Now for "Barbara Frietchie." The incident of the poem was given to Whittier by the novelist, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, whose letter we append. The philanthropist, Dorothea Dix, investigated the case in Frederick, and she says that Barbara did wave the flag, etc. An army officer also made affidavit of the truth of the lines. A young Southern soldier has declared that he was present, and that his was one of the shots that hit the flagstaff!
On the other side are Samuel Tyler and Jacob Engelbrecht, the latter an old and greatly respected citizen of Frederick, and living directly opposite Barbara's house. Jacob wrote to the Baltimore Sun, saying that Stonewall Jackson's corps marched through another street, and did not approach Dame Frietchie's house at all. Lee's column did pass it, he says; but he, who stood watching at his window, saw no flag whatever at her window.
He says that when ten days later General McClellan passed through the town she did exhibit a flag.
Finally, General Jubal Early comes upon the witness stand, and testifies that as the Southern troops passed through Frederick, there were only two cases of waving of Union flags; one of these was by a little girl, about ten years old, who stood on the platform of a house and waved incessantly a little "candy flag," and cried in a dull, monotonous voice: "Hurrah for the Stars and Stripes! Down with the Stars and Bars!" No one molested her. The other case was that of a coarse, slovenly-looking woman, who rushed up to the entrance of an alley and waved a dirty United States flag.
"The Pipes at Lucknow" is a poem full of martial fire and lyric rush,—the subject a capital one for a poet. A little band of English, besieged in a town in the heart of India, and full of despair, hear in the distance the sweetest sound that ever fell upon their ears, namely, the shrill pibroch of the MacGregor Clan; and—
"When the far-off dust-cloud
To plaided legions grew,
Full tenderly and blithesomely
The pipes of rescue blew!"
Another group of ballads comprises "Cobbler Keezar's Vision," "Amy Wentworth," and "The Countess."
In the first of these, old Cobbler Keezar, of the early Puritan times, by virtue of a mystic lapstone, sees a vision of our age of religious tolerance, and wonders greatly thereat:—