Winston Churchill & Barbara Frietchie-- Part 2; "Shoot If You Must"

In May 1943, in the midst of World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited President Franklin Roosevelt in Washington to firm up the Allied alliance.  For a weekend break, President and Mrs. Roosevelt, Churchill, and presidential aide Harry Hopkins journeyed to Shangri-La, the presidential retreat in the Catoctins in Maryland (now Camp David).

As they drove through Frederick, Maryland, Churchill, a close student of American history, inquired after the house of Barbara Frietchie.  That moved Harry Hopkins to quote the famous line, "Shoot if you must, this old gray head...."

"When it was clear that no one else in the car could add to this quotation," Churchill recalled, "I started out."  He proceeded to recite, from memory, in those resonant Churchillian tones, the 30 couplets of Whittier's "little ballad," to the astonishment and delight of his audience.

All pitched in when he got to "Shoot, if you must...."

Wonder if they took a detour by Barbara's place?

--GreGen