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Show Minor Figures in Gettysburg Fight Sixty-six years have passed since the battle of Gettysburg, but even schoolboys have in mind the main events of that decisive struggle of the Civil war. They know of Meade, thrust into command of a great army three days before it was to be drawn into one of the outstanding battles of a century; of Lee, the beloved, cheered even by the wounded among his broken troops, despite failure and threatened disaster; disas-ter; Hancock, who shed his blood defending de-fending the fighting ground he had reported re-ported as "not unfavorable with good troops" ; the taciturn Longstreet, and many more. But there were some who played minor parts In the pageant, without military status and with no legitimate place In the picture, and also won their bit of fame. Among these was John Burns, seventy-year-old Gettysburg constable, who shouldered a musket on the memorable me-morable first day of July, 1SG3, and joined the skirmishers in the open field. He received three wounds, fighting fight-ing with the Iron brigade, and was taken prisoner, but he survived to be embraced by Abraham Lincoln. Among the foreign visitors with the army of northern Virginia at Gettysburg Gettys-burg was Lieutenant Colonel Freman-tle Freman-tle of the Coldstream guards, oldest regiment in the British army. About noon on July 3, Fremantle and an Austrian visitor rode off In search of a commanding position from which to view the impending spectacle spec-tacle without being exposed to federal fed-eral artillery fire. They headed for the cupola of a church near the town of Gettysburg. Before they reached the limits of the town the artillery duel commenced and the earth trembled trem-bled under the roar. Somewhere on . their way they had been joined by a twelve-year-old boy on horseback, and he was with the officers when they rode Into a heavy cross-fire. "This urchin," Colonel Fremantle recorded, "took a diabolical interest in the bursting of the shells, and screamed with delight when he saw them take effect." The Confederate army had the "heroine" of Gettysburg. A single line of type in the official records of the War department Is her epitaph. Reporting, two days after the battle, bat-tle, the burial of 1.GJ9 Federal and Confederate dead at Gettysburg, Brig. Gen. William Hays concluded: "Remarks: One female (private), in Confederate uniform." Who this girl or woman was, whence she came, with what command she came, or by what trick of fate she was swept into the ranks of. Lee's army are unanswered questions. |