Named source · 1863

Barbara Frietchie Quotes by John Greenleaf Whittier: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to Barbara Frietchie by or associated with John Greenleaf Whittier, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

More by John Greenleaf Whittier

Read the source

Open a public or archival text connected with these quotations

Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.

Primary / edition source · gutenberg.org ↗

Represented passages

1 quotations with source context and meaning

Source identified1

Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,

Image design Botanical Sage

Read & copy

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Voice: Poetic speaker · Barbara Frietchie (as dramatized in the poem)

Meaning & context

Whittier dramatizes Barbara Frietchie placing personal safety below the symbol she is defending, turning the scene into an image of public courage and defiance.

Source details

“Barbara Frietchie,” represented in Project Gutenberg #9578, Poems in Wartime. The words are dramatized speech inside Whittier’s Civil War poem. Whittier later noted that the received story was probably incorrect in some details, so this record does not present the sentence as a verified historical transcript.

Open a public or archival text connected with these quotations

Prominent ideas connected with the quotations represented here

1 quotations with source context and meaning

Continue through other sources by John Greenleaf Whittier