Submitted by L. Clair Burket, M.D., John Burket’s grandson. John Burket was born March 31, 1849, and died April 6, 1942. He joined the 205th Pennsylvania Regiment at the age of 15. He saw action in the siege of Petersburg, Fort Stedman, and Hatchet Run. Before he passed, he was one of two remaining Civil War Veterans living in Huntingdon County, the other being Mr. Edward Brown of Mount Union. When this speech was given by Mr. Burket, he was 89 years and 2 months old. The speech was written on old paper and transcribed in 1968.
My dear Friends:
I want to tell you that I am the only surviving soldier in this community, who fought in the Civil War. The rest have all departed. It doesn’t seem so very long ago since the mound here was crowded with soldiers. There was hardly enough room for us all to get on. Now they have all answered the Roll Call. When I stood here before, with the rest of them, little did I realize I would be the last one here. It won’t be long, though, until I will have to follow them.
A 15-year-old in the army
I want to tell you a little about the Civil War; what I have seen and went through. There were four of us here in this community who decided we’d like to enter the army. Two of the fellows were 18 years or over, one not quite 18 and I was 15 years and 4 months old. I was big as they were, though. We all went to Hollidaysburg and took the physical examination and we all passed. When they asked me my age I told them 18. The doctors all looked at each other and kind of smiled. Then one of them hit me on the back and told me to go on my spunk. We then went to Altoona and were enlisted in the army.
From there we moved on to Harrisburg where we drilled for quite a great length of time. The training finally came to an end and we were given our uniforms. Then we got the balance of our equipment and our guns. After we were fully equipped, we started for Washington in old box cars. We were packed in there like sardines. From Washington we moved to Arlington Heights. Then we went down to the wharf and we loaded onto vessels and went into Virginia to the headquarters of the army.
Hail and pickets
It started to rain and then it sleeted. Four of us and a non-commissioned officer went out about a mile and stopped at a little place and we pitched camp. The officer said to us, “Two of you pick out a place and camp and the others will stand guard.” One of the fellows and myself went to the side of the road. With my foot I scraped the hail from the ground. It was about 5 inches thick. I threw a blanket down on the ground and we lay on it and pulled another woolen blanket over our bodies and even covered our faces, because the hail was still striking us.
We lay thus for almost an hour, when the officer came up to us and exclaimed, “The rebels are coming!” We both sprang up and got our guns in readiness. Now we could hear the patter of hoofs. We hollered, “Hold on, who comes there?” No one answered. We hollered again and still no answer. We called a third time and then we pulled the hammers of our guns and advanced. It turned out to be one of our own men. He was so scared he was shaking. He told us that the colonel was out viewing the pickets and he had to ride alongside on his horse.
“Hello, Yank”
We marched to the front line. Up to this time I had never seen a rebel. I was out on picket duty near rebel lines one day. I was looking across a ravine and saw a man standing on the other side. He was staring at me and I looked back at him. He hollered “Hello, Yank” and I answered, “Hello Johnnie.” Then he said “Where yo’all from?” I answered, “From Pennsylvania.” He said, “Are all you men from Pennsylvania?” I said, “No, we come from different states in the North.” That was all we said to each other.
On one end of our picket line there was a large field. Across the field there was a big house and not far away from the house was a large horse-chestnut tree. In this tree was stationed a sharpshooter. The next night we put two sharpshooters in this tree. The rebels fired and one of the men fell on the lower limb of the tree and hung there, limp like. He never moved. They must have shot him down. The rebels then shot two more bullets into him. All we could do was to watch him, but we did not dare to go near him or take him down. He had to hang there until after dark.
The fort, the bayonets, and Lincoln’s tears
We stayed here for quite a while. The rebels waited until a real dark night to make an attack. They attacked the fort or house in which we were staying and took a few of our boys as prisoners. The rebels certainly did whoop and holler. The officer in command shouted, “Not a man shoots until he gets orders!” Then we got orders to fire. We killed them right and left, and they fell deader-than-a-doornail. We thought we had killed them all, but there were a few left. We charged them and got up pretty close to them and they ran back.
