Stations of the Flag: Barbara Fritchie


 Stations of the Flag

Barbara Fritchie

 
 
 
 
 

The October 1863 issue of The Atlantic Monthly added the next station of our American Flag mythos with the publication of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem "Barbara Fritchie."  In the poem Fritchie calls to the passing Confederate invasion, "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country's flag." The actual event was not as Whittier poetically presented.  The details are murky, and the confrontation with the rebel army may have been from another woman (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Fritchie). But along with Betsy Ross, Barbara Fritchie is now firmly part  of the American Flag tradition. 

Here's a Barbara Fritchie post card from my collection

 The American Flag at that time...

  

Fritchie died a few days after the alleged incident and well before the publication of Whittier's poem, never to know she had been immortalized in our country's flag canon.   


 

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