Barbara Fritchie; A Study.
Dall, Caroline H. Barbara Fritchie; A Study. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892.
8vo.; frontispiece, tissue guard; contemporary ownership signature on front endpaper; t.e.g.; green cloth, stamped in gilt.
First edition of this minor work by Dall, an exploration of the elusive biography of Barbara Fritchie, the heroine of John Greenleaf Whittier’s “The Ballad,” reproduced by Dall on pages 88-91. In the poem, Whittier pictures the day Stonewall Jackson over-ran Fredericksburg, and imagines Fritchie, 90 years old and bravely defiant, hanging the American flag out her window, daring Jackson to kill her for it. The story captured the imagination of her great-nephew, John Caspar Fritchie; he shared it with his brother, who discussed it with a friend, the novelist Mrs. Southworth, who wrote of it to Whittier.
In her preface, Dall reproduces the obituary for Fritchie that appeared in the Weekly Examiner, December 27, 1862:
Barbara removed to this city when a child. She remembered the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the scenes of the Revolutionary War; she was familiar with the career of Washington, and shared the popular joy on the announcement of peace.
In the quiet of domestic life she literally grew up with the nation’s growth, and participated in its passing history; in middle age she witnessed the war of 1812; and when the sands of life ran low, she justly regarded the Rebellion, which now hangs like a cloud over the hopes of freemen, as the saddest experience of her protracted life.
To one thus strangely identified with the origin and growth of the Republic, loyalty necessarily became a deep-seated sentiment; and when the Rebels were expelled from this city, on the memorable 12th of September, this venerable lady, as a last act of devotion, stood at her front door and waved the glorious star-spangled banner in token of welcome to our deliverers. On Sunday last her moral remains were interred in the cemetery of the Evangelical Reformed Church, of which she was a consistent and exemplary member for ore than forty years.
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