Having seen in a recent number of the
Dispatch a communication from
Frederick, Maryland, to the Baltimore
Sun, in relation to a letter from “An ex-confederate” to the
Los Angeles (California) Bulletin, endorsing the authenticity of the oft-repeated story of
Barbara Frietchie's flaunting the “old flag” in the faces of
General Jackson and his troops, and being fired upon by the
General's order, and also an article in the supplement to the
Sun of the 24th instant containing two letters from Frederick to disprove the story; and having been appealed to twice to take some notice of it — once when it appeared in a historical magazine published in
Philadelphia, I believe; and again when
Whittier's poem on the subject appeared in a reader or book containing “choice selections” or something of the kind, designed for use in the schools, I take this occasion to tell the true story of the flag flaunting before our troops as they passed through
Frederick, Maryland, in September, 1862.
In the first place, I must give an extract from what the writer in the Sun calls Whittier's “lofty numbers,” as follows:
On that pleasant morn of the early fall,
When Lee marched over the mountain wall--
Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town,
Forty flags, with their silver stars,
Forty flags, with their crimson bars,
Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her forescore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down.
In her attic-window the staff she set,
To show one heart was loyal yet.
It must be confessed that these are pretty tall figures; especially when it is remembered that General Lee's army crossed the Potomac a short distance above Leesburg, in Loudoun county, and did