I walked over the field. I noticed a man coming along, and when I got up close to him, I saw it was Abe Lincoln. He held his black silk hat in his left hand. When he came upon a dead soldier he would just stand there and gaze at him. The tears would stream down his face and he would wipe them away with his hand. He treated the soldiers all alike, our boys and the rebels, wounded or dead.
Just about this time Lincoln was up for re-election. Congress had passed a law that all soldiers 18 years and over could vote. I wasn’t 18, but my records said so. As I was walking along, I had no intention of voting. The captain said to me “Here, Burket, take this ticket and vote.” I took it and of course I voted for Abe Lincoln.
The fort with the wired prongs
Now I will tell you something about the fort. It was 175 or 200 feet straight across. Outside of the fort was a ditch 6 feet deep, and 8 feet across. Outside of the ditch was a row of prongs about 4 feet high. These were rammed against each other and wrapped with wire. When we got up close to make our charges, we thought we could go in there and throw them apart. We could not get them apart and our fancy uniforms were all spotted and torn. We jumped into the ditch and rammed the bayonets into the ground until we had 4 steps. When we climbed and got our heads above the top, the rebels would fire at us and aim for our heads. Finally, we saw that we had to do something. At one side of the fort was a drawbridge. Our fellows headed them off. Some of the boys rammed their bayonets right through the rebels. I saw 2 or 3 with bayonets plunged right through their hearts. A few of the rebels escaped us. By this time, it was getting dark and firing ceased. We now had to go to work and dig up our dead men and give aid to those who were wounded. We then had a bite of supper, which consisted of hard tack.
About midnight or a little after the whole earth shook around us. The rebels were retreating, and we knew immediately that they were leaving. The officer did not call us but let us rest until morning. In the morning when we got up, we started to follow them. We trailed them for one and a half days before we finally caught up with them. We approached the rebels from the rear and completely surrounded them.
Grant, Lee, and the hard tack
General Grant presented a prepared note to General Lee, asking him to surrender. I can still picture General Grant on his horse, with his long white beard. General Lee answered General Grant by asking what the terms were. General Lee said that he would let Mr. Grant know by 4 o’clock. Lee wasn’t long in giving his answer. After a bit he came along. He was a fine man with gray whiskers. He went into the building and Mr. Grant was seated at a table. He had the terms all written out. General Grant arose from his chair and shook hands with General Lee. They talked over the terms for a while, after which Lee read them. He must have been satisfied because he accepted the terms. General Lee had all his guns stacked on the field and he said to General Grant “My men really own their own horses!” General Grant answered him by saying, “Tell your men to take them back home and use them for farming.” The rebels then fled like wild-fire, whooping and hollering.
Shortly after the surrender I talked with one of the rebels. He said that he had not eaten anything for 2 days and 2 nights and that he was weak from hunger and exhaustion. General Grant opened up the provision train and said “Give them all the hard-tack they want and can eat.” One fellow took one end of the hard-tack and put it into his mouth and pulled and pulled but could not break it. He commenced to swear, saying “How do you fellows do it?” I said “Get a stone, break it and put the pieces of the hard-tack into the coffee so the hard-tack will soak up the coffee. We have to eat the cakes to get the coffee.”
Candles in the muzzles
After the war was over, we stayed in this place for a while and then took trains for Washington. We arrived at Arlington Heights where we rested for a while. We started to make preparations and get ready for the big parade in Washington. Every man was given one-half of a candle which he put in the muzzle of his gun. These candles were lit at night, during the march from Arlington Heights back to Washington and as far as I could see both ways these candles were burning and glowing. It was a beautiful sight to behold. As we were marching along, we were proud to be in the parade. We could feel the tallow running down our backs. But the lighted candles did look pretty. Later, we had to take knives to peel off the tallow that had run down our backs. When we finally got into the city there wasn’t a square inch of space where somebody wasn’t standing. It was a grand coming-home day and one which we all remembered for a long time.
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