CLARA BARTON SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILES Speeches & Writings by Others Books Epler, Percy H., The Life of Clara Barton Worcester Sept 19 26 Borncoat St Dear Dr Barton: Your very wise request for Proof galleys I try to fill by scurrying around. The Eudeber has my 2nd set - & the original we are working on - So I send part of 3rd set - absolutely uncorrected - so dont be annoyed at typographical & occasional word errors - They are made right on other sheet - Galleys up to 80 sheets will be sent you - The next of Galleys deal with the Era in the Franco Prussian War & the Founding of the Red Cross in America & the [Intern] National Red Cross 82-1904. & In Cuba. The last third relates to 'Her Homes', 'Social Traits', 'as an Internationalist' ( Her Ideas on War' etc - Last Days - I hope to send you proof galleys if I can get them - I fear time runs short however Too bad to hear of Hillis - as always PHEpler[**Dec, 1903 or 1904 [?] Epler p. 328**] CLARA BARTON AND HER METHODS. A gentleman who was of the large house party, entertained last week by Miss Clara Barton at Glen Echo, throws an interesting side light upon her methods, and incidently, upon the devotion of her friends who had come to her support from the North and the South and from the East and the West. He says, "What had been an exceedingly interesting house party was breaking up, and some of the guests who had come long distances had left the night before. On Friday morning, those of us who remained assembled at Breakfast, and Miss Barton greeted us with her usual manner of the perfect hostess, with whom life is passing without a ripple or without a care. Ordinary topics were discussed at the table. I think Red Cross affairs were never once referred to, and certainly no one there could have guessed at the matter of deep concern which must have filled the mind of our hostess. After breakfast, when we were commenting to scatter, Miss Barton quietly remarked: "If you will all sit down, I want to make an announcement that I think will be of interest. I have been watching with great concern the progress of the Typhoid epidemic at Butler, and this morning a call has come, and I have arranged to leave on the night train for Pittsburg, and I hope to be in Butler at nine-thirty tomorrow morning." She then designated the Staff to accompany her. That was all. None of us spoke. We were breathless. We knew of the important concerns that claimed her attention here, but no one mentioned them. We were dominated by the great, calm spirit that was looking out over the desolated town of Butler, with no other outward, visible sign of emotion than the concentrated, bright light in her eyes- such as somes to the eyes of a great General upon the eve of battle. During the day she busied herself with her usual occupations, including much correspondence. An exceedingly small steamer trunk was packed. We met at lunch, and we met at dinner half an hour before her departure, but there was no ripple to indicate that anything out of the ordinary course was taking place. And then the time came for her departure. It was a stormy night, cold and snowing. The ground was covered with snow. We all assembled on the porch to say good bye, but there was no more demonstration than an ordinary good bye when she goes into the city to return by the next car. Her quiet, sure spirit was upon us all. She then stepped out into the dark, wild night, with her small Staff; and a little colored girl went before her with a lantern. And as we stood, grouped on the porch, watching her departure, we saw gleaming in the darkness nothing but the steady bright light of the lantern advancing down the long board walk leading to the car track. And we pictured the light going on and on through the night, until it should stop over the stricken town of Butler, and the suffering people there would look upon it as the light of a great soul that had come to them out of the darkness, bringing comfort, and healing, and the calm spirit that banishes all fear. And then we returned to the house and the thought was present with us all; that this one heroic woman, travelling through the night on her divine mission, was carrying into the city of Butler greater power of help than could be concentrated into the largest check drawn by the greatest millionaire in the country. I for one approve of Clara Barton's methods."CHAPTER XXIII "TURN BACK! TURN BACK! THE PRUSSIANS ARE COMING!" Miss Barton's diary of this time describes the tide of refugees which she encountered at Basle - men and women and children driven from their homes and fleeing the terrors of war. And yet terrible as was this procession - a procession with whose woes Europe has run red and with whose tears it has been bathed from the earliest times to to-day, "it was not," she writes, "too terrifying to one having a good stock of memories!" "For the last three days," her diary continues, "we have had only news of battles lost by the French. The Prince Royal of Prussia has won a battle at Weissenburg and Saarbrucken, and followed the flying French troops up the Rhine. Yesterday came the news that the Prussians would cross the river. Basle is frightened and sinks powder under her bridge, the old bridge of half stone and half wood, once graced by the clock which ran out an ugly red tongue at Germany at every stroke of its pendulum. The Prussians have destroyed the railroad between Basle and Carlsruhe, thus closing all public conveyance on the German side. Miss Barton moved among them, and had the snow cleared away, finding famished, frozen, bent figures that once were men. She rushed to tear down an old chimney, and built fire blocks, and soon had thirteen gallon kettles of coffee and gruel steaming. But fearful as were the great events of those days, among their unwritten history are thousands of incidents existing only in the memories of those who witnessed them, but as truly illustrative of the hour Miss Barton remarked, as the 40 solid shot and mortar shell [*Is this correct?*] which poured the lurid light of day and the pale glimmer of the night through a single roof. A Rebel officer in the skirmish of the day before was wounded and taken prisoner. Staunching his wound and quenching his thirst, the amazed nurse heard the Rebel officer murmur to her that the army on the Fredericksburg side of the Rappahannock had laid a trap for the Northern soldiers, covering every street and lane with the mouths of hidden cannon. Then, as she here relates, came the following call to go across. 555 54 A homespun illustration of her method of practicing this mental cure happily survives in this note which she slipped upon the table to be read by her niece, Mamie Barton, who had come over to spend the winter with her. 555 53 CHAPTER XXIX NERVOUS PROSTRATION IN ENGLAND, 1872-1873 MISS BARTON'S winter in London, [however], proved a disappointment. Nervous prostration and trouble with her throat and chest kept her shut in for many months. This long invalidism, beginning in September, 1872, had by July, 1873, robbed her of her strength and ability to bear, "the little burdens" as she called them, with composure. She complained that it was never bright in London and that this had had its due influence on her system. Her rooms and trunks were a confused mass of woolens, clothes, [etc., that] such as she had used in the wars, and which she had not gone over for months. Her chest, always weak, would now not admit of the least labor of the arms. Her health seemed permanently gone. At times, death, she felt, was imminent. She kept yearning for sunshine which would help her "face the dark river with a stouter heart." At one time she declared she expected never to leave London and that the sky was as [unmovable] immovable as a sheet of zinc. She felt already "in a metallic coffin" with the screws "turned down." In a letter at the end of this long siege of sickness she goes over the long painful experience to her niece, Mrs. Vassal of Worcester. But even amidst this depression she reaches a conclusion "to be cheerful and full of life and fun." Here occurred the inevitable conquest of body, by her determination not to let circumstances master her but to master them and through a change of mind pierce the opaque till it became a bright transparency.THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON CHAPTER I BIRTH AND BIRTHRIGHTS CHRISTMAS DAY, December 25, 1821, Clara Barton was born in an unpretentious farmhouse on the flattened brow of one of the hill crests of North Oxford in central Massachusetts. Her given name was Clarissa Harlowe, but it was as Clara Barton that she always signed herself, and it is by this simpler name, into which she was immortally christened by baptisms of fire and blood, that she will be remembered. In Europe the name Barton first appears in England in 1086 A.D. in the "Domesday Book" of William the Conqueror, where it is spelled "Barton" or "Bartun." For fidelity to its country and king the Barton family was early given a manor in Lancashire, where for centuries the old stock was rooted. Upon its coat of arms rested the armorial red, and down through the Wars of the Roses till to-day red has been the Barton color -- symbolic of sacrifice. Clara Barton herself seldom appeared without a touch of it upon her costume. "It is my color," she would explain. In this country the Barton line may be traced back to 1640, by which time Edward Barton had come from England and had settled in the coast town of Salem. A little later he was at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and in 1671 he had a 300-acre plantation at Cape Porpoise, Maine. In that year, owing to Indian outbreaks, he was forced to flee with his family to Salem, where he died in 1673. His son Mathew, sailor, shipbuilder, and farmer, then returned to Cape Porpoise with his son Samuel. It was Samuel Barton, born in 1664, who founded the Barton family of Oxford, from which Clara Barton is descended. Samuel, as well as his father and grandfather, lived in the mad era of Salem witchcraft. His grandmother, drawn into one of the 1 2 THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON trials, hotly discredited the craze as "a fantasy," and at twenty-eight years of age Samuel defended at his own peril witches brought under accusation by the fanatic, Mercy Lewis. Indeed, in 1690 he married Hannah Bridges, daughter of Sarah Towne, who was sister of Tebecca Nourse, hanged on Salem Hill for witchcraft in 1692. The year following that tragedy Samuel with his family and the Rownes shook the dust of Salem from their feet and moved to Framingham. Here they lived for twenty-three years. In 1716, selling a farm in "upland, swampland and meadow" at Framingham, they moved to Oxford. Oxford itself had its Red Letter days in early American annals. Just east of Oxford Center was "Fort Hill," whose cliffs were chosen by Huguenot settlers in 1686 as a settlement, rendezvous. and refuge. There they erected factories and mills, the stones of which remain in place to-day. Eastwardly, beneath sidings of sheer rock, gardens were planted in such a spot as only Frenchmen could choose, where late into the frosty fall they were warmed by the sun's reflections against the abutting palisades. But Nipmuc Indians drove the Huguenots from these charming plantations. In the summer of 1694 they massacred a girl and captured two children, and two years later the massacred the Johnson family, dashing out the brains of the three children on the great stone of the fireplace now set up as a monument in front of Town Hall, Oxford. Notwithstanding this bloody history, thirty English colonists, with Colonel Ebenezer Learned at the head, settled at Oxford in 1713 and gave the town its name. Samuel Barton bought one thirtieth of the colony when he located there in 1716, and soon acquired a quarter interest in all the saw mills and corn mills. In 1720 he became a signer of the covenant and a founder of the Oxford Congregational Church, "moved by obligations to promote the Kingdom of their Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ -- after prayer and conference." He was a man of strong Christian faith. His youngest son, Edmund Barton, a soldier on the French wars, married Anna Flint of Salem and settled at Sutton. Among his children was Stephen Barton, born June 10, 1740. Stephen Barton was a physician. His generosity forbade him to present his bills to patients, and though a good practitioner, he was unable to make a living from the profession. In 1764 he settled at Oxford Center, and engaged in trading, becoming in time the landlordCONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. BIRTH AND BIRTHRIGHTS . . . 1 II. HER FATHER AND MOTHER . . . 5 III. HER TEACHERS . . . 9 IV. A NURSE AT ELEVEN . . . 12 V. "I REMEMBER NOTHING BUT FEAR" . . . 14 VI. EIGHTEEN YEARS OF TEACHING . . . 18 VII. FIVE YEARS IN WASHINGTON BEFORE THE WAR . . . 24 VIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR . . . 28 IX. TO THE FIRING LINE . . . 33 X. SECOND BULL RUN AND CHANTILLY . . . 36 XI. HARPER'S FERRY AND SOUTH MOUNTAIN . . . 48 XII. ANTIETAM . . . 54 XIII. ON THE MARCH THROUGH MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA . . . 60 XIV. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN BEFORE FREDERICKSBURG . . . 64 XV. EIGHT MONTHS AT FORTS WAGNER, SUMTER, AND GREGG IN THE CAMPAIGN BEFORE CHARLESTON . . . 76 XVI. STEPHEN BARTON AT 15 ENTERS THE WAR . . . 86 XVII. THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA . . . 89 XVIII. AT THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA . . . 99 XIX. THE "AMEN" OF THE WAR -- BEFORE RICHMOND . . . 102 XX. FOUR YEARS' SEARCH FOR MISSING MEN . . . 110 XXI. AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR . . . 123 XXII. THE CALL TO BEAR THE RED CROSS TO THE PRUSSIAN FIRING LINE . . . 137 XXIII. "TURN BACK! TURN BACK! THE PRUSSIANS ARE COMING!" . . . 142 XXIV. STRASSBURG . . . 150 ... AAA CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXV. THE SURRENDER OF METZ, SEDAN AND STRASSBURG . . . 156 XXVI. AT THE SIEGE OF PARIS AND THE COMMUNE . . . 164 XXVII. ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS WITH THE WAR-TORN POOR . . . 176 XXVIII. TOURS IN ITALY AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT . . . 190 XXIX. NERVOUS PROSTRATION IN ENGLAND . . . 203 XXX. CONTINUED NERVOUS PROSTRATION IN AMERICA . . . 211 XXXI. THE FOUNDATION OF THE RED CROSS IN AMERICA . . . 226 XXXII. CLARA BARTON AND THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DISASTERS . . . 235 XXXIII. CLARA BARTON IN CUBA AND THE SPANISH WAR . . . 282 XXXIV. THE GALVESTON FLOOD, 1900 -- RETIREMENT, 1904 -- MEXICO -- PRESIDENT -- FIRST AID TO THE INJURED . . . 777 XXXV. CLARA BARTON AS INTERNATIONALIST AND PUBLICIST . . . 777 XXXVI. CLARA BARTON IN HER HOMES . . . 777 XXXVII. SOCIAL TRAITS . . . 777 XXXVIII. CLARA BARTON ON WAR . . . 777 XXXIX. THE RELIGION OF CLARA BARTON . . . 777 XL. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO!" . . . 777LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "Angel of the Battlefield" . . . 7 Birthplace of Clara Barton . . . 77 Sarah Stone Barton . . . 77 Captain Stephen Barton . . . 77 Clara Barton's Second Homestead . . . 77 The Third Homestead . . . 77 The Old Barton Mill Site . . . 77 Clara Barton in her Twenties . . . 77 Sally Barton . . . 77 Stephen E. Barton -- To-day . . . 77 Clara Barton in her Workrooms after the Siege of Strassburg . . . 77 Minnie Kupfer . . . 77 Antoinette Margot . . . 77 Clara Barton in 1879 . . . 77 Clara Barton as Founder of the American National Red Cross, 1882 . . . 77 First Red Cross Headquarters -- 1882-1892. 1915, Vermont Avenue, Washington D.C. . . . 