“Shoot if you must this old gray head ….”

ErnieMac

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Today marks the 151st anniversary of the death of Barbara Fritchie, best known as the subject of John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem Barbara Frietchie in which she is portrayed as defiantly flaunting the Union flag at Stonewall Jackson and his Confederate troops in Frederick MD during the Maryland Campaign. Whittier wrote his poem based on personal and newspaper accounts that turned out to be inaccurate, a fact known from the 1870’s. The real story, while not so dramatic is interesting.

Barbara Hauer was born in Lancaster PA on December 3, 1766, the daughter of Nicholas and Catherine Hauer. The family relocated to Frederick within a couple years of her birth. Family lore tells that she was chosen to attend President Washington when he stopped in town in 1791 and that her Liverpool china tea set was part of the tableware used on that occasion. In December, 1799 Barbara was selected as an honorary pallbearer in a mock funeral commemorating Washington’s death.

In May, 1806 Barbara Hauer married John Fritchie, a man 13 years her junior. The marriage lasted over 43 years until John’s death in 1849. John was a successful businessman (glove maker by trade) and left her comfortably well off for the remainder of her life. They had no children of their own, but were the adopted parents of her niece, Catherine. Barbara was thrifty and industrious by nature, spending much of the time spinning and knitting. Family remembered her as mentally alert, with strong antislavery views and as the war approached, thoroughly pro-Union. Neighbors recalled she could frequently be seen sitting at her window, dressed in a black satin gown, busily engaged in knitting.

By the summer of 1862 she was well into her 95th year, but still maintained her own home in Frederick.
Confederate troops entered Maryland in early September, 1862 and by the 7th took control of Frederick. They maintained control of the city for the next five days with Jackson’s troops passing through enroute to Harpers Ferry on September 10. According to Whittier’s poem, Barbara Fritchie waved a 34-star flag from an attic window of her home on West Patrick Street as Jackson passed by. A shot was fired at the flag, breaking the staff from which it flew. Fritchie grabbed the flag before it fell to the street below and supposedly exclaimed those words to the general, who said to his men, “Who touches a hair of yon gray head, Dies like a dog! March on! he said.”

Whittier published his poem in October, 1863. Questions arose almost immediately, but the two main participants, Fritchie and Jackson were already dead and unable to answer them. Analysis of the facts strongly indicates the incident did not happen as immortalized in the poem. Jackson’s troops did not pass directly in front of Barbara Fritchie’s house and Jackson, himself, was not part of the column. He had left the line of march to stop by the nearby home of an acquaintance who lived in the city. Confederate participants did recollect a ruckus involving a woman standing in the street waving a Union flag, but the honor more than likely belongs to Mary Quantrell, another Frederick resident.

Fritchie’s friends and relatives did later relate a couple of incidents that bear the ring of truth. In one case Henry Nixdorf, author Life of Whittier’s Heroine Barbara Fritchie of recounted: “On one occasion a number of Confederate soldiers halted and sat down on the porch in front of her dwelling, and were drinking water brought from the spring nearby. To this she had not the least objection, but before leaving they began to speak in a derogatory manner of her beloved country. In a moment she arose and passing to the front door she bade them clear themselves and applied the “cane," with which she used to walk, in the most vigorous manner, clearing the porch in a few moments of every man upon it.”

Other accounts recall the entry of Burnside’s Ninth Corps troops into Frederick on September 12th. According to her grandniece, Julia Abbott, “They (Barbara Fritchie and her cousin Harriett Yoner) were on the front porch, and aunt was leaning on the cane she always carried. When the troops marched along aunt waved her hand, and cheer after cheer went up from the men as they saw her. Some even ran into the yard. “God bless you, old lady,” “Let me take you by the hand,” “May you live long, you dear old soul,” cried one after the other, as they rushed into the yard. Aunt being rather feeble, and in order to save her as much as we could, cousin Harriet Yoner said, “Aunt ought to have a flag to wave.” The flag was hidden in the family Bible, and cousin Harriet got it and gave it to aunt. Then she waved the flag to the men and they cheered her as they went by. She was very patriotic and the troops all knew of her. The day before General Reno was killed he came to see aunt and had a talk with her.”

The ink had barely dried on the Atlantic Monthly’s publication of Whittier’s poem when the controversy arose. Residents of Frederick, including friends of Barbara tried to set the record straight. A letter from Mary Quantrell dated 1876 asking with him to correct the record, signing her letter, in quotes, as “Barbara.” Whittier did not respond. When Quantrell died in 1879 Frederick newspapers identified her as the flag waver.

Whittier’s last word on the subject was written in 1886 to Century Magazine. He stated “The poem ‘Barbara Frietchie’ was written in good faith. The story was no invention of mine. It came to me from sources which I regarded as entirely reliable; it had been published in newspapers, and had gained public credence in Washington and Maryland before my poem was written. I had no reason to doubt its accuracy then, and I am still constrained to believe that it had foundation in fact. If I thought otherwise, I should not hesitate to express it. I have no pride of authorship to interfere with my allegiance to truth.”
 
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Here's a thought. The Fritchies had another house. It still stands, a white clapboard place on Alternate Route 40, which is also the National Road. It is on the hill as it rises from where Alt 40 splits from US 40 west of downtown Frederick, on the right before you get to the Meadows Farms nursery and exit for I-70. Jackson DID pass by this house on his way to Harper's Ferry and Antietam. Maybe people have just gotten the wrong house all these years?
 
Here's a thought. The Fritchies had another house. It still stands, a white clapboard place on Alternate Route 40, which is also the National Road. It is on the hill as it rises from where Alt 40 splits from US 40 west of downtown Frederick, on the right before you get to the Meadows Farms nursery and exit for I-70. Jackson DID pass by this house on his way to Harper's Ferry and Antietam. Maybe people have just gotten the wrong house all these years?
While I cannot say for certain, the accounts I read from Barbara Fritchie's friends and family indicate she was in her West Patrick Street house. IMO it was a confusing time and accounts got confused. The following link indicates a source through which Whittier received third hand info. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2001.05.0044:chapter=8.72
 
While I cannot say for certain, the accounts I read from Barbara Fritchie's friends and family indicate she was in her West Patrick Street house. IMO it was a confusing time and accounts got confused. The following link indicates a source through which Whittier received third hand info. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2001.05.0044:chapter=8.72

The thing is that Alternate 40 WAS West Patrick Street a bit further west in 1862. West Patrick Street now veers off with current US 40 and Alt 40 is called National Pike. Current US 40 was built long after the war.

The facts as I've read them so far could fit either house.
 

"It's Stonewall Boris! Hi, you all!"

Did you know the voice of Boris was that of William Conrad, who played Marshall Dillon on the radio and Cannon on TV (also the Fat Man on Jake and the Fat Man)? He was the narrator for the Rocky and Bullwinkle stuff ("Don't fail to miss our next episode - 'Avalanche is Better than None' or 'Snow's Your Old Man'!")
 
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