According to Whittier's poem there were forty American flags flying in the town, but the Confederate sympathizers pulled them down as Lee's army entered. Then an old woman named Barbara Frietchie took one of the flags and fastened it to a staff outside her attic window. General "Stonewall" Jackson saw the flag as he marched past with his men, and gave the order to fire. But even as the flag fell from the staff Barbara Frietchie seized it. She cried to them all, "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country's flag!"

Jackson recognized her courage, and was stirred by it. He gave his men the order to march, and all day the flag flew from that attic window as Lee's army went through the streets of Frederick City.

The story of Barbara Frietchie has been accepted as true by several historians, but there is some doubt as to whether the facts were exactly similar to the account in the poem. Whittier himself said that he had the story from trustworthy sources. In a note to the poem he wrote: "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."

by John Greenleaf Whittier