77 The General Grant Mansion 17th and F Streets, Washington, D.C. -- Red Cross Headquarters and Home (1892-1897) . . . 777 Dr. Julian B. Hubbell . . . 777 "Red Cross" at Glen Echo, Md. . . . 777 Clara Barton's Summer home in Oxford, 1884-1911 . . . 777 At 87 . . . 777 "As the Leaves Fall" . . . 777 Burial Place of Clara Barton at North Oxford . . . 777THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA - SAN FRANSISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON - BOMBAY - CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTOTHE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON BY PERCY H. EPLER NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1915, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1915. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co. -- Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.To MY BELOVED WIFE HELEN YORK EPLER AND OUR DEAR CHILDREN PALMER YORK EPLER AND HELEN CORNELIA EPLER THIS LIFE STORY OF AMERICA'S GREATEST HEROINE IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR JULY 27, 1915.To MY BELOVED WIFE HELEN YORK EPLER AND OUR DEAR CHILDREN PALMER YORK EPLER AND HELEN CORNELIA EPLER THIS LIFE STORY OF AMERICA'S GREATEST HEROINE IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR JULY 27, 1915.FOREWORD "IT is fully within bounds to say that there is no surviving American of either sex whose autobiography, if fully given, would constitute so thrilling and so fascinating a narrative as that of Miss Clara Barton" [1] Twenty years ago American public opinion was thus expressed in a representative editorial. Though Miss Barton's life had even then reached its meridian and had made history enough for several biographies, none had been written and none has appeared up to this time. At the present moment unusual interest would seem to be attached to her life story. Amid the terrible catastrophies of the nations that now confront us, the biography of the Angel of the Battlefield cannot but afford a mighty stimulant. It is an inspiration for the relief of suffering, an encouragement to pity and mercy. These are the human emotions which it must inevitably prompt. While such feelings may not always be able to prevent war, they can and do help us prepare a table of relief in the midst of titanic foes of destruction. Clara Barton's mission was not to glorify war. "Men have worshiped war," she declared, "till it has cost a million times more than the whole world is worth, poured out the best blood and crushed the fairest forms the good God has ever created. -- Deck it as you will, war is -- 'Hell'. . . . The war side of war could never have called me to the field. All through and through, thought and act, body and soul -- I hate it. . . . Only the desire to soften some of its hardships and allay some of its miseries ever induced me, and I presume all other women who have taken similar steps, to dare its pestilent and unholy breath." Her "work and words," she insisted, "were for the individual soldier -- what he does, sees, feels or thinks in these dread hours of leaden rain and iron hail." [1] Review of Reviews, April, 1894. viiviii FOREWORD “If I were to speak of war,” she further says, “it would not be to show you the glories of conquering armies but the mischief and misery they strew in their track; and how, while they march on with tread of iron and plumes proudly tossing in the breeze, some one must follow closely in their steps, crouching to the earth, toiling in the rain and darkness, shelterless like themselves, with no thought of pride or glory, fame or praise, or reward; hearts breaking with pity, faces bathed in tears and hands in blood. This is the side which history never shows.” In all this we see her standing for exactly that which expresses America’s conviction to-day, - a conviction to which indeed we have been lately lifted again by our standard-bearer, the President; namely, humanity. In her own words, true for all time, but onc for all expressed at the Sea Island disaster, it is this: “We cannot desert our great, poor charge of humanity but must stay and suffer with them if need be.” And this is the side which the author has tried to show in this book through the agency of Miss Barton’s life, in so far as possible through her own eyes and with the understanding of her own heart. He has searched out her words, scattered in unpublished manuscripts as they mostly are. Here he has found that in her hands war is weighed in new scales, not with the balances of a heartless, obsessed militarism, but with those of humanity. Great as was Clara Barton’s actual contribution to the world, the contribution of herself, her life - greater yet was the moral effect on her race, [which in] America saw through her the uplift of organs of relief hitherto undreamt of. If evil came, unblinded by smoke and carnage, free from hysteria, with perfect self-control, she showed mankind the way out, proved that civilization was not dead and demonstrated triumph amid apparent defeat. The crown of this leadership of humanity was the foundation in America of the American National Red Cross. The estimate of humanity is always significant. “Our greatest national heroine and the equal of any soldier or statesman of the Civil War.” In these words the Literary Digest1 condensed the verdict of press and public. Long ago Charles Sumner describes her as one who possessed “the talent of a statesman, the command of a general 1 April, 1912. FOREWORD ix and the heart and hand of a woman.” To-day General Nelson A. Miles holds that she was “ the greatest humanitarian the world has ever known,” while Jane Addams, emphasizing her importance as an Internationalist and as an inspirer of the social conscience, has said: “No, I shall not attempt to choose twenty from the scores of women I deem worthy of immortality, but the passing of America’s grand old lady leaves her foremost in my affections.” Miss Barton was primarily a “doer” “of the word,” not a writer. “Persons who use their brains, tongues and pens for the improvement of their kind are those of whom biographies may profitably be written,” she says. “The grand things their tongues and pens have said are accessible and form a living inspiration to others, but I, - I know nothing remarkable I have done. The humdrum work of my everyday life seems to me quite without incident.” Thus by her own words does she stand convicted of greatness. So commonplace had become her heroic rôle in the world’s theaters of conflict that it was actually to her mind quite without incident - not because incidents were few but because they were countless. This is the principal reason for her failure to write her autobiography. She could not bring it to a focus. Intrusting the story of her life to others to write, she left behind her much valuable and informing material for her biographer. While her childhood is touched upon in a winsome sketch from her pen entitled The Story of My Childhood, this would cover less than one full chapter of this book and does not contribute facts of great central importance. Her unpublished war diaries and letters upon which I have spent long research, together with her conversations, and observations by eye-witnesses, are my chief original sources. For the period after 1877 the published record of the Red Cross administration and its detailed official history have all been consulted and have been found of much value. While fully conscious of many limitations it has been the aim, with all these source at our command, that the book should come forth with the force of an autobiography.x FOREWORD AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENT THE author wishes to express his sense of deep obligation to the following who have helped him in the preparation of this book : Miss Barton's nephew and executor, Mr. Stephen E. Barton ; her nieces, Mrs. Mamie Barton Stafford, Mrs. Fannie M. Vassall ; her grand-niece and nephew, Miss Saidee and Mr. Herman P. Riccius, and to her cousin, William E. Barton, D.D., LL.D.; to Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, Mrs. J. Sewal Reed, Mrs. Marion B. Bullock, Mr. Charles Sumner Young ; to Mrs. James Bolton (daughter of Judge Joseph Sheldon) ; to the editor, B. F. Tillinghast ; to Mr. Edgar Reed, a captain of industry and a patron of historical research ; to the veterans, J. Brainerd Hall, and A. S. Roe ; to Rev. Dr. Shoppe, Miss Barton's former pastor ; to such publications as "The Red Cross" and "A Story of the Red Cross," together with many magazine articles for the past fifty years ; to the fellow members of the committee on the biography, a majority of whom I have reached and who have shown marked courtesy as to the present volume ; also to Mrs. Lewis G. Fairchild for much stenographic assistance. The Author, PERCY H. EPLER. INTRODUCTION AND AUTHORIZATION By WILLIAM E. BARTON, D.D., LL.D.1 CLARA BARTON'S life touches the life of her nation at so many vital points that its record can hardly be less than a chapter in our national and international history. In consenting to prepare an introduction to Mr. Epler's book, I am moved in part by a desire to say to the readers of the volume that it is published with the consent and assistance of Miss Barton's relations and literary executors. It is, and for a number of years will be, the only authorized life of Clara Barton. Miss Barton's literary effects were left to her beloved and trusted nephew, Mr. Stephen E. Barton of Boston, who had long been associated with her in the work of the Red Cross. According to him, this biography of Mr. Epler's includes much of "the pith and cream" of her private and unpublished papers and diaries. Miss Barton provided in her will that with Stephen should be associated a small group of relations and friends whom she designated and to whom she intrusted the custody and ultimate distribution of her papers. Always methodical, she had preserved a very large mass of papers, consisting of diaries, letter books, correspondence and miscellaneous documents which she expected would ultimately be used in the preparation of her biography. Ten years or more from the present time it is confidently expected that the relations and executors will carry out Miss Barton's expectation, but the many boxes of letters and correspondence will involve a work of sifting and sorting material which must occupy several years, and other years will have to be given to the preparation of the larger Life and Letters, - at least ten in all. Such a work as is contemplated 1 Rev. William E. Barton, one of the finest and ablest representatives of the Barton stock to-day, was a deeply esteemed cousin of Clara Barton, and speaks here for the Barton family as authorized by the executor, Stephen E. Barton. xixii INTRODUCTION AND AUTHORIZATION will be a life of Clara Barton and much more — as the volumes will include masses of letters yet unexamined. Meantime, there is at present, demand for a comprehensive life of Clara Barton. It is a satisfaction to her relatives and literary executors that this biography has been prepared by Mr. Epler. He knew her well, and she respected and trusted him. He had at hand a considerable body of unpublished material for the preparation of such a work, and Mr. Stephen E. Barton has placed at his disposal such other chief sources as are available. Speaking, therefore, for those who have best reason to be interested in the publication of such a work, I express not only the satisfaction but the pleasure of her family and intimate friends in the present volume. Perhaps I may be permitted to add a few paragraphs concerning the personality of Clara Barton. First of all I should like to say that she never grew old. Her years numbered seventy, eighty, ninety, and more, but she kept the soul of youth. There was hardly a gray hair in her head. She sat and stood as erect as an Indian maiden, erect not with the rigidity age, but with the freedom and grace of youth. Her voice, her eye, her step, all had in them those qualities which distinguish youth from age rather than age from youth. She kept a sunny disposition and a cheerful face. Burdened as she often was by the sorrows, calamities, and atrocities of human life, suffering as she was called to suffer from serious protracted illness, deeply sensitive in her inmost soul to criticism or injustice, she trod her path serenely down the long vista of the years, and her heart made music and her face radiated sunshine. Hers was no cheap and unthinking optimism. Her faith in God and man was not that of the superficial or unfeeling observer; she saw life sanely and she saw it whole, and she kept her courage and her faith. She was by nature a timid woman. Her courage was not the effervescence of mere animal life; it was the triumph of soul over instinctive shrinking from the presence of danger and the sight of pain. If she learned to look on suffering without tears it was not because she grew unfeeling, but because she accomplished a supreme self-mastery at the stern behest of duty. There is a courage which does not reckon with danger, nor stop to consider pain. Not of this sort was Clara Barton. It was her heroic soul and her deep human sympathy that made her strong and brave. INTRODUCTION AND AUTHORIZATION xiii She combined in unusual degree the qualities of modesty and self-confidence. She did not know what it was to indulge in self-praise, and she felt something of constraint and embarrassment when others praised her. I have seen her blush like a schoolgirl at a compliment, and stand before an audience in momentary confusion over a generous word spoken in her introduction. But modest as she was and unassuming to a high degree, she had also a just and accurate estimate of her own power to master a situation. It was only in things relating to her self that she ever showed embarrassment or lack of self-confidence. Face to face with a great emergency, whether flood, or fire, or pestilence, or slaughter of battle, she completely forgot herself in the presence of the need confronting her. She knew what needed to be done, and she knew that she knew. Open to advice, she placed strong reliance upon her own judgment, and she moved with no uncertainty toward the ends which she realized needed to be attained. These qualities in her inspired confidence in others. He would have been a brave man who disputed her authority when she had determined upon a given course as right. In stature and in frame she was not a large woman. Her voice was gentle and she seldom raised it, but she issued her quiet directions and they carried with them the authority of her gentle and forceful personality. She was forceful as truly as she was gentle. Incapable of unkindness, she could be stern; gentle and tender and sympathetic, she had in her an element of inflexibility. These qualities possessed by her in no wise neutralized each other. Men and women realized the force of her calm judgment, the purity of her motives, her power of accomplishment; they believed in her, responded gladly to her leadership, and were safe in so doing. There is one thing more I should like to say of her, and that is, that in every fiber of her being she was womanly. In her young womanhood she was a teacher, a salaried clerk in Washington, and the matron of a penal institution. Then she was thrown among rough men, and into the midst of rough scenes; she looked upon hatred, murder and every unholy passion. Not only did she keep her soul unsoiled from the contact with the world’s sin, but she preserved every womanly grace and feminine trait as completely as if she had led a sheltered life. She had no sympathy with mannish women.INTRODUCTION AND AUTHORIZATION xiv She exalted womanliness, honored motherhood, and cherished in her own heart those virtues which are distinctly feminine. I have often wondered how it could be that a woman who had witnessed what she had witnessed, and heard what she had heard, and known what she had to know, and done what for duty's sake she was gladly compelled to do, could have seen and heard and known and done all that she did and experienced no coarsening of the fiber of her soul. Throughout her whole long and varied life she was a true, genuine, Christian lady. It was not her need of earning a livelihood that first sent her out into the world, but the joy of service. It was not to earn her daily bread or to add to her sufficient means that she continued to give her life to the welfare of humanity, There was that in her being which compelled her to give the best she had unstintedly to human service. No task was too humble for her to perform; no peril was great enough to daunt her. She poured out the rich treasure of her life like Mary of Bethany ; she broke her alabaster box over the head of her Lord, and the whole house is still fragrant with the memory of her good deeds. OAK PARK, ILLINOIS, September, 29, 1915.555 28 “I could not speak the words that would so shock his sensitive nature, but only stood before him humble and penitent as if I had something to do with it all, - and feel the tears roll over my face. My silence confirmed his secret suspicions and raising himself still higher, he exclaimed: ‘Are these the groans of wounded men? Are they so many that my senses cannot take them in? That my ear cannot distinguish them?’ And sitting fully upright, clasping his bony hands, he broke forth in tones that will never leave me - “‘Oh our God, in mercy to the poor creatures thou hast called into existence, send down thine angels either in love or wrath to stay this strife and bid it cease. Count the least of these cries as priceless jewels, each drop of blood as ruby gems and let them buy the freedom of the world. Clothe the feet of thy messengers with the speed of lightening and bid them proclaim through the sacrifices of the people, a people’s freedom, and through the sufferings of a nation, a nation’s peace.’ “And there under the guns of Richmond, amid the groans of the dying, in the shadows of the smoky rafters of an old negro hut, by the rude chimney where the dusky form of the bondsman had crouched for years, and on the ground, trodden hard by the foot of the slave, I knelt beside that rough couch of boards, and, to the patriot prayer that rose above, sobbed ‘Amen.’ CHAPTER XVIII AT THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA 1864 The siege of Petersburg commenced June 15, 1864, and did not end till Petersburg’s fall, April 2, 1865. The troops which began the siege were the 10th and 18th corps, Army of the James under Major General B. F. Butler, and the 2d, 5th, 6th and 9th corps, Army of the Potomac under Major General-George S. Meade. Two of the worst of the many engagements before the beleaguered town were those of June 15 and 19, 1864, when 1688 men were killed, and 8,573 wounded, missing or captured ; and July 1-3 including the days previous at Malvern Hill on the 27th and the mine explosion on the 30th when 853 were killed, 5026 wounded, and 1558 missing or taken prisoners. As in the past, Miss Barton was not so horrified by the terrors of the engagements themselves as by the needless suffering which followed. “The Petersburg mine with its four thousand dead and wounded and no flag of truce, the wounded broiling in a July sun, the dead bodies petrifying where they fell!” This is her brief but vivid description of the catastrophe. She was as usual in the midst of action. The very night the mine exploded she flew to the aid of the injured. In one of the flashes of inspiration that came to her, she recalled to us in Worcester in 1910 her midnight ride through thunder and lightning to Petersburg. “One night, following the battle of the mine, a party of horsemen rode up to my place. They drew apart and talked among themselves for five minutes. Now and then they looked in my direction. I noticed, but I did not look at them. One of them finally stepped out of the party and approaching me said, ‘Miss Barton, I have some bad news.’ ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘The mine has been blown up,’ said he. ‘We have lost a great many men and Gardner [a friend of Miss Barton] is among them.’ “‘Is he killed?’ I asked. “‘Yes,’ said he. “I was asked if I wanted to go to the mine and I said, ‘Yes.’ The troop of horsemen offered to accompany me there, but I said one would be enough. It was terribly dark. We had no way of keeping one another in sight except for our horses. My horse was black, the other was white. It was a long twenty mile ride. The lightening was terrific ; the thunder fearful. When the lightening came we were able to distinguish one another and see where we were going. The rain commenced almost immediately. “The horses became frightened. They did not run, but they stopped stock still and would not budge an inch. They stayed in one spot for three or four hours, shivering. When the rain subsided and the light came we resumed our way. “At the mine we found everything in confusion. There were a great many killed there.” Miss Barton was at Petersburg again and again for whenever the smoldering siege flamed out there were of necessity the wounded to care for. As illustrated the impractical natures of many of the people which the country sent to aid the army and with whom Miss Barton had continually to cope, she tells the following story: “I recollect an [accident] incident which occurred at Point of Rocks when our army was pressing Petersburg in ‘64.555 8 But the question arose - could she not prevent the neglect? Deaths occurred by the hundred because of it. But it happened days before they reached the docks. Relief could only be done on the field. Why should she not go and administer it there instead of waiting helplessly their transports where so often she was late? Miss Barton's own feelings on this matter is shown us in the record of a (confidence) which she had with her friends in 1886: Society forbade women at the front. Almost the only camp followers of her sex were women of loose life. Would humanity be scandalized and her reputation gone if she tried it? Tradition absolutely forbade a good woman to go unprotected among rough soldiers. And, as a further barrier against it, were ironclad army regulations. CHAPTER IX To The Firing Line July 21, 1861, the Union forces were routed at Bull Run, and Miss Barton, then in her 40th year, saw the flight back to Washington of the disorganized regiments. With Julia Ward Howe and other New England women she mingled with the panic-stricken multitudes. While as a result, Mrs. Howe was inspired to write "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," Miss Barton was impelled by an equally great prompting to the great decision of her life. She could not, she would not, write. But she could and she would nurse the bleeding and the dying. The total Union losses at Bull Run were 2952 - 481 killed, 1011 wounded, 1460 missing. Miss Barton was one of the first to seek the wounded and out of their piteous tales came an even stronger decision to do something to alleviate the suffering and go to the firing line herself. October 21, and 22, 1861, occurred the slaughter of Ball's Bluff in which troops of the 15th and 20th Massachusetts engaged. Many of these soldiers were Miss Barton's acquaintances from Worcester County. General Devens, next in command to General Baker, was a lawyer and later an honored judge in Worcester. Among the many driven over the 100-foot bluff and either shot, or forced into the river to drown, were Worcester men and boys. Willie Grout, who was shot while swimming, was one of these. He was immortalized in the song, "The Vacant Chair," written in his memory at the time by Washburn, a Worcester compatriot of young Grout. At the height of this passion to go to the front, late in 1861, news came to Miss Barton that her father was desperately ill at North Oxford. She at once hastened to his bedside and again the beautiful old confidence sprang up between them. She told him of her secret determination. "Go, if it is your duty to go," replied the old patriot, raising himself on his pillows. "I know soldiers, and they will respect you and your errand. That settled it. In March, 1862, following the death of her father, she returned to Washington, determined to break conventions and override the red tape of the army rules. By the late spring she was, therefore, back at her old station. From her dispensaries and warehouses she with redoubled energy relieved transports crowded with wounded and sick who came to her from the opening battlefields of the Army of the Potomac. May 31 and June 1, 1862, was fought the bloody battle at Fair Oaks, Virginia, with losses approximating 6000 on each side! This was nearly one half of the total combatants in each army. There followed the nine days retreat under McClellan with 1734 killed and 8062 wounded. From all these Clara Barton heard heart-rending stories. On August 9, 1862, came of the battle of Cedar Mountain, with 314 killed on the Union side, 1465 wounded, and 622 missing. This battlefield was Clara Barton's first. Not only had no woman gone to firing line, but it was before organized aid had come to the relief of the soldier, before the two great and noble commissions, with which she was never connected, had found their way directly to the front. She knew by heart the point-blank refusals that would be made to her requests to go. But appearing one day before Dr. Coolidge, Medical Inspector, she obtained through him a pass from Surgeon-General Hammond. This led her to Asst. Quartermaster-General Rucker. He was one of the greathearts of the army. Tears welled up in his eyes as he heard the plea of the little figure. "I have no fear of the battlefield," she told him. "I have large, stores but no way to reach the troops." She described the treatment of the soldiers who arrived often too late. After they reached Washington they were now well enough cared for in hospitals and through private generosity, she explained, but at the front all was neglect. She had looked around to see if other women had broken through the lines. But then there were none. She, herself, must go first to the battle front, where the men lay uncared for.wounded, 1460 missing. Miss Barton was one of the first to seek the wounded and out of their piteous tales came an even stronger deci- sion to do something to alleviate the suffering and go to the firing line herself. October 21, and 22, 1861, occurred the slaughter of Ball's Bluff in which troops of the 15th and 20th Massachusetts engaged. Many of these soldiers were Miss Barton's acquaintances from Worcester County. General Devens, next in command to General Baker, was a lawyer and later an honored judge on Worcester. Among the many driven over the 100-foot bluff and either shot, or forced into the river to drown, were Worcester men and boys. Willie Grout, who was shot while swimming, was one of these. He was immortalized in the song, "The Vacant Chair," written in his memory at the time by Washburn, a Worcester compatriot of young Grout. At the height of this passion to go to the front, late in 1861, news came to Miss Barton that her father was desperately ill at North Oxford. She at once hastened to his bedside and again the beautiful old confidence sprang up between them. She told him of her secret determination. "Go, if it is your duty to go," replied the old patriot, raising him- self on his pillows. "I know soldiers, and they will respect you and your errand." That settled it. In March, 1862, following the death of her father, she returned to Washington, determined to break conventions and override the red tape of the army rules. By the late spring she was, therefore, back at her old station. From her dispensaries and warehouses she with redoubled energy relieved transports crowded with wounded and sick who came to her from the opening battlefields of the Army of the Potomac. May 31 and June 1, 1862, was fought the bloody battle at Fair Oaks, Virginia, with losses approximating 600 on each side! This was nearly one half of the total combatants in each army. There followed the nine days retreat under McClellan with 1734 killed and 8062 wounded. From all these Clara Barton heard heart-rending stories. On August 9, 1862, came the battle of Cedar Mountain, with 314 killed on the Union side, 1465 wounded, and 622 missing. This battlefield was Clara Barton's first. Not only had no woman gone to the firing line, but it was before organized aid had come to the relief of the soldier, before the two great and noble commissions, with which she was never connected, had found their way directly to the front. She knew by heart the point-blank refusals that would be made to her requests to go. But appearing one day before Dr. Coolidge, Medical Inspector, she obtained through him a pass from Surgeon-General Hammond. This led her to Asst. Quartermaster-General Rucker. He was one of the greathearts of the army. Tears welled up in his eyes as he heard the plea of the little figure. "I have no fear of the battle field" she told him. "I have large stores but no way to reach the troops." She described the treatment of the soldiers who arrived often too late. After they reached Washington they were now well enough cared for in hospitals and through private generosity, she explained, but at the front all was neglect. She had looked around to see if other women had broken through the lines. But there were none. She, her- self,must go first to the battle front, where the men lay uncared for. When, after the rebuffs of months, Quartermaster Rucker showed sympathy and insight enough to grant her the passports, she burst into tears - then hurriedly departing, she immediately loaded her supplies upon a railroad car and started. X SECOND BULL RUN AND CHANTILLY CLOSE on Cedar Mountain came the engagement, August 29,at Groveton, Virginia,with 7000 killed, wounded, and missing, followed by the action on the 30th at Manassas, employing Porter's 5th corps, the 1st corps under Major General Sigel, Reynolds' division, army of the Potomac, the third under Major General McDowell's army of Virginia, and Hooker's and Kearney's division, and the 9th corps 555 9 That same afternoon (the 30th) word came that another battle was being fought by General Pope on the old Bull Run field. Eight thousand, according to the report, had already been killed, and the battle was still on. The casualties as later reported were 1747 killed, 8452 wounded, 4263 captured or missing. At once Miss Barton made preparations to go to the scene. Haply, we have her own story of the journey - and of what followed: From a letter which she wrote at the time and reread to the author in September 1909 I went back to my post,and that night, the next day, the next night, and the next day I passed without sleep. My man arranged a loft in my cabin, and a straw bunk for the sick man who was to come. "At 10o'clock the third night, I sat weary and alone by the cabin fire, when suddenly the door opened, and the bright face of the sur- geon in charge appeared. "Don't be disturbed," he said, "We bring you some one." Six years before I had seen Stephen, strong, muscu- lar, erect, two hundred and twenty pounds, dark, iron gray. He walked into my presence now, pale, tottering, a hundred and thirty, his thin white locks resting upon his shoulders, bent and walking feebly with a cane. "At seven that evening he had reached General Butler's headquar- ters and been taken to him. He commenced as I had done, to assure the General that he had never been a rebel, but was cut short by a kind inquiry concerning his journey and how he had endured it, and could he ride a mile or two farther that night? 