Chapter III: Part 3

This poem was written in strict conformity to the account of the incident as I had it from respectable and trustworthy sources. It has since been the subject of a good deal of conflicting testimony, and the story was probably incorrect in some of its details. It is admitted by all that Barbara Frietchie was no myth, but a worthy and highly esteemed gentlewoman, intensely loyal and a hater of the Slavery Rebellion, holding her Union flag sacred and keeping it with her Bible; that when the Confederates halted before her house, and entered her dooryard, she denounced them in vigorous language, shook her cane in their faces, and drove them out; and when General Burnside’s troops followed close upon Jackson’s, she waved her flag and cheered them. It is stated that May Quantrell, a brave and loyal lady in another part of the city, did wave her flag in sight of the Confederates. It is possible that there has been a blending of the two incidents.—WHITTIER.

Footnote 15:

On hearing the bells ring on the passage of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The resolution was adopted by Congress, January 31, 1865. The ratification by the requisite number of States was announced December 18, 1865. [The suggestion came to the poet as he sat in the Friends’ Meeting-house in Amesbury, where he was present at the regular Fifth-day meeting. All sat in silence, but on his return to his home, he recited a portion of the poem, not yet committed to paper, to his housemates in the garden room. “It wrote itself, or rather sang itself, while the bells rang,” he wrote to Lucy Larcom.]

Footnote 16:

Recited by one of the little group of relations, who stood by the poet’s bedside, as the last moment of his life approached.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 71, changed "Like an Indian idol glum and trim" to "Like an Indian idol glum and grim". 2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 4. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.