Carbon County news., 1937-09-03

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were in the column which halted
in front of her house and wit
messed her fiag-waving. Among
them was Capt. Frank Myers,
who asserted that he was the Of
ficer who forbade the soldiers to
fire upon her.
Three days after the Confed-
crates left Frederick, Union
troops commanded by Gen. A. E.
Burnside, the advance of Nc
Clellan's army, entered the city.
Dame Barbara's feat was COM
mon talk among the citizens and
when Gen. Jesse Lee Reno heard
about it he called on the old lady,
who showed him two flags. One
of them was the small silk flag
which she had waved at the Con-
federates and the other was a
large cotton banner which she
had, on occasion, displayed from
a window in the attic of her home.
Her Flags Preserved.
She gave General Reno the
large cotton flag and, after he
was killed at the Battle of South
Mountain the next day, it was
sent with his body to his home
in Boston. Later members of the
Reno family presented it to the
Massachusetts commandery of
the Loyal Legion of the United
States and it is still ON display
in the headquarters of that Or
ganization in Boston. The little
silk flag is now in the possession
of Miss Abbott who lives in the
reconstructed Barbara Frietchie
home in Frederick.
Those who have doubted the
barbara Frietchie legend" have
asserted that "Stonewall" Jack
son did not pass her house and
had no part in the fiag-waving
incident, which is true.
In the opinion of this writer
the story as told by Dame Bar
bara to Catherine Ebert, pre-
served in Miss Abbott's booklet
and substantiated by Confederate
soldiers who were there at the
time and by Union soldiers who
heard of the incident three days
after it happened, is more con-
vincing than the statement at
tributed to Valerius Ebert. How,
then, does it happen that there
has been and still is so much con-
troversy over the Barbara
Frietchie legend''?
That is due to the inaccuracies
in Whittier's poem but he is not
so much responsible for those
errors as is Mrs. E. D. E. N.
Southworth, a famous American
novelist of those days. Her part
in it came about in this manner:
Catherine Ebert told the story of
her aunt's heroic deed to her cous-
in, a Mr.. Ramsberg, who was iv-
ing in Washington, D. c. He in
turn told it to a newspaper re-
porter and it subsequently ap-
peared in a Washington newspa-
per. He also told the story to
his neighbor, Mrs. Southworth,
who was then living in George
town, D. c., and she wrote to
Whittier at his home in Anes-
bury, Mass, as follows:
"When Lees army occupied Fred.
erick the only Union flag displayed in
the city was held by Mrs. Barbara
years" Such was the paragraph which
went the rounds of the Washington pa.
pers last September. Some time after.
ward, from friends who were in Fred.
erick at the time, ] heard the whole
story. It was the story of a woman's
heroism, which, when heard, seemed
as much to belong to you as a book
picked up with your autograph on the
fy.leaf. So here it is:
Mrs. Southworth then gave an
account of the entrance of Lees
army into Frederick and their
cool reception, quoting the official
record that "the town wore a
churchyard aspect" She con-
tinued:
But Mrs. Barbara Fritchie, taking
one of the Union flags, went up to the
top of the house, opened a garret win
dow, and held it forth. The rebel army
marched up the street, saw the flag;
the order was given, Haiti Firel" and
a VolIey was discharged at the window
from which it was displayed. The flag
staff was partly broken. so that the
flag dropped; the old lady drew it in,
broke off the fragment, and, taking the
stump with the flag still attached to it
in her hand, stretched herself as far
out of the window as she could, held
the Stars and Stripes it arms length.
waving over the rebels, and cried out
in a voice of indignation and sorrow:
Fire at this old head, then, boys; it is
not more venerable than your flag"