'Oh, yes, if it is necessary,' he answered, supposing his prison to be that distance away. 'Because,' added the General, 'if you can, you will find your sister there.' 'My sister!' he exclaimed, 'is she a prisoner too?' "He was pleasantly assured that neither of us were prisoners, put into the General's carriage and taken to me. He remained six weeks, waiting the General's call to examine the case. It came, one crisp, searching winter's morning. I took him in an ambulance, to head- quarters. How well I remember wrapping a cloak and shawl about ...as he sat shivering in the ambulance, weak and nervous, waiting ...to enter the crowded office. That also came, we entered, ...and were seated by an orderly; my brother at the side of the door. ...was immediately removed by the General and reseated directly ...of the door. Two other persons were then called for, Lieut. ...of a N. Y. Regiment and one Hutchings a detective from ...These were the men who had arrested Capt. Barton, and ...quently consigned him to prison. They were evidently ignorant ...cause of their summons to headquarters, and each had known ...of the presence of the other until they met at the door. On ...at each other, changed color, recovered badly, walked in, and ...When Stephen had stated the facts, the General turned ...others with: 'Gentlemen this is a true statement; many of ...circumstances I know to be true, the rest I believe to be.' He ...questioned Budd and Hutchings in reference to their object in making the arrest, asking them why they had done it, why they had taken the money, and why if they believed Stephen worthy of arrest, had left him alone, and free, after taking his property, only to throw him into prison when he followed them into Norfolk? "'Gentlemen, this money must be restored and all of it. I hold you equally responsible. You will divide the responsibility between you, and in case of the failure of either to pay his share, I hold each responsible for the whole amount.' The Lieutenant turned pale, pleaded his poverty, and the necessities of his aged parents. The General could see that this might be hard, but could not see how Capt. Barton should be obliged to support either him or his parents...?" Stephen Barton never recovered from the shock of the experience through which he had gone. He left General Butler's tent a dying man. The following days and nights he was tenderly cared for by his sister, who divided her time between the negro cabin where he lay and the city crowded with its wounded. In a particularly vivid reminiscence Miss Barton describes these first few days of April, 1865, before Richmond: "The Camp fires burned low and red in front of Richmond, while the ceaseless watch fires along the Appomatox and the James throw their pale light athwart the bronzed face of the weary sentinel as he treads his endless beat. "The 1st day of April? Will your ears ever again thrill with such call of bugles and roll of drums as broke your slumbers on that dawn- ing morn? Will your eyes look ever on such carnage more? Be- fore you stretching far beyond your gaze, lie the entrenchments of Richmond, glistening with artillery, manned and loaded, and behind them, Lee's veteran army, trained and desperate. Here an open field ...your unprotected breast to assault and carry those entrenchments! All day the fight goes on. List the wild shouts of the charging rank. Wright and Ord are driving them in. Gibbon and Parks are forcing Petersburg. Grant shortens his lines. Night settles down, and you wait in darkness, and gather your dead. "Morning once more. Once more the bugles, and the drums; once more the thunder of a thousand guns, and the rattle of musketry, like the hail of a tornado. Firm as a rock you are holding the East, while Sheridan like an avenging cloud sweeps in from the West. And the work is done. "One more night of darkness and death and when the morning of the 3d of April broke upon your weary,war-worn gaze, you had no enemy left to fight. Broken and conquered he has fled in confusion." Of Stephen Miss Barton writes: "Hearing a voice, I crept softly down my little confiscated stairway and waited in the shadows near Stephen's bedside. He had turned his face partly into his pillow and resting upon his hands was at prayer. The first words which my ear caught distinctly were: "'Oh God whose children we all are, look down with thine eye of jus- tice and mercy upon this terrible conflict, and weaken the wrong, and strengthen the right till this unequal conflict close. Oh God save my country. Bless Abraham Lincoln and his armies!' "A sob from me revealed my presence. He started, and raising his skeleton form until he rested upon his elbow, he said, 'I thought I was alone.' then turning upon me a look of mingled anxiety, pity, and horror, which I can never describe, he asked hastily: "'Sister what are these incessant sounds I hear?' The whole atmosphere is filled with them. They seem like the mingled groans of human agony. I have not heard them before, tell me what it is.' 555 7 CHAPTER VIII THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR "I HAPPENED to see Clara Barton a day or two after Fort Sumter was fired on," says a contemporary of Miss Barton. He then gives this interesting word picture of her : "She was confident, even enthusiastic. She had feared that the Southern aristocracy, by their close combination and superior political training, might succeed in gradually subjugating the whole country ; but of that there was no longer any danger. The war might be long and bloody, but the rebels had abandoned a policy on which the odds were in favor of their ultimate success, for one in which they had no chance at all. For herself, she had saved a little in time of peace, and she intended to devote it and herself to the service of her country and humanity. If war must be, she neither expected nor desire to come out of it with a dollar. If she survived, she could no doubt earn a living. And if she died, it was no matter." Then "the first great blow of organized war fell, and the nation woke from its dream of peace at the thunder of wave-washed Sumter" -- to use Miss Barton's own words. Beyond recall, she presented herself, she knew not then just how, as a living sacrifice upon her country's altar. Death seemed to her the probable cost, but she determined to suffer it. Something of her enthusiasm and patriotism are reflected in a sentence in a private letter to her niece, Mrs. Vassal, written from Washington: "I think," she says, "the city will be attacked within the next sixty days. If it must be, let it come, and when there is no longer a soldier's arm to raise the Stars and Stripes above our Capitol, may God give strength to mine." While she was never called upon to perform this task, it was not long before she had an opportunity for heroic service, and, as was to be expected, she grasped it. On April 15, Massachusetts responded to Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops with four regiments. One of these, the 6th, under the late Colonel Jones, set our at once for Washington, taking nothing with them but uniforms and guns. Passing through Baltimore, they were murderously assaulted by a mob of ten thousand infuriated opponents who choked the streets. Three were killed or mortally wounded, leaving thirty others who suffered lighter wounds. Nevertheless they fought their way through to the station, reconstructed their demolished engine, rebuilt the track, and moved on to Washington. When they arrived, President Lincoln told them that if they had not come that night, Washington would have been in the hands of the rebels before the morning. It was no wonder Clara Barton was proud of the 6th Massachusetts, and when the men detrained in Washington's streets, she was there to receive them. Now for the first time she dressed war wounds, and saw blood shed in combat. "Among the soldiers," she wrote, "I recognized my own early associates." -- Many, including Sergeant J. Stewart Brown and Joseph M. Dyson, were from Worcester. "We bound their wounds," she continued," and fed them."1 1 Some questions having arisen as to the place of her feeding the men of the 6th Reginemt, I quote a paragraph of a personal letter to me describing her first public appearance. "It was the senate chamber where my little feast was held, and the desk of the President of the Senate where I made my first literary effort" (Sept. 16, 1909). When their supply of handkerchiefs was exhausted, Miss Barton with other volunteer nurses, rushed home and tore up sheets for [*bands*] [but] [*cl*] [the anexndages.] But the next day, with five husky negroes as porters, carrying as many hampers and boxes, she led a procession through Washington streets among amazed churchgoers, and distributed necessities to the sick and wounded. In her services to those who had been injured, Miss Barton did not forget the uninjured soldiers who had gathered in the senate chamber. Here she spread a feast before them and, from the desk of the President of the Senate, read to them from the Worcester Spy. In a letter written six days later, she interestingly reviews the incidents leading up to and following the Baltimore clash : "WASHINGTON, Apr. 25th, 1861. "MY DEAR WILL, "As you will perceive I wrote you on the 19th but have not found it perfectly convenient to sent it until now, but we trust that navigation is open now for a little. As yet we have had no cause for alarm, if indeed we were disposed to feel any. The city is filling up with troops. The Mass. regiment is quartered in the Capitol and the 7th arrived to-day at noon. Almost a week in getting from N. Y. here, they looked tired and worn, but sturdy and brave. Oh! but you should hear them praise the Mass. troops who were with them, Butler's Brigade. They say the Mass. Boys are equal to anything they undertake -- that they have constructed a R.R.[*,*] laid the track and built an engine since they entered Maryland. The wounded at the Infirmary are all improving -- some of them recovered and joined the regiment. We visited the regiment yesterday at the Capitol and found some old friends and acquaintances from Worcester. Their baggage was all seized and they have nothing but their heavy woolen clothes -- not a cotton shirt -- and many of them not even a pocket handkerchief. We of course emptied our pockets and came home to tear up old sheets for towels and handkerchiefs, and have filled a large box with all manner of serving utensils, thread, needles, thimbles, scissors, pins, buttons, strings, salves, tallow, etc., etc., -- have filled the largest market basket in the house and it will go to them in the next hour. "But don't tell us they are not determined -- just fighting mad -- They had just one Worcester Spy of the 22d and all were so anxious THE WIN URG DECEMBER, 18 WITH her expedition of drivers and teams a supplies, Clara Barton had overtaken the army at Harper's Ferry, as it was crossing the Potomac. It was here that the teamsters refused to cross, anticipating the battle which all had thought imminent. But Lee had averted the clash, and there took place a remarkable race of the two streams of combatants, the army of the North along the valley of the Blue Ridge, they army of the South following the valley of the Shenandoah. For three weeks there were engagements every day. At one point the rebel forces surprised a part of the [*f*]ederal army and captured a number of the supply wagons. So far away was the army of the North that they had no reenforcements[,][*drop*] and supplies, except such as could be toted over the mountain passes in wagons and ambulances. Miss Barton became, therefore, the main source of support for the sick and was attached to the army corps. On reaching Harper's Ferry, Lee's army had slipped away and Gen. McClellan had decided to follow them. "Our army," writes Miss Barton in her diary, "was in the act of crossing a pontoon bridge at Berlin when we came up with it. We joined and crossed with them and I found myself in the endless train of a moving army. "If time permitted, I should like to tell you of those grand old marches down beside the Virginian mountains following the lead of Pleasanton's cavalry skirmishing ahead, finding the enemy every day. Those bright autumnal days! And at night the blaze of a thousand camp fires lighting up the forest tops, while from 10,000 voices rang out the neverending chorus of the Union army: 'John Brown's body lies a mold'ring in the grave As we go marching on.' "And thus, day after day, no one knew whiter, till the rich autumn tints whitened in the frosts of an approaching winter, and the merry brooks that laughed and leaped in the noon-day sun snuggled quietly into their beds at night under blankets of crystal." In a letter of December 3d, 1862, Miss Barton in the midst of a journey with the wounded to Washington, gives information of her place on the march among the sick and disabled:-- "In the latter part of October left home for the Army then at Harper's Ferry, where a battle was hourly expected, taking with me supplies I had then on hand. The army had crossed the river without a battle. I followed, and, joining the 9th corps for safety from 'raids,' I continued with them, caring for the sick, supplying from my own stores, until we reached Warrenton Junction, when they were sent to Washington, and leaving my teams and assistants to move on with the army, I accompanied the sick." She herself was sick, but in the growing cold of winter, with an excruciating pain in her head, she said nothing. "It did not matter." The fact only crept out in a letter explaining why she did not write:-- "A most painful felon disabled my hand from the first of November[*,*] from which I got relief and rest only by narcotics and the knife (used on the open field). For what with water and cold and burns and bruises and frosts, my hands complain a little of unaccustomed hardships. Our march up the Maryland hills and down the Virginia mountains was long, broken and uncertain, harassed by the enemy both front and rear." Miss Barton's work with the sick took her back to the capital but she did not stay long there. "I remained there, of course, only a little space of time," she writes, "and met the army at Falmouth, via Aquia Creek. then commenced the weary suspense of waiting for a battle, all the while lying under the guns of the enemy. At length it came. I instantly repaired to 'the front,' -- the famous 'Lacy House,' within a stone's throw of the Rappahannock, and indeed, of Fredericksburg itself, for the high bluffs narrow the river at this point until I think a strong man might throw a stone across it. "From the piazza of this house we watched (as you would watch from your own door steps a transaction in your gardens) the attempted laying of the pontoon bridge, its abandonment under the fire of the give strength to mine." While she was never called upon to perform this task, it was not long before she had an opportunity for heroic service, and, as was to be expected, she grasped it. On April 15, Massachusetts responded to Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops with four regiments. One of these, the 6th, under the late Colonel Jones, set out at once for Washington, taking nothing with them but uniforms and guns. Passing through Baltimore, they were murderously assaulted by a mob of ten thousand infuriated opponents who choked the streets. Three were killed or mortally wounded, leaving thirty others who suffered lighter wounds. Nevertheless they fought their way through