618 THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF IVHITTIER’S “BARBARA FRIETCHIE.’
for any purpose. General Walker must be mis-taken. It does not follow, however, that he hasno ground for his mistake. I have said that thesubstance of Jackson’s early letter to McLaws must have been sent to Walker. That letter looksto an attack by Walker on an island battery in theShenandoah, and during the morning a dispatch toJackson from Loudoun Heights says: “Walkercan’t get position to bear on island,”—showingthat Walker had in some way been instructed withregard to it. (It would seem that Jackson’s “spe-cial order” must have been prepared in the morn-ing and before the receipt of the dispatch fromWalker, for in it he gives instructions to Walkertouching that island battery.) In the McLaws letter, Jackson speaks of a flag of truce to get outnon-combatants should the enemy not surrender;but the spirit of that letter is against any delay. I re-member the question of a demand for surrender wasvaguely talked of at headquarters by the staff. It is
likely they got the idea from the McLaws letter, forI never heard the general [Jackson] say anythingon the subject, and every indication was againstany delay in making the assault. I merely throw outthe suggestion to account for the error of memoryinto which I think General Walker has fallen.Whatever purpose General Jackson at first had todemand a surrender or to consider non-combatants,his ruling anxiety was for the speedy fall of Har-per’s Ferry . Itmaybethatalittlereflectionsatisfiedhim, after writing the McLaws letter, that thecitizens of the town would be in little danger fromthe firing of McLaws and Walker at the enemy onBolivar Heights, and that he dismissed that con-sideration from his mind. If this humane purposeever took definite shape in his intentions, there wasnever any occasion to execute it, and it would nowbe of little consequence had not General Walkerattempted to give it such strange form and sig-nificance.
THE OPPOSING FORCES AT HARPER’S FERRY , VA.
September 12-15, 1862.
The composition, losses, and strength of each army as here stated give the gist of all the data obtainable in the OfficialRecords. K stands for killed ; \v for wounded; m w for mortally wounded; m for captured or missing; c for captured.
THE UNION FORCES.
Brigade Commanders: Colonels F. G. D’Utassy, Will-iam H. Trimble, Thomas IT. Ford, and William G. Ward.
Troops: 12th Ill. Cav., Col. Arno Voss; M, 2d Ill. Art’y,Capt. John C. Phillips ; 65th III., Col. Daniel Cameron;15th Ind. Battery, Capt. John C. H. von Sehlen; Ind. Bat-tery, Capt. Silas F. Rigby; let Md. Cav. (detachment),Capt. Charles H. Russell; Battalion Md. Cav., Maj. HenryA. Cole; 1st Md.. P. H. Brigade , Col. William P. Mauls-by; 3d Md., P. II. Brigade , Lieut.-Col. Stephen W.Downey; 8tli N. Y. Cav., Col. Benjamin F. Davis; A, 5thN. Y. H. Art’y, Capt. John H. Graham ; F, 5th N. Y. H.Art’y, Capt. Eugene McGrath; 12th N. Y. (militia), Col.William G. Ward; 39th N. Y. , Maj. Hugo Hildebrandt;111th N. Y., Col. Jesse Segoine ; 115th N. Y. , Col. SimeonSummon ; 125th N. Y., Col. George L. Willard; 126th N.
Y. , Col. Elialdm Sherrill (w), Maj. William H. Baird;Ohio Battery, Capt. Benjamin F. Potts; 32d Ohio , Maj.Sylvester M. Hewitt; 60th Ohio , Lieut.-Col. Noah H.Hixon; 87tli Ohio , Col. Henry B. Banning; 7th Squad-ron R. I. Cav., Maj. Augustus W. Corliss; 9th Vermont ,Col. George J. Stannard.
The total Union loss in the actions on MarylandHeights and at Harper’s Ferry and Bolivar Heightswas 44 killed, 173 wounded, and 12,520 captured = 12,737.(Most of the wounded were probably counted among thecaptured.)
The Confederate force employed at Harper’s Ferry con-sisted of the commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws (including R. H. Anderson’s division), and Walker. Forcomposition of these forces in detail, see pp. 600 - 602 .
THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF WHITTIER’S “ BARBARA FRIETCHIE.”
BY GEORGE O. SEILHEIMER. J
T hat Barbara Frietchie lived is not denied. Thatshe died at the advanced age of 9 6 years and isburied in the burial-ground of the German Re-formed Church in Frederick is a,Iso true.
There is only one account of Stonewall Jackson ’sentry into Frederick , and that was written by aUnion army surgeon who was in charge of thehospital there at the time. u Jackson I did notget a look at to recognize him,” the doctor wroteon the 21st of September, “though I must haveseen him, as I witnessed the passage of all thetroops through the town.” Not a w T ord aboutBarbara Frietchie and this incident. Dr. OliverWendell Holmes, too, was in Frederick soon after-ward, on his way to find his son, reported mortallywounded at Antietam. Such a story, had it beentrue, could scarcely have failed to reach his ears,and he would undoubtedly have told it in his de-
lightful chapter of war reminiscences, “ My Huntfor the Captain,” had he heard it. BarbaraFrietchie had a flag, and it is now in the possessionof Mrs. Handschue and her daughter, Mrs. Abbott,of Frederick. Mrs. Handschue w r as the niece andadopted daughter of Mrs. Frietchie, and the flagcame to her as part of her inheritance, a cup outof which General Washington drank tea when hespent a night in Frederick in 1791 being amongthe Frietchie heirlooms. This flag which Mrs.Handschue and her daughter so religiously preserveis torn, but the banner was not rent with seam andgash from a rifle-blast; it is torn — only this andnothing more. That Mrs. Frietchie did not wavethe flag at Jackson’s men Mrs. Handschue posi-tively affirms. The flag-waving act was done, how-ever, by Mrs. Mary S. Quantrell, another Frederick woman j but Jackson took no notice of it, and
i Condensed from a contribution to the “Philadelphia Times” for July 21st, 1886 .—Editors.