it not been recorded by the very officer who met him first: Major Thomas Chamberlain of the 150th Pennsylvania. Chamberlain was not the famous Joshua Chamberlain of Maine, a name that would forever be tied to Little Round Top. Thomas Chamberlain served as second-in-command of the 150th Pennsylvania, part of the Second Bucktail Brigade. The regiment had been organized less than a year earlier, following in the footsteps of the respected First Bucktail Brigade.

Chamberlain was a fierce opponent of slavery and a graduate of Lewisburg University, now known as Bucknell University, class of 1858. He had seen war before, having served as a captain in the 34th Pennsylvania Infantry, and had taken a bullet in his left leg at Glendale during the Peninsula Campaign a year earlier. Now, at Gettysburg, Chamberlain and his Bucktails were taking heavy punishment as Confederate forces streamed in from the west. In the heat of the afternoon, the old civilian approached the Union position.

He was a thin man, unusually tall, with a confident stride. He walked past the left battalion and came directly to Major Chamberlain. His appearance was striking enough at any time, but in the middle of a desperate battle, it was almost absurd. He was clearly near seventy years old.

He wore dark trousers, a dark vest, a long-tailed blue coat with brass buttons, and a tall black silk hat whose shine had long faded. The hat was of a style that belonged to another era entirely. He wore nothing around his neck, likely because of the heat, and his face and chin were cleanly shaven. Chamberlain regarded him with surprise.

The man was carrying a rifle in his right hand, held in the position of a soldier. He stopped and asked with complete seriousness whether he could fight with the regiment. Chamberlain answered that he could, then noticed Colonel Wister, the regiment’s commander, approaching. He gestured toward the colonel and said, “There is our Colonel.

Speak to him. ”

Colonel Wister looked the man over. He was a civilian, an old one at that, standing in the middle of a field waiting for a fight. Wister asked him what he wanted.

The old man replied that he wanted a chance to fight with the regiment. Wister asked if he could shoot well. The old man’s face broke into a smile that seemed to say: if you knew you were standing before a soldier of the War of 1812 who had fought with Scott at Lundy’s Lane, you would not ask such a question. He answered simply that he could shoot, yes.

Wister noticed the man had a rifle but asked where his ammunition was. In answer, the old man slapped his hand against his trouser pockets, which were bulging with cartridges. Wister gave him permission to fight and added that he wished there were more like him. He then advised the old man to go into the woods to the left, where the Iron Brigade was holding the line, saying he would be safer from the sun and the bullets there while still having a fair chance of doing damage to the enemy.

The old man moved off toward the woods, though he seemed hesitant, as if he preferred the open field. He went anyway. That was the meeting between Thomas Chamberlain and John Burns, the civilian who walked into the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg and asked to fight. Burns would go on to become a legend, his name written into the story of that day alongside the other heroes of the nation.

For Chamberlain, the episode had a grim sequel. Later in the same battle, the Bucktails were hit hard as Confederate troops pushed from the west toward the town. Chamberlain was struck by a bullet in the upper right side of his back. The shot glanced at an angle across his shoulder, passed under his collarbone, and lodged in the muscles of his chest.

It was his second wound of the war. Five volunteers carried him from the field where he fell. One of those men was wounded on the way. They brought Chamberlain to the nearby McPherson house.

According to one account, after they set him down, he said, “Now, boys, raise my head, give me a drink of water, and go back to your work. ”

A surgeon arrived and packed the wound with sponges to stop the bleeding. Over the next few days, Chamberlain made his way to the Lutheran Theological Seminary, then being used as Sally Myers’s house. He stayed there until July 6, and by July 13 he was back home in Lewisburg.

He rejoined the 150th before the end of August and resigned in early 1864. After the war, Chamberlain settled in Philadelphia and remained active in veterans’ affairs until his death in 1917 at the age of seventy-eight. He was a prolific writer, and it is through his own account that the story of his meeting with John Burns survives. In a moment of dark uncertainty, with the Confederate line stretching southward as far as the eye could see and Union reinforcements not yet certain to arrive, the old man’s quiet confidence gave the men something to smile about.

It was humor in a deadly moment, and it lifted the courage of those whose resolve was about to be tested to its limit. John Burns fought that day with Union troops and was wounded, but he survived. He became a living symbol of the spirit of Gettysburg, a civilian who chose to stand with the soldiers.

And the record of that choice, preserved in the words of a wounded major from the 150th Pennsylvania, remains one of the most human moments of the war.