to the station, reconstructed their demolished engine, rebuilt the track, and moved on to Washington. When they arrived, President Lincoln told them that if they had not come that night, Washington would have been in the hands of the rebels before the morning. It was no wonder Clara Barton was proud of the 6th Massachusetts, and when the men detrained in Washington's streets, weh was there to receive them. Now for the first time she dressed war wounds, and saw blood shed in combat. "Among the soldiers," she wrote, "I recognized my own early associates." -- Many, including Sergeant J. Stewart Brown and Joseph M. Dyson, were form Worcester. "We bound their wounds," she continued, "and fed them."1 1 Some questions having arisen as to the place of her feeding the men of the 6th Reginemt, I quote a paragraph of a personal letter to me describing her first public appearance. "It was the senate chamber where my little feast was held, and the desk of the President of the Senate where I made my first literary effort" (Sept. 16, 1909) When their supply of handkerchiefs was exhausted, Miss Barton, with the other volunteer nurses, rushed home and tore up sheets for [*d*] [*bandages*] [but] [*d*] [the anexndages]. But the next day, with five husky negroes as porters, carrying as many hampers and boxes, she led a procession through Washington streets among amazed churchgoers, and distributed necessities to the sick and wounded. In her services to those who had been injured, Miss Barton did not forget the uninjured soldiers who had gathered in the senate chamber. Here she spread a feast before them and, from the desk of the President of the Senate, read to them from the Worcester Spy. In a letter written six days later, she interestingly reviews the incidents leading up to and following the Baltimore clash: "WASHINGTON, Apr. 25th, 1861. "MY DEAR WILL, "As you will perceive I wrote you on the 19th but have not found it perfectly convenient to send it until now, but we trust that navigation is open now for a little. As yet we have had no cause for alarm, if indeed we were disposed to feel any. The city is filling up with troops. The Mass. regiment is quartered in the Capitol and the 7th arrived to-day at noon. Almost a week in getting from N. Y. here, they looked tired and worn, but sturdy and brave. Oh! but you should hear them praise the Mass. troops who were with them, Butler's Brigade. They say the Mass. Boys are equal to anything they undertake -- that they have constructed a R.R.[*,*] laid the track and built an engine since they entered Maryland. The wounded at the Infirmary are all improving -- some of them recovered and joined the regiment. We visited the regiment yesterday at the Capitol and found some old friends and acquaintances from Worcester. Their baggage was all seized and they have nothing but their heavy woolen clothes -- not a cotton shirt -- and many of them not even a pocket handkerchief. We of course emptied our pockets and came home to tear up old sheets for towels and handkerchiefs, and have filled a large box with all manner of serving utensils, thread, needles, thimbles, scissors, pins, buttons, strings, salves, tallow, etc., etc., -- have filled the largest market basket in the house and it will go to them in the next hour. "But don't tell us they are determined -- just fighting mad -- They had just one Worcester Spy of the 22d and all were so anxious to know the contents that they begged me to read it aloud to them[*,*] which I did. You would have smiled to see me and my audience in the Senate Chamber of the U. S. Oh! but it was better attention than I have been accustomed to see there in the *old*]Old times. [*"*]Ber[*"*] writes his mother that Oxford is raising a company. God bless her and the noble fellows who may leave their quiet happy homes to come at the call of their country. So far as our poor efforts can reach they shall never lack a kindly hand or a sister's sympathy if they come." About this time, it occurred to Miss Barton to send advertisements to the columns of the Worcester Spy asking for stores, supplies and money for the wounded and needy of the 6th regiment. She stated that she would receive all shipments and disperse them personally. The [*C capital*] [*C*]ity of Worcester was the first to send assistance. Surrounding towns and cities in Massachusetts followed its example. So great was the response that Miss Barton's room overflowed, and she was obliges to secure space in a warehouse, near 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Henceforth she was a new creature[*,*] for she felt she had attached her energies to a coming cause. The reservoirs of unmastered and too restless energy[*,*] so long repressed[*,*] were at last unlocked, and given a field of action big enough. Therefore, all things had become new. She was a new being. The sensitiveness, bashfulness, timidity, and self-consciousness were swallowed up. Pestering fears which she had never known to be absent were cast out. At the age when other women leaped to new life with their love for one man, she awoke to an affection for wounded humanity, experiencing at the same time the fact that "Perfect love casteth out fear." With this smart of a country's opening wounds upon her, pressure was given at last sufficient to give c[*o*]ntrol, a task great enough to engulf self, and concern for others mighty enough to release the passion for service. The following weeks and months began the Peninsular Campaign. For this, she refused to be simply a disperser at the warehouse. Going down to the docks, she met the wounded soldiers returning on the transports from the swamps of the Chickahominy. She saw blood and clay had caked on their sore wounds till they were like the hard shells or turtles. With warm water, lotions, dressings, and restoratives she bent over them, and amid filth and suppurating sores and odors, under the torrid sun of Washington, she washed their neglected wounds. Seeing them back to the hospitals, she remounted the ambulances, and trip after trip rode back to be the first to reach each coming boatload of human freight. [*Numbers of wounded, etc should all be written out in full, not just in figures ,- both methods seem to be used here.*] 555 20 around the attempt to take Fort Wagner, Morris Island and Forts Gregg and Sumter, all in the possession of the South and strongly fortified. Miss Barton reached Hilton Head shortly after the 7th of April. Some little action had occurred between Sumter and Du Pont's fleet but the expedi[*d*]tion returned to Hilton Head, where except for scattering raids, there was a cessation of hostilities. Sumter[*,*] it was evident could not be taken at once. This, however, did not mean inaction, for they must prepare for the long attack that lay ahead of them. [*As t*]he casualties in the opening encounters increased in severity[,] Miss Barton served day and night. On July 11, in an assault from Morris Island on Fort Wagner, forty-nine were killed, one hundred twenty-three wounded, and one hundred sixty-seven captured and missing. [The middle of July[*,*] from Morris Island[*,*] General Gilmore with five batteries opened a bombardment on Fort Wagner on the same island,] [*The middle of July general Gilmore opened a bombardment from Morris Island on Fort Wagner on the [?] island with five batteries,*] Admiral Dahlgren dropping shells from his monitors. One hundred guns assailed the fort. General Strong with Colonel R. G. Shaw's colored troops advanced under the fire of three Confederate forts. Musketry and hand grenades met the closer advance. In the slaughter Strong and Shaw fell, together with masses of the black troops who were the special objects of Confederate hatred. Another brigade under Colonel H. L. Putnam advanced but to meet a like repulse. The Confederates claim they buried 600 Northern men in front of the fort. [The engagements during] [*During the engagements etc.*] the remaining days in July the total killed [*went*] up to 1812. On August 17, from useless assaults, Gilmore proceeded to a siege[*,*] bringing up a 200-pound Parrott gun -- "the swamp angel" -- with which to shell Charleston. Sumter was reduced by the 24th[,] by the aid of 12 batteries and Dahlgren's naval attack. Colonel J. G. Elwell, who was one of the generals leading in the assault, described the Island as "a graveyard, occupied by the Rebels and then by the Federal forces." "A cup of good water was nowhere to be found," he wrote in a letter which was read at a reunion of [*soldiers*] [the Yates Phalanx.1] "Wells were shallow and water brackish, almost [1 An organization founded by the Illinois war Governor, Richard Yates, of Jacksonville, Illinois.] deadly in character.["] The siege was in hot weather and the climate malarious. Every fort of the Island could be reached by the guns of Sumter, Wagner, and other forts. Here Miss Barton stayed during the night of the assault. She was there to succor the wounded. She soon became dangerously ill in her tent. I appealed to her to return to Port Royal or she would certainly die.[*"*] "Her answer was, 'Do you think I would leave here in a bombardment?'" There was no protection. Morris Island was a stretch of barren sand hills without a tree. It was hard to walk. The feet sank to the ankles in the beach, where they were calloused and blistered in sand that had been baked in the sun for months. [*?*] Miss Barton's eyes were blinded till they became bloodshot by constant gales of sand granules. Th[u][*i*]s fact made it more difficult for her to clear away the peppering particles that stung their way into the wounds of many hundreds, clogging the torn flesh, and when wet [*??*] Floorless dog tents, pitched in the sand, offered the only shelter, and these were not infrequently blown down by constant stiff squalls from the sea. Miss Barton's station was opposite the fierce fire from all forts, in the shadow of a sand dune. Underneath a tropic sun all day long she was boiling water over a smoking fire. Then she hurried hour after hour to wash the wounds of men tortured not only by the sudden shot, but by the clinging, caking sand. Tea and coffee, milk and eggs, fruit and farina, she served from her even read[g][*y*] stores. On the day of the fiercest assault of Wagner -- not evacuated [til] [*until*] September 7, but which the Union forces had expected to take at once -- she was ready for every new tragic emergency. She kept her fires burning all day, her kettles boiling and food ready for use. For she was the objective of broken columns of wounded men crawling down the sand stretches. To a torn ex-slave, blood dyeing his ebony skin, or to a wounded general[*,*] she gave live attention. "A little to the left, mark that long, dark line, moving steadily on, pace by pace, across that broad space of glistening sand[*, -*] [*on*] ["On,] straight on, toward that black mass, frowning and darkling in the distance. "Watch -- [*w*][W]atch -- with pulseless veins, and breathless lips. "On -- [*o*][O]n -- God speed their steps! "Flash -- flash -- flash -- flash -- Moultrie -- Johnson -- Sumter -- Wagner -- Every black pile blazes and the heavens [*/are*] re on fire. "Boom! Boom! Boom! Answered the old fleet as it circled into line and poured broadside after broadside till the heavens blazed again. On! On! Pressed the little band passing to it[*s*] [loom] [*doom*] -- but dark no longer. The foe is met. The muskets blaze. The dark line has changed to a trail of fire. Pressing on, scattered now, we watch the flashing of their muskets, as you [the] fireflies on your meadows. "The walls are reached, the torpedoes, and the pikes -- [*x watch*] "Up -- up -- over the parapets, into the fort, hand to hand, foot to foot. "Does any man say that this war showed no bayonet wounds? He did no scale the walls of Wagner. "Hand to hand and hilt to hilt they wrestle. The great guns of fort and fleet are still and there in the darkness and mist we wait, they wait, the weary hour. What Miss Barton's position was on the firing line[*,*] in the smoke of Fort Wagner and Sumter[*,*] is evidenced by a paragraph in a letter written by her from her post of danger July [x] [*? 14th*]. In this it is seen that with not a thought of personal danger her only consideration was for the safety of others. "MORR[J][*i*]S ISLAND "MORRIS ISLAND HOSPITAL TENT OR "U. S. STEAMER 'PHILADELPHIA' "Tuesday, July 14th, 1863. "LIEUT. RICHIE, U. S. STR. 'PAWNEE,' FOLLY ISLAND, S. C. "MY DEAR FRIEND: "The caption of my sheet will not surprise you as I presume you would be more likely to look for me in the smoke of Fort Sumter than anywhere else in this vicinity. "My tent is with the advance hospital -- Dr. Craven, Med[.][*ical*] Purveyor of this department in charge. We are just the other side and in plain sight of the landing at Lighthouse Inlet, perhaps a mile from the old lighthouse. We are so liable to be shelled out th[*a*]t I trust nothing but myself to remain there, keeping my trunks on board the Philadelphia, which makes it a kind of second home. I have my own ambulance horses and driver and saddle horse, but do not suppose any of these would aid me in an attempt to call upon you, but if you had opportunity I would be most happy to see you at my tent, or upon this boat, if I chanced to be here. . . ." Yet she herself came very near death as was shown in a letter written to [*Mrs*] Annie E. Childs from Hilton Head, October 27, 1863. "I watched the first boat near the coast of Morris Island and saw the first man leap out upon its glistening sands. One week later we met the flash of a hundred guns, and ten thousand muskets lit up the darkness of our desert island and the thunders of Wagner and Sumter shook it to its center, and on those bloody parapets freedom and slavery met and wrested, hand to hand[*.*] [t][*T*]he false flag and the true, swelling in the same breeze stood face to face, while warriors met and fought, and martyrs died. Through the long, dark terrible hours, we gazed and hoped and prayed, and at length, must I say it, turned back in despair to comfort our wounded and bury the dead -- repulsed! Then followed the long hot weeks of toiling siege and the last trench was dug, and our forces with scarce the loss of a man, walked in upon the graves of their six hundred comrades, buried in Wagner. "I, no longer able to see, was lying weak and helpless as a child little knowing and less minding towards what goal my way was wending." Colonel Ellwell adds to this the statement that "after a time she was carried away almost by force to a more healthful locality where she was sick for a long time." Not until February 17, 1865, was the Union flag raised over Fort Sumter and Charleston vacated by the confederate army. "For eight months" says Miss Barton, "our ever accumulating fleet rose and fell upon the tide and tossed upon the billows of Port Royal Harbor. "Merchant ships had changed to men-of-war, and men-of-war 555 21 "There bearing the tall form of his rider plunged[*,*] the noble steed of Colonel J. G. Elwell, of Cleveland, Chief Quarter[*_*]master of the [d][*D*]epartment of the South. Up the beach he came, through the[/]surf[,] and fire, up, up, under the very walls of the blazing fort. Rising in his saddle, his strong voice went up, 'How goes the fight, boys? What do you want?' "Begrimed with smoke and scorched with flame on the topmost parapet appeared the form of the intrepid Putnam. "'Reenforcement, Colonel! in God's name, get us reenforcements. I can hold out nfteen minutes longer.' "Whirled the steed and rider[,] back down the beach to headquarters. 