Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1875-05-08
From the Richmond Dispatch.l
correspondence between Mayor
xc,lcy and General EARLY as to
barbara Erietchie.
"BARBARA FRIETCHIE''-A FICTION.

Historical Record tor November, 1910,
psse 493, under the title "Stonewall
Jackson and Barbara Frietchie, the
story upon which Whittier founded his
poem with the above title is told, beng
in substance, that in the fall OF 1907
when the Confederates entered mary
land. Stonewall Jackson gave orders
that the United States flags displayed
IN frederick should be taken down;
that Barbara kept hers flying; that the
"rebs" hauled it down, when the old
woman snatched it up and set 1t IN her
attic. window, where it was shot down
Inv Jackson's orders, when Barbara
AGAIN seized it and defantly waved 1t
over her head; whereupon Jackson or
dered the soldiers to let her alone:
and
"All day long that free flag tost
Over the head of the rebel host.
Being perfectly certain that the whole
story was the purest invention, aSheu
nv friend General Early--by long ou.'
The best informed man | know OH mat
tiers of the history Of The Army Oh
Northern Virginia-to give IL 'haV au,
tboritative denial which no one couio
more cffectually administer. lie re-
plied in a letter explicitly contradict
ing the whole stoty, but did not author
lie its publication.
AT subsequent date asked, in a
note published in Poter's Ameiean
Monthly the successor of the Histort-
cal Record, whether any one could
give respectable authority for the story;
and out of this inquiry, as learn,
grew the recent notices in the Baltl-
more Sun republished in the Dispatch.*
These falling under General Earlys
notice, he directs me to send you the
enclosed paper, which will be regarded,
presume. as effectually and finally dis
posing of the matter. A. NJ. KELLEY.
.4priI %, 1915.
*And also denial in detail published
in the Baltimore Sun and New York Times,
and no doubt other papers.-EDIrORs Dis
PATCH.
From the Dispatch.
BARBARA FRIETCHIE AND THE FLAG.
Having seen in recent No. of the
Dispatch communication from Fred
erick, Md, to the Baltimore Sun, in re-
la,ion TO q letter from can ex-Conted-
crate" to the Los Angeles California;
Bulletin, endorsing the authenticity of
the oft-repeated story of Barbara Felt
chie's Haunting the sold flag in the
faces of General Jackson and his troops,
and being fired upon by the Generals
order, and also an article in the supple
ment 10 the San of the oath instant
containing two letters from Frederick
to diSprove the story; and having been
appealed to twice TO take some notice
of the story-once when it appeared In
historical magazine published in Phil
adelphia, believe; and again when
Whittiers poem on the subject APP
peared in reader or book containing
"choice selections, or something OF
that kind, designed for use in the
schools, take this occasion to tell the
true story of the flag Haunting before
our troops as they passed through Fred
erick, Md, in September 1862.
In the first place, must give an ex-
tract from what the writer in the Sun
calls Whittiers ''lofty numbers" as
follows:
"On that pleasant morn of the early fall,
"'When Lee marched over the mountain
wall
cover the mountains winding down,
"Horse and foot, into Frederick town,
tlair
Forty flags, with their crimson bars,
"Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
"Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
"I-p rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fOurscOre years and
ten;
"Bravest of all in Fredericks town,
.'She took up the flag the men hauld
down.
"In her attic-window the staff she set,
40 show one heart was loyal yet.
It must be confessed that these are
pretty tall figures; especially when it is
remembered that General Lees army
crossed the Potomac short distance
above Leesburg, in Loudoun county,
and did not have TO cross any mountain
at all to get into Frederick. Then, too,
if there were ''folty flags, with their
silver stars" aud forty flags, with their
crimson bars" tapping Gin the morn
ing wind over the clustered spires of
Frederick there must have been eighty
in al; though if the poet means to as
sert that the flags which had the silver
stars were the same that had the Grim
son bars. forty was a goodly number to
have floating over one little town. If
the flag which Barbara picked up had
been '.hauled down" then it must have
been hauled down from standing flag
staff; and it mnst have been rather 4
"lofty" feat for her to pick that mp, too,
and set il in her attic-window. But l
suppose it was an allowable poetic IL
cense for Mr. Whittier to convert the
Potomac river into "mountain wall,
and one dingy old flag, hoisted proba-
bly, over quartermasters office, into
Forty flags, with their silver stars,
Forty flags, with their crimson bars"
Eighty or forty, as the case may be.
However, he ought to have accounted
for the other seventy or thirty-nine,
and not left them to be trampled in the
dust by the ''rebel tread" that came up
the street with 'Stonewail Jackson RI
ding ahead" even by poetic license.