Dedicated: July 1, 1903.
Location: Meredith Avenue. Located on the east side of the road facing west. Located near skirmish line on 1st Day Battlefield, near 150th Pennsylvania Monument and 84th New York marker.
Description: A portrait of Gettysburg resident John Burns standing on the skirmish line on First Day’s Field. He is dressed in civilian clothes and carries his musket in his proper right hand. The sculpture is mounted on a square granite boulder adorned with a bronze Pennsylvania state seal on the side and an inscription plaque on the front. On July 1, 1863, John Burns joined Col. Owen Wister’s 150 Pennsylvania Infantry on the skirmish line near where the sculpture is installed. The granite boulder was selected and cut by Col. E. B. Cope. The monument was raised by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Sculptor Bureau used a photograph of Burns to model the face. The monument cost $1,500.00.
National Park Service List of Classified Monuments Number: MN33.
Sculptor: Albert G. Bureau
About John Burns
John Lawrence Burns was born on September 5, 1793 in Burlington, New Jersey. He served as an enlisted man in the War of 1812, fighting in numerous battles, including Lundy’s Lane, and volunteered for both the Mexican–American War and the Civil War. However, he was turned away from the latter conflict on account of his advanced age. Nonetheless, he served as a teamster until sent back to his home to Gettysburg.
When the Gettysburg Campaign began, Burns was serving as Gettysburg’s constable. During Early’s foray into the town, Burns was jailed briefly for adamant assertion of civil authority. On July 1, Burns took up his flintlock musket and powder horn and walked out to the scene of the morning’s fighting where he approached Major Thomas Chamberlin of the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry. Chamberlin sent Burns to his colonel who sent Burns into the woods next to the McPherson Farm where he fought with the 7th Wisconsin. Burns received wounds in the arm, the leg, and several minor ones in the chest; he convinced Confederates he had been a noncombatant and was able to eventually make it to his home. Burns accompanied the president on a walk from the David Wills house to the Presbyterian Church on Baltimore Street on November 19, 1863 to deliver the Gettysburg Address.
Burns died of pneumonia on February 4, 1872, aged 78. He is buried in Gettysburg’s Evergreen Cemetery. His grave bears the inscription, “Patriot.”