'Men, General, more men. Your troops are struggling in the forts' 'Take them back again.' Through the surf and fire! Up once more with the welcome tidings. "Up -- ha! What is that? The sides of the fort are black with men -- are these reenforcements? "Ah, would to God! Back! Out! Down, over torpedo and pike into moat and wave, sinking, striving, fainting, crawling, dying! "Slowly down the beach wends the long line of wounded. And one by one they bring their story of disaster. "The fort was gained, the center reached. Bravely they fought but all too few. They waited, braving death, for the help that came not. Leader after leader fell. And there side by side with those of fairer hue, lay the tawny hand of Africa, which that night for the first time in the history of all the ages, had been permitted to strike a lawful, organized blow at the fetters which had bound him body and mind and soul. "That broad, dark, heaving chest, and struggling breath, that great patient eye and gaping wound[.][*!*] "' Ah, Sam, that's bad for you.' 'Yes, miss, I knows it. Dey's too many for us dis time -- I'm a gwine, but thank God my childers free.' "The charge had failed. The night was lost. Ah, too late the advantage came. Slowly down wend the long line of ambulances, and the sands about our hospital tents grow red with the blood of the wounded and slain. "Then came the hundreds back. There were the stricken of the brave 63d and 67th Ohio, and as I plodded through the sand, rain, and darkness, many a pale lip moved in prayer as the fading eye grew strangely bright. "There on the ground among his soldier boys lay Cumminger, delirious in his pain. 'Bury me here, friends, here in the sands. Don't take me away. I've tried to do my duty to my country and my God. Bury me here right where I fell.' "But God still had something for brave men to do and he saved him. "There, suffering, brave and faithful, lay the wounded of three as brave regiments as ever trod an enemy's soil or faced a rebel gun, the 6th, 7th and 10th Connecticut. "A little farther on lay Voris, of the 67th, pale and unconscious, his bright hair dabbling in the sand, while from the dark wound in his side slowly ebbed the red tide of life!" General Ellwell, who declared that both General Voris of Ohio and General Leggett would have died had it not been for Miss Barton's assistance, gives this account of the assault: [*X* At an earlier moment Sergeant Hall's experience bears evidence of a condition which Miss Barton had all along deplored -- an inefficiency and cowardliness on the part of some of the minor officers. When Sergeant Hall was hit by a ball which went through his abdomen and came out laterally, leaving a wound which to this day has never healed, he staggered to the rear, where, among several disloyal officers, he found a skulking superior. Pointing his revolver at him as he lay behind a log, Sergeant Hall said: "Get up, you coward! Go to the front." He kept his pistol over him till he rose and went forward. Bleeding profusely, Sergeant Hall then turned to a New York surgeon who was drunk. "Tend to my wound," he demanded, showing the abdominal puncture. "You'll be in hell in five minutes," laughed the surgeon, refusing. "Tend to it, or you'll be there now," said the sergeant, aiming at his breast. The cowed surgeon dressed the wound and Sergeant Hall made for the rear, only to find every artery choked and thousands of wounded jammed in the blind alley of mud and unable to move until saved through Miss Barton's night ride and midnight appeal to the [Department at Washington.]] CHAPTER XV EIGHT MONTHS AT FORTS WAGNER, SUMTER AND GREGG IN THE CAMPAIGN BEFORE CHARLESTON AFTER the winter campaign at Fredericksburg Clara Barton's time was occupied for a while in acknowledging the supplies she had received and in repairing her depleted stores for the new campaign of 1863. The following letter written in March, 1863, to Mrs. Thomas, a Pennsylvania woman[*,*] gives some glimpse of these activities:-- "From my heart I wish I could answer one letter which must not perforce commence with an apology for delay, but the truth is, I am buried so 'many deep' in unanswered correspondence that it seems like injustice to those 'gone before' to reply to even one in time. Thus with a poor attempt at justice, I am in constant error. But you will deal mercifully, and finally pardon me, for there is the broad platform upon which we meet, the very groundwork of our faith. "It is a sisterly kindness which bids you seek me out and essay to fill my hands, which get so often, and sometimes so fearfully, emptied. I hope I may be able some day to show to you that I appreciate your generous solicitude. I am by no means surprised[*,*] for I had heard of Mrs. Thomas years ago, in the days when misery lurked only in by places, and faithful charity groped in darkness and squalor to find out and relieve it. Ah! it were some credit to be charitable then, but in these days when giant misery stalks to the very [s *d*] threshold, and raps with bloody hands on one's own door, it were almost a libel upon the good old Christian term, to call it charity that answers it. The door that never creaked a hinge for the timid tap of the feeble child of want, may swing wide at the thundering knock of the Marshal's staff. This fratricid[e][*fratricidal*] war, not only opens coffers which never oped before, but hearts as well; dark shadows lie upon the hearthstones but if in contrast the fading embers of humanity and brotherly love glow with a new a radiance it shall not at [*e*]ast have been all in vain. "It will be no new experience to me to find my failing resources supplied from Pennsylvania. I have long wished myself capable of framing a f[*d*]itting eulogium upon that noble state. I have watched her throughout this war. Wherever I have met her soldiers, they have been brave and patriotic. When I have come in contact with her surgeons, I have found them gentlemanly and humane, and the timely generous 'aid' which has been constantly finding its way to me from her valleys and hillsides has bespoken a people at home, well worthy their noble representatives in the field." April 7, 1863, the South Atlantic Squadron under Admiral Du Pont began the siege of Charleston. Sumter, Wagner, and other batteries met the fleet with 3500 shots from 300 guns, 160 a minute. On Folly Island the army joined the navy for a combined attack, the former under the command of General Seymour. By June 2, 18,000 men were sent to form a land army under Major General Gilmore. Admiral Dahlgren replaced Du Pont in July. The operation centered 555 24 With difficulty she made her way out of the military maelstrom and at last reached a little steamer bound for Washington, where she decided to appear in person. Arriving at night, she summoned the Honorable Henry Wilson, Chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate. Alarmed at the fearful deadlock of the army trains and the fate of scores of thousands of wounded left to die, he called together the War Department at ten o'clock that night. The Department doubted. Wilson demanded that they send aid that very night or he would face the Senate of the United States. He secured the action he wanted. By two o'clock that night the Quartermaster-General of the United States himself was[*,*] with his staff[*,*] galloping down 6th Street to the Belle Plain wharf[*,*] where he embarked at once. Immediately upon his arrival the next morning he took charge in the name of the Government[*,*] and extricated, fed, and housed the thousands of wounded. Thus the deadlocked wheels of Government were set in motion, a nonplussed War department was mastered[*,*] and a host of wounded succored by the wok of the intrepid little woman who attributed it all to Henry Wilson. Miss Barton thus discloses the situation in her war diary. 555 17 sharpshooters on the opposite bank concealed in the cellars[*,*] and the embarkation of the glorious 7th Michigan. We listened to the deafening cheers of their comrades on shore, as they rowed and shouted and fell on the landing, -- fire and shot above them and blood below, -- the hand to hand fight, -- the finishing of the bridge and the crossing of the army, until darkness prevented the further labor of our weary eyes, although it brought no rest to our weary army. The next day the terrible slaughter ensued. I crossed to Fredericksburg, and remained two days, and then returned to the fearful scene at the 'Lacy House.' I cannot tell you the number, but some hundreds of the worst wounded men I have ever seen were lying on a little hay on floors or in tents." In this battle of December 13, the Northern forces were defeated. On the Union side there were 1,284 killed, 9,600 wounded and 1,769 missing or prisoners. Only two or three years later while the events were still fresh in her mind, Miss Barton recalled more in detail of the battle of Fredericksburg: 555 26 "The soldiers had lain in the trenches, soaked with water through half the season, till the burning suns of summer had dried the mud to the hardness of brick. Now they were scorching and baking and blistering through the other half. "An old veteran, from a western regiment, had obtained leave to come down to the hospital and commission tents, in the hope of making some very obviously necessary additions to his wardrobe. "I had been making the rounds of the hospital tents and for a moment stepped into the commission quarters when this tall, sun-burned, honest-faced soldier stepped in after me and approaching the agent said he should like to get a pair of stockings. "The agent replied with great kindness that he was sorry that he could not oblige him, but they were out of stockings, except some very fine ones they had saved for dead men! "If you could have seen the look of puzzled astonishment which spread over the veterans's face, as he strove to comprehend the meaning of the reply! He looked at me, at his own turtle-backed feet, innocent of stockings for months until finally giving it up, he broke out with, 'Stockings for dead men!' And turning on his heel he stalked out of the tent, no richer and apparently no wiser than when he entered. Doubtless he went back to the camp and trenches in disgust. And the young agent who had been from home only a fortnight, and had never learned by observation that men could lie quietly in their graves without stockings and shirts was just as deeply puzzled to comprehend the astonishment of the soldier and stood gazing after him in silent wonder as he walked away. From their different standpoints neither could get a glimpse of the other's thoughts any more than the good lady could understand how war should increase the price of candles. 'Candles higher!' she exclaimed, 'why, bless me, do they fight by candle light?'" CHAPTER XIX THE "AMEN" OF THE WAR -- BEFORE RICHMOND 1865 AT the climax of the Civil War, Miss Barton was in Washington keeping in close touch not only with those directing affairs at the capital but with the men on the field. In a letter of March 5, 1865, to Eliza Golay of Geneva, Switzerland, her point of view and her convictions on the great conflict are interestingly set forth. "I accept with pleasure your expressions of gratitude for any little kindness I may have shown your suffering brother. What could it have been in comparison with what he has done and suffered for my country. Has he not toiled in its trenches, hungered in its necessities, helped to bear back the advancing foe, and, wounded and fainting far from home or kindred, pressed the bloody soil of a stranger's land, and that land my country, that country my home, that home my loved America? Grateful to me! It is I who should be grateful, and I am. "It would be impossible for me to give you any adequate idea of the vastness and terribleness of our great national struggle, so much space, so many armies, such countless battle fields, such painful marches and such terrible conflicts, and it is my pride and joy that my countrymen have been found equal to the sacrifice -- only their patriotism ha[d][*s*] equaled their bravery. The best blood of America has flowed like water. The proudest of her sons have struggled for the honor of a soldier's name -- to-day a son of our chief magistrate, one of our Secretary of State, and one of our highest Senator, stand under the enemy's fire, and on the same sanguinary fields stood and fought and bled your brother, our brother now. Like them he has fought bravely and well, and suffered well; he has given us the best strength of his good right arm -- but ours shall be around him in gratitude and love. He shall be kindly cared for, tenderly cherished. Knowing me first and only[*,*] of my country-women[*,*] he has come gently to my side and asked to be my younger brother. The place had been always vacant and I have taken him gladly to fill it. I have promised to be his American elder sister, and he is to heed my counsels,' but when I promised that I did not realize how much I was to be the gainer, that not only had I found a brother but a lovely and loving sister. Yes my dear sister, I do love you and I will always love you and fondly hope that it may not be forever ideal, but that some happy day, my arms shall twine about your neck and your cheek rest lovingly against my arm. I have no portrait of myself to-day, and it will be plain, (not like my fair sister's) when I do have it, but such as it is I will send you soon. "You speak of your parents and tell me that they hold me kindly in their hearts. Tell them of my filial affection and respect and I shall be glad to have them[*,*] for both my honored father and mother are sleeping peacefully under the greed sods of my own native hills far away in the quiet north. Once more assure them of my love, and that I will try to prove it by the faithful care with which I will watch over the footsteps of their dear absent one. "And now my dear sister, good bye for a little, till you write me again which I hope will be very soon. Write me familiarly and without pains and I will write you the same. Once more good bye -- and keep me in your heart as you are in the heart of "Your affectionate sister, "CLARA BARTON." Great as had been Miss Barton's sacrifices in the war -- she was now called upon to make the greatest one of all. Having eased the death agony of thousands of "younger brothers" as she called those in the service, she was now to see a brother of her own flesh and blood suffer and die. Miss Barton had not been the only member of her family to wander toward the South. In 1854 her eldest brother Stephen purchased a steam mill in H[a][*e*]rtford County, North Carolina, where he built up an industry in a village called after [the][*his*] name[*,*] "[Barton] [*Bartonville*]" In 1861 at the outbreak of the war the entire product of the lumber mill was "hemmed in" from sale. Store, blacksmith shop, grain, and cattle likewise stood in danger of confiscation by the Confederates. Immediately he sent twenty of his northern helpers home by way of Miss Barton in Washington with all the ready money he and she robbed and all but killed, they came 555 29 I sought to consult. But, as army after army and one regiment after another became disbanded and returned to their homes, it became impossible to hold communication with them except by an extended and complex system of correspondence. "In conducting this I caused printed lists of all missing soldiers who had come to my knowledge[,] to be posted in conspicuous places[,] in all the towns and considerable villages in the country[*,*] requesting information from all who might be able to furnish any." On the 11th of March, Miss Barton had taken her station at An[*n*]apolis -- the depot of the reception of thousands of exchanged prisoners from Andersonville and other Southern prisons. This she had [*done*] don at the suggestion of President