John Burns honorable?

What describes John Burns best?

  • Honorable old man

    Votes: 16 47.1%
  • Un-uniformed bushwacker and terrorist

    Votes: 2 5.9%
  • Crazy Old Coot you'd love to have as grandpa

    Votes: 16 47.1%

  • Total voters
    34
Figured ought to jump in on this recent honorable fad.....mines lil more lighthearted

going with grandpa myself:D
Interesting tough old man. Burns had a lot of guts to fight when he didn't have to.
Burns was able to lie his way out of a tough situation and convince the Confederate's he was just an old man caught in the cross fire.
Leftyhunter
 
Interesting tough old man. Burns had a lot of guts to fight when he didn't have to.
Burns was able to lie his way out of a tough situation and convince the Confederate's he was just an old man caught in the cross fire.
Leftyhunter
one could argue any of the three, but I'll stick with grandpa

A civilian bearing arms as a combatant was an automatic death sentence here by 1863, usually just executed wherever captured, in a field, along the road and just left. Hopefully neighbors or family would find you before the hogs or coyotes...so it is a valid choice
 
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Great Ole Coot, that did what he believed in. After the CW he did several muskets that he purported to be the one he used against the Rebels.
 
one could argue any of the three, but I'll stick with grandpa

A civilian bearing arms as a combatant was an automatic death sentence here by 1863, usually just executed wherever captured, in a field, along the road and just left. So it is a valid choice however
I am not aware of any study that estimated what percentage of captured guerrillas in Missouri were executed. Even John Hildebrand did release at least several Union soldiers.
A non uniformed civilian fighting alongside uniformed troops should not be regarded as a bushwacker or terrorist. Burns was not engaged as an armed combatant but for the Battle of Gettysburg.
The terms terrorist or bushwacker are pejorative political definitions. They describe armed combatants of a side one does not like.
Burns was in essence an irregular civilian combatant.
Leftyhunter
 
I am not aware of any study that estimated what percentage of captured guerrillas in Missouri were executed. Even John Hildebrand did release at least several Union soldiers.
A non uniformed civilian fighting alongside uniformed troops should not be regarded as a bushwacker or terrorist. Burns was not engaged as an armed combatant but for the Battle of Gettysburg.
The terms terrorist or bushwacker are pejorative political definitions. They describe armed combatants of a side one does not like.
Burns was in essence an irregular civilian combatant.
Leftyhunter
Well they were, as I'm sure your aware, being along side a uniformed regular officer or recruiter made little difference...….and while technically one was supposed to have been an actual combatant to be shot.....many times people would end up shot for just being out on the road armed, for just suspicion of having been a combatant.

How a group of 10 guerrillas could be here today, militia would pursue and claim capturing and killing 5 stragglers along the road.....yet the guerrillas would show over here tomorrow....oddly still with 10 men...….

Nor would guerrillas distinguish you were a irregular in company of militia or regular troops.

You were simply giving aid to the enemy and your irregular status you claim simply got one irregularly shot

Perhaps you've forgot your claim in other threads that war isn't always niceties?
 
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Well they were, as I'm sure your aware, being along side a uniformed regular officer or recruiter made little difference...….and while technically one was supposed to have been an actual combatant to be shot.....many times people would end up shot for just being out on the road armed, for just suspicion of having been a combatant.

How a group of 10 guerrillas could be here today, militia would pursue and claim capturing and killing 5 stragglers along the road.....yet the guerrillas would show over here tomorrow....oddly still with 10 men...….

Nor would guerrillas distinguish you were a irregular in company of militia or regular troops.

You were simply giving aid to the enemy and your irregular status you claim simply got one irregularly shot

Perhaps you've forgot your claim in other threads that war isn't always niceties?
War is messy no doubt. True war isn't about nice people solving their diffences over tea and crumpets. Lots of questionable things hapoen in an insurgency conflict.
My original point is that Burns was not a terrorist or bushwacker. A civilian picking up a rifle to fight alongside conventional troops is not analogous to the insurgency in Missouri.
Leftyhunter
 
War is messy no doubt. True war isn't about nice people solving their diffences over tea and crumpets. Lots of questionable things hapoen in an insurgency conflict.
My original point is that Burns was not a terrorist or bushwacker. A civilian picking up a rifle to fight alongside conventional troops is not analogous to the insurgency in Missouri.
Leftyhunter
actually it is according to your beloved Leiber code....

Art. 82.
Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.

If captured he should have been shot by that standard, and in reality here in 1863 he more then likely would have been, by either side...…

your starting to ruin his grandpa status...
 
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actually it is according to your beloved Leiber code....

Art. 82.
Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.

If captured he should have been shot by that standard, and in reality here in 1863 he more then likely would have been, by either side...…

your starting to ruin his grandpa status...
The Leiber Code does not apply to those who fight for the Union. If Burns had picked up a musket and fought for the Confederate Army then it would apply.
Leftyhunter
 
The Leiber Code does not apply to those who fight for the Union. If Burns had picked up a musket and fought for the Confederate Army then it would apply.
Leftyhunter
However in most any war what one side does or decides for policy will be reciprocated, as it should be, if its good enough for the goose, no reason it shouldn't be good enough for the gander. We certainly wouldn't want to be hypocritical in our world view. As I'm sure your aware any "standard" isn't a standard until its applied equally

No reasonable reason if as you say it would apply to Burns if he was a Confederate, to not expect the Confederates to treat him the same...…..And as I pointed out, here they would have treated him the same....well theres chance he might have been hung instead of shot, but end result is bout same, dead and left along the road somewhere......
 
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It occurs to me that there must have been a rebel equivalent of Burns. There certainly were battles where the same conditions were present: an army of outsiders threatening the peace of a small, rural community.
If we can find one or more rebels that reacted as he did, would we consider them "honorable"?
 
It occurs to me that there must have been a rebel equivalent of Burns. There certainly were battles where the same conditions were present: an army of outsiders threatening the peace of a small, rural community.
If we can find one or more rebels that reacted as he did, would we consider them "honorable"?
Actually when I was Lexington Battlefield they had a similar story of a civilian doing the same during the siege of Lexington, I haven't seen anything on it anywhere else though. That would be 2 years before Burns did it.

As I said to me a case could be made for all three, side is irrelevant.....your side will consider it honorable/heroic, the other is going to view it simply as a un-uniformed guerrilla/spy and treat it as outside the rules of civilized warfare. Which by most countries definition, including the US's it was...….
 
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It occurs to me that there must have been a rebel equivalent of Burns. There certainly were battles where the same conditions were present: an army of outsiders threatening the peace of a small, rural community.
If we can find one or more rebels that reacted as he did, would we consider them "honorable"?
Under the Get Off My Lawn Act of 1703, yes.
 
It occurs to me that there must have been a rebel equivalent of Burns. There certainly were battles where the same conditions were present: an army of outsiders threatening the peace of a small, rural community.
If we can find one or more rebels that reacted as he did, would we consider them "honorable"?

Jack Hinson?
 
I think Burns was a hard old guy, judging from the set of his jaw in the photos. I'm half persuaded to go with "crazy old grandpa" but that's too much of an accurate description of the last years of his life. So I prefer to think of him as he is memorialized on McPherson's Ridge: eagle-faced, determined, fist clenched facing west into the invaders of his home.
 
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