2-710-127 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Barbara Frietchie's Defiance', (1878). Incident during the American Civil War: elderly Unionist Barbara Fritchie pleads with an occupying Confederate general to 'Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country's flag'. Fritchie (1766-1862) died three months after the alleged incident. From "Our Country: a Household History for All Readers, from the Discovery of America to the Present Time", Volume 3, by Benson J. Lossing. [Johnson & Miles, New York, 1878]