Lincoln, who had issued a letter [*#*] a{CV][?]ng the friends of missing soldiers to communicate with her there. And yet, notwithstanding this, it was May before the War Department delegated to her the proper authority to proceed -- making two months of heart-rending delay. Several bushels of letters from despairing, broken-hearted friends of missing men and unknown dead were waiting to be opened. She struck out a path for herself[*,*] although the Government then allowe ha|but the use of a tent, furniture,|and a moderate supply of postage stamps. The War Office denominated her 'General Correspondent for the Friends of Paroled Prisoners." In many respects the records at Annapolis were a tangled maze and most incomplete. Prisoners sent home by thousands had not been recorded. It was not known, therefore, what prisoners were left, and what were not. Large numbers had been discharged without record. To remedy these colossal omissions, an entire register had to be devised, and Miss Barton had to organize it. As usual when Miss Barton found a deadlock, she took the initiative. She was conscious that the bureau for missing men was not meeting the issue and that thousands of wives, children, and parents were still in heart-rending anxiety. She felt buried under the distracting appeals which she continued to receive and which harried her beyond human endurance. While the Government's hands were tied and weeks and months elapsed, should she give it up? No. She would organize a department herself. She[,] therefore[,] found a central office, hired a force of twelve men, and opened for use what remained of her private bank account. As the months flew bu, it was costing her thousands of dollars to maintain the bureau. She searched the burial records and prison records in States, hospitals, and even on the desolate battle fields themselves. This involved rebel stockades, Wilmington, Salisbury, Florence, and Charleston prisons, and most of all, Andersonville. May 15, 1865, found a mass of unanswered letters in her hands with new ones coming in at the rate of 100 a day. Miss Barton's strategic and never-losing stroke was now an appeal to the country. This plea to the people, like every other she made, was eminently successful. The country responded to her requests for information with a pathetic eagerness. All types and conditions of men sent information to her. But the most remarkable reply came from one man -- a discharged Andersonville prisoner, Dorrence Atwater. He had been detailed[*,*] while himself a living skeleton, yet a man with a clear mind, to keep an official list of the dead and their burial. In his coat lining he secreted a duplicate copy with location of graves. Brought to a Washington hospital, he offered to the Government these 13,000 names. He urges action before the graves be lost sight of forever. The Government blindly hesitated and delayed. Just at this opportune time, Clara Ba bulletins of request for information came before his eyes; Atwater acted immediately and wrote Miss Barton of his remarkable secret. He had the key to these nearly thirteen thousands of graves of those soldiers who died in Andersonville. His story made a deep impression upon Miss Barton's mind. "Among the many private soldiers, who by some gallant deed, or worthy act, have won for themselves a place in the historic record of their country, perhaps there is not one," she writes," to whom so many thousand hearts, throughout the entire land, would so gratefully accord the page, and so lovingly embellish it with immortelles, glistening with tear-drops of sad and tender memories, as the youong soldier, Dorrence Atwater. "At the age sixteen, he enlisted in the Connecticut squadron which helped to form the famous regiment of Harris Light Cavalry, commanded by Colonel, afterward General Kilpatrick. A soldier from choice, a bold rider, and knowing little of fear, it is natural to conclude that Atwater was never happier than when dashing into Richmond with Kilpatrick on his brilliant raid of May, 1862. But three was destined to come a day when he would enter the Rebel Capitol under circumstances less exhilarating, as a few days subsequent to the Battle of Gettysburg, while bearing despatches to his General, with the last home letter in his pocket which brought the intelligence of the sudden death of his mother, he was captured and taken prisoner to Richmond and Belle Isle. This was the beginning of misfortunes, the shadow of which, up to the present moment, have never quite lifted from his pathway. "After five months of suffering and illness in Belle Isle, at the intercession of the Adjutant of his regiment, also captive in Richmond, and whose regimental clerk Atwater had been, he was taken to Richmond, and detailed to take account of the supplies sent by the U. S. Government to its own men suffering in Rebel Prisons. "In February, 18[*6*]4, while holding this position for some weeks, he was sent with the first detachment of prisoners to Andersonville, -- from the shelterless 'stockade' in midwinter, to the scarcely better protected 'old hospital' outside; three months more of fever, scurvy, and starvation, -- and again he was detailed to the Rebel Surgeon's Office and set to keep the daily death record of his comrades, the Union prisoners, as score by score they perished by his side. He was now nineteen -- and though wasted to a skeleton, naturally active 1865 AT the climax of the Civil War, Miss Barton was in Washington keeping in close touch not only with those directing affairs at the capital but with the men on the field. In a letter of March 5, 1865, to Eliza Golay of Geneva, Switzerland, her point of view and her convictions on the great conflict are interestingly set forth. "I accept with pleasure your expressions of gratitude for any little kindness I may have shown your suffering brother. What could it have been in comparison with what he has done and suffered for my country. Has he not toiled in its trenches, hungered in its necessities, helped to bear back the advancing foe, and, wounded and fainting far from home or kindred, pressed the bloody soil of a stranger's land, and that land my country, that country my home, that home my loved America? Grateful to me! It is I who should be grateful, and I am. "It would be impossible for me to give you any adequate idea of the vastness and terribleness of our great national struggle, so much space, so many armies, such countless battle fields, such painful marches and such terrible conflicts, and it is my pride and joy that my countrymen have been found equal to the sacrifice -- only their patriotism ha[d][*s*] equaled their bravery. The best blood of America has flowed like water. The proudest of her sons have struggled for the honor of a soldier's name -- to-day a son of our chief magistrate, one of our Secretary of State, and one of our highest Senator, stand under the enemy's fire, and on the same sanguinary fields stood and fought and bled your brother, our brother now. Like them he has fought bravely and well, and suffered well; he has given us the best strength of his good right arm -- but ours shall be around him in gratitude and love. He shall be kindly cared for, tenderly cherished. Knowing me first and only[*,*] of my country-women[*,*] he has come gently to my side and asked to be my younger brother. The place had been always vacant and I have taken him gladly to fill it. I have promised to be his American elder sister, and he is to heed my counsels,' but when I promised that I did not realize how much I was to be the gainer, that not only had I found a brother but a lovely and loving sister. Yes my dear sister, I do lone you and I will always love you and fondly hope that it may not be forever ideal, but that some happy day, my arms shall twine about your neck and your cheek rest lovingly against my arm. I have no portrait of myself to-day, and it will be plain, (not like my fair sister's) when I do have it, but such as it is I will send you soon. "You speak of your parents and tell me that they hold me kindly in their hearts. Tell them of my filial affection and respect and I shall be glad to have them[*,*] for both my honored father and mother are sleeping peacefully under the green sods of my own native hills far away in the quiet north. Once more assure them of my love, and that I will try to prove it by the faithful care with which I will watch over the footsteps of their dear absent one. "And now my dear sister, good bye for a little, till you write me again which I hope will be very soon. Write me familiarly and without pains and I will write you the same. Once more assure them of my love, and that I will try to prove it by the faithful care with which I will watch over the footsteps of their dear absent one. "And now my dear sister, good bye for a little, till you write me again which I hope will be very soon. Write me familiarly and without pains and I will write you the same. Once more good bye -- and keep me in your heart as you are in the heart of "Your affectionate sister, "CLARA BARTON." Great as had been Miss Barton's sacrifices in the war -- she was now called upon to make the greatest one of all. Having eased the death agony of thousands of "younger brothers" as she called those in the service, she was now to see a brother of her own flesh and blood suffer and die. Miss Barton had not been the only member of her family to wander toward the South. In 1854 her eldest brother Stephen purchased a steam mill in H[a][*e*]rtford County, North Carolina, where he built up an industry in a village called after [the] [*his*] name[*,*] "[Barton] [*Bartonville*]] In 1861 at the outbreak of the war the entire product of the lumber mill was "hemmed in" from sale. Store, blacksmith shop, grain, and cattle likewise stood in danger of confiscation by the Confederates. Immediately he sent twenty of his northern helpers home by way of Miss Barton in Washington with all the ready money he and she could collect. After having been robbed and all but killed, they came to Miss Barton's Washington lodgings, penniless, for help. Later most of them entered the northern army. Stephen Barton, however, had decided to remain and brave the crisis[,] [*and*] if possible sav[ing] [*save*] his property. Shortly thereafter a number of the southerners appeared as a Vigilance Committee and ordered him to leave the State. This he refused to do and was knocked down. Stunned and bleeding, he attacked the group of men and "unarmed and single handed" beat them off. Miss Barton did not accompany General Butler's expedition [south] which went [*south*] to the rescue of her brother, deflecting its direction to reach him. [He refused to go.] [*Say Stephen Barton refused to leave his property*] But in the summer of 1863 Captain Flusser, commander of the North Carolina fleet, took several gunboats, passed up the Chowan river to the Barton village and mills, and offered to take Stephen Barton north. He again declined to go, being still determined to hold out and protect his property. When Captain Flusser was a little later killed in action, Miss Barton's last hope of rescuing Stephen died. For he bravely remained at his mills and was not captured by the South but by the North! Mistaken either intentionally or unintentionally for a Confederate, lying sick in a wagon, he was robbed and sent a prisoner to Norfolk. "You know how my last hope died with the gallant Flusser," Miss Barton wrote in a Civil War letter. "One chilly day last Autuman when General Butler's troops were pressing the line of Richmond, we were having unusually sharp work and the poor fellows were dropping back in scores to our flying hospital tents. It was smoky and dreary, and I was out trying to revive and assist them as they were laid down from the stretchers. I saw a Lieutenant who was shot in the lungs. He was lying on his back strangling. I sprang and raised him partly up and asked the boys to remove him to me, as I seated myself on a large coil of tent rope which was lying on the ground, where I could support him upright, till the surgeons could get to him. While I was in this position, with hands and arms bare and bloody to the elbows, an orderly dashed up, and looking about, seemed to conclude that I was the person sought, (naturally enough as there was As usual when Miss Barton found a deadlock, she took the initiative. She was conscious that the bureau for missing men was not meeting the issue and that thousands of wives, children, and parents were still in heart-rending anxiety. She felt buried under the distracting appeals which she continued to receive and which harried her beyond human endurance. While the Government's hands were tied and weeks and months elapsed, should she give it up? No. She would organize a department herself. She[,] therefore[,] found a central office, hired a force of twelve men, and opened for use what remained of her private bank account. As the months flew by, it was costing her thousands of dollars to maintain the bureau. She searched the burial records and prison records in States, hospitals, and even on the desolate battle fields themselves. This involved rebel stockades, Wilmington, Salisbury, Florence, and Charleston prisons, and most of all, Andersonville. May 15, 1865, found a mass of unanswered letters in her hands with new ones coming in at the rate of 100 a day. Miss Barton's strategic and never-losing stroke was now an appeal to the country. This plea to the people, like every other she made, was eminently successful. The country responded to her requests for information with a pathetic eagerness. All types and conditions of men sent information to her. But the most remarkable reply came from one man -- a discharged Andersonville prisoner, Dorrence Atwater. He had been detailed[*,*] while himself a living skeleton, yet a man with a clear mind, to keep an official list of the dead and their burial. In his coat lining he secreted a duplicate copy with location of graves. Brought to a Washington hospital, he offered to the Government these 13,000 names. He urged action before the graves be lost sight of forever. The Government blindly hesitates and delayed. Just at this opportune time, Clara Ba bulletins of request for information came before his eyes; Atwater acted immediately and wrote Miss Barton of his remarkable secret. He had the key to these nearly thirteen thousands of graves of those soldiers who died in Andersonville. His story made a deep impression upon Miss Barton's mind. "Among the many private soldiers, who by some gallant deed, or worthy act, have won for themselves a place in the historic record of their country, perhaps there is no one," she writes, "to whom so many thousand hearts, throughout the entire land, would so gratefully accord the page, and so lovingly embellish it with immortelles, glistening with tear-drops of sad and tender memories, as the young soldier, Dorrence Atwater. "At the age of sixteen, he enlisted in the Connecticut squadeon which helped to form the famous regiment of Harris Light Cavalry, commanded by Colonel, afterward General, Kilpatrick. A soldier from choice, a bold rider, and knowing little of fear, it is natural to conclude that Atwater was never happier than when dashing into Richmond with Kilpatrick on his brilliant raid of May, 1862. But there was destined to come a day when he would enter the Rebel Capitol under circumstances less exhilarating, as a few days subsequent to the Battle of Gettysburg, while bearing despatches to his General, with the last home letter in his pocket which brought the intelligence of the sudden death of his mother, he was captured and taken prisoner to Richmond and Belle Isle. This was the beginning