"Well," said John, "I was out lookin' for a cow which some of you fellows carried off and first thing I knew I was hit in three places. So long as you got my cow, the least you can do is to carry me home."
The Battle of Gettysburg
This seemed fair to the officer and a stretcher was brought and the old man was carried back to the house. His next fear was that his wife would unconsciously betray him to the patrol that were bringing him into the house. Sure enough as they reached the door, old Mrs. Burns came rushing out.
"John," she screamed, "I told you not to go out."
"Shut up, Molly," bellowed John at the top of his voice. "I didn't find the old cow, but I did the best I could and I want you to tell these gentlemen that I am as peaceable an old chap that ever lived, for they found me out there wounded with a lot of soldiers and think I may have been doin' some fightin'."
Mrs. Burns was no fool.
"Gentlemen," she cried out, "I can't thank you enough for bringing back this poor silly husband of mine. I told him that if he went hunting to-day for cows or anything else, he would most likely find nothing but trouble, and I guess he has. He's old enough to know better, but you leave him here and I'll nurse him and try to get some sense into his head."
So the patrol left Burns at his own house, not without some suspicions, for the next day an officer came around and put him through a severe cross-examination which John for the most part escaped by pretending to be too weak to answer any particularly searching question. Mrs. Burns nursed the old man back to health again and never let a day go by without a number of impressive remarks about his foolhardiness. The old man hadn't much to say, but the first day after he got well he disappeared and came back an hour or so later with old Betsy and the powder-horn which he found safe and sound in the tree where he left them. These he hung again over the mantelpiece in readiness for the next war, "for," said John, "a man's never too old to fight for his country."
Another hero in that battle was Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson. Only nineteen years old he commanded a battery in an exposed position on the Union right. His two guns did so much damage that Gordon, the Confederate general, could not advance his troops in the face of their deadly fire. Wilkeson could be seen on the far-away hilltop riding back and forth encouraging and directing his gunners.