| Existing comment:
In Frederick lore, Barbara Fritchie was a hero of the city. The story, as told by a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, is that General Stonewall Jackson's troops were marching through the city in 1862 on their way to Antietam. From widow Fritchie's window hung a lone Union flag. Confederate troops threatened to shoot her and Fritchie responded by saying they could shoot her "but spare your country's flag." Jackson, impressed by her nobility, ordered "Who touches a hair on yon gray head, dies like a dog! March on!" This monument to her was erected in 1914. |