of misfortunes, the shadow of which, up to the present moment, have never quite lifted from his pathway. "After five months of suffering and illness in Belle Isle, at the intercession of the Adjutant of his regiment, also captive in Richmond, and whose regimental clerk Atwater had been, he was taken to Richmond, and detailed to take account of the supplies sent by the U. S. Government to its own men suffering in Rebel Prisons. "In February, 18{*6*]4, while holding this position for some weeks, he was sent with the first detachment of prisoners to Andersonville, -- from the shelterless 'stockade' in midwinter, to the scarcely better protected 'old hospital' outside; three months more of fever, scurvy, and starvation, -- and again he was detailed to the Rebel Surgeon's Office and set to keep the daily death record of his comrades, the Union prisoners, as score by score they perished by his side. He was now nineteen -- and though wasted to a skeleton, naturally active and faithful, a clerk of no ordinary skill and experience. Rendered thoughtful by suffering, tender by afflictions, it would seem that he had been providentially fitted for the great work given him to do. "With a degree of judgment and forethought, which would have done credit to a man twice his years, he appears to have measured his task and comprehended its importance at the outset, and directed every energy of both mind and body to its faithful accomplishment. Day by day he watched the long trenches fill with the naked skeletons of the once sturdy Union Blue, -- the pride of the American Armies, -- and day by day, he traced on the great brown pages of his Confederate sheet record, the last, and all that was ever to be known of the brave dead sleepers in their crowded, coffinless beds, -- the name, company, regiment, disease, date of death, and number of grave. "Five more weary months of this, and in September, he found himself registering a hundred names a day, and saw seven tenths of them followed by the word 'scorbutees.' For, although midsummer in a country teeming with vegetation, no green thing had been permitted to find its way inside that deadly palisade. Atwater then came to the conclusion that a record which told so fearful a tale of [wil ] [*wilfull*] cruelty or design against the perpetrators would never be permitted to exist and pass into history. That, in any case, whichsoever side might ultimately succeed, Southern pride would compel the des ruction of that record, and with it must pass forever the destruction from the page of the earth the last authentic information -- in a majority of instances the last trace -- of the fate of every man who perished in 'Andersonville,' leaving only anxiety, distress, the agony of suspense, and the darkness of oblivion to the thousands upon thousands of waiting mourners throughout the North. The loving memories of his own mother whose last words had been of her soldier boys, clung tenderly about his heart, and his soul yearned for some means by which to save the thousands of other mothers from this needless agony of uncertainty worse than death, and he decided upon commencing a duplicate of his own record, upon separate sheets of paper which he managed to abstract, even going back of himself and gleaning all that he could of the first three months while he lay in stockade and hospital. "Bringing his duplicate up to date in October, and concealing it from all eyes, both friend and foe, from that time he kept both his secret and his double record as he had at first kept the one, with little expectation of living to bring it away himself, but hoping that he might [been abled] [* enabled*] [*drop'd*] to pass it into the hands of some stronger comrade who could get it through our lines. 555 23 CHAPTER XVII THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA MAY, 1864 BY January, 1864, Miss Barton had recovered her strength[*,*] after the eight months of almost superhuman effort of Morris Island under the guns of Sumter, Gregg, and Fort Wagner. She had taken her post again[a][*|*]t Washington to reassemble supplies for the coming crisis. For by a climacteric movement, it was the intention of the North to strike now the final blow of the Rebellion. It has sometimes been said that Miss Barton left the front in 1864. But this is not so. She had determined not to leave until the end, however severe the tragedies grew. The motive for this is seen in a letter written February 5, 1864, to "the Noble-Lady Anna Pasteris Cometti, Baroness of Moriondo, Italia." "Once[,] I had hoped to visit your beautiful country[,][*;*] now[,] I scarce dare dream of ever leaving my own. Surely never, while the hand of affliction rests upon us as to-day; while war distracts her councils and desolates her homes[;] while wives yield up their husbands[*;*] and sisters send the playmates and brothers of their childhood[*;*] and the tender mother brings forth her fair haired son, armed for the field, and with the proud smile that covers the breaking heart, gives him to her Country, and bids him never disgrace the Banner in the shadow of whose folds she leaves him. While all this is transpiring daily in my own loved land, it is only right that I, with neither husband nor son to give to my country, should wait and watch and labor and weep and pray, with those who sacrifice, and those who fall. "How little thought we that in a few short days[,] the bugle should sound the shrill war note through our peaceful land, and the valleys should tremble, and the mountains echo to the tread of marching armies. To-day our sun rises and sets upon a million of American people under arms, spread over [*(*]a million acres of square miles[*)*] of land, and thousands of leagues of sea, and every day brings us tidings of both a victory and a repulse. Still are we strong and confident and hopeful, stronger to-day[,] than on the day which saw the first sword drawn, more confident as our latent strength develops and more hopeful now that we see more to hope for, as we realize that we are fighting the battles of the world, with the armies of freedom." Miss Barton was now to be officially recognized by appointment to the Army of the James under General Butler. Her department was to be the Department of Nurses of which she was to have the office of Superintendent under Surgeon McCormack, Chief Director of the Army of the James, stationed at City Point, Virginia. The government felt that this honor would not only show appreciaton for the magnificent success of Miss Barton's field work on the firing lines, but it would also give her sufficient authority to enable her to execute her ideas. Dorothy Dix, another Worcester girl, was already General Superintendent of Nurses in the war and in many ways was a woman of Miss Barton's own kind, though Miss Dix's greater work for the race was the founding of the present system of Insane Retreats in American and Europe. But gratifying though this official approval of Miss Barton's work doubtless was, it pales into insignificance when set against the work itself, particularly her services on the field. "Discontent and gloom, with ever lessening ranks even of the recruiting forces," is her description of the winter of 1864. "The blossoms of May, however," she explained, "fell on a world[*-*]renowned army of veterans with hard, brown faces, sinews of steel, tread of iron, and hearts as soldierly, true and brave as the Old Guard of Napoleon!" she said in an address once delivered to the soldiers. "Uniforms still bright? Uniforms!! Heaven knows if you had any. It were well, if you had shoes. But the weary spring brought the great Captain (General Grant) to the east to fight it out on that line, if it took all summer -- aye, and all winter too." She could never be kept from the firing line. All of the appointments to all the offices in the world could not hold her back from personally going to the front. In May news came of the conflict between Grant and Lee in the wilderness of Virginia. From May 5 to 7 occurred terrific fighting between the Confederate forces under General Lee and the Union troops under Major General George C. Meade, Major Lee, Major General Hancock (2d corps) Major General Warren (5th corps), Major General Burnside (9th), and General Sheridan with the cavalry. On the Union side, 2,246 were killed, 12,037 wounded, and 3,387 reported missing, a total of 17,666. From May 8 to May 20 there was almost continuous fighting from Alsop's ferry to the Fredericksburg pike. These engagements are known in history as the battle of Spottsylvania. Of the Union forces 3,725 were killed, 13,416 wounded, and 2,256 missing, total [*n*] 18,399. By the 18th these terrible losses had reached the total of 36,065 on the Union side alone. May 8, the day of the battle of Spottsylvania began, Miss Barton hastened to the front and took her position on the road ten miles from Fredericksburg. Conditions may be best realized by taking one experience and multiplying it into thousands. Among the too few men alive to-day who remember the scenes of that time vividly is J. Brainerd Hall of the 57th Massachusetts. "It was at the battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, that I was wounded and reported killed," he says. "On the afternoon of May 6 when General Grant began to fall back towards Chancellorsvill[*e*], the 2d Corps Field Hospital was left between the lines. There were no ambulances and among many such groups was one of fifty men of which I was one, left for want of transportation facilities. All night we lay between the dead and the dying, most of us mortally wounded. We were kept busy through the night watching the shells as they passed over us, as well as some that did not but exploded near us and nearly buried us out of sight. Three times I was nearly suffocated and was snatched from a premature burial. "The next afternoon Captain Barton of the 57th Massachusetts, Clara Barton's cousin, who had been put in charge of the ambulance train, found me. Three days later[*,*] after being three times captured by Moseby's men, we reached Fredericksburg. As soon as I was made as comfortable as possible on the floor of the Southern M. E. Church, Captain Barton found Miss Barton, told her where I was and that I was thought to be mortally wounded. My exhausted condition at that time was such that I have only an indistinct recollection of the first aid Miss Barton gave me, but later when my father, who was with the Sanitary Commission arrived, I had many evidences Among the single instances of heroism which Miss Barton describes in connection with the battle of Fredericksburg is that of Sargeant Plunkett of the 21st who enlisted from West Boylston -- Miss Barton's own county of Worcester. "I remember a patriot hero who bore the flag over the bodies of his fallen comrades, to plant it on the blazing Heights of Fredericksburg until both arms fell useless at his side. And the shoulders received the precious burden the hands could no longer uphold. Planting his foot firmly by the resting staff his clear voice rang out above the shouts of the charging ranks, the hissing of shot, and the shrieking of shell: "Don't let it fall, boys, don't let it fall!" "And it did not and while we lay the armless sergeant in his battle hospital bed in the snow clad camp, his colonel wrapped carefully the tattered silken folds, dabbled and dyed in patriot blood, and sent it home to the Government of the State, with the message that the Old Regiment had never lost its colors but it had worn them out and wanted more. 555 19 "With its scores of companions grouped around the pillars, it hangs in the State House to-night" Miss Barton once said in an address. "In some noble hall," she continued, "have you your own like treasures gathered, and your hearts have heaved with grateful pride, and your eyes have grown dim with gathering mist as you beh[o][*e*]ld them. Oh, what a consecrated hall! At what a price it has been decorated! What granite could you rear that could speak like this? Could the gold and ivory of Solomon's Temple bear the price like it? Go there often men and women. Take your children there, and from the tattered rags teach them the worth of their country. Tell them that for every rent they can count, ten brave lives went out, ten mothers mourned for a son, ten orphans walked the streets, ten homes were desolate. And when all this is estimated, tell them that along side of each tattered remnant there should droop another fringed[*|*]in [*|in*] black, whose center should bear only the terrible word, -- 'Starved." An instance of the unspeakable gratitude and affection felt for Clara Barton at the battle of Fredericksburg lies in this touching recollection: "As I stood near the Eastern entrance, a man was taken in by his comrades, apparently fainting, and lain upon the floor. A piece of shell had struck him near the ankle. At a glance I discovered that an artery was severed, and he was rapidly sinking. The surgeons had nearly all been ordered into the city, and of the few who remained not one was obtainable. Making a tourniquet of my handkerchief, I succeeded in arresting the flow at the first trial, gave[,][*d*] the poor fellow some simulant and left him to rest and wait for better skill. "He chanced to lie near the passage leading from one room to another, and in the course of an hour[*,*] as I passed by, I felt my dress held firmly by some obstruction. Terrified lest it might have caught on the helpless foot of some broken limb, I turned to find this poor fainting man revived, and holding on with all his might to the skirt of my dress. He could not speak aloud, but the tears were sliding quietly down his brown, dust-covered cheeks. As I knelt to learn his wishes he hair, wiped his face and replied cheerfully that that was no matter. Did he want anything? -- 'No.' "An hour later as I passed, the same thing occurred, and I was again informed in faint whispers that I had saved his life. And so on, day after day, until he was removed, whenever I came within reach of him I could feel my dress slipping gently through his fingers, and as often as he dared, he arrested me with the same four little words, "You saved my life!' He never seemed to want anything, and never said anything but this. "In all the confusion, I neither learned his name nor told him mine. He was taken away to the hospital with the others, and the circumstances nearly forgotten. As I sat buried in the mass of accumulated correspondence, I heard a limping foot in my hall, and a rap at my door. I hastened to open it, and there, leaning upon his crutch, stood my hero of the four words, and before I could recover from my surprise sufficiently to speak[*|*] he broke the silence with -- 'You save my life!'" Still another glimpse of Miss Barton's day's work at Fredericksburg comes to us in a letter written in 1903 to Mrs. Margaret Hamilton, the President of the Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War. In this letter she refers to the death at Fredericksburg of Lieutenant Newcomb, a Harvard graduate who returned from extensive study in Europe to enlist. "I see that scene as clearly as on that December day of 1862. That noble, Christian soul passing away; the timid, stricken brother by his side, all of us repeating together the Scriptures and his saying to me, pitifully, before consciousness left him, "Please stay with me to the end, for Charlie never saw any one die." When I rose from the side of the couch where I had knelt for hours, until the last breath had faded, I wrung the blood from the bottom of my clothing before I could step, for the weight about my feet. Dreadful days, dear dear sister;-- how little those realize to-day, who cavil over the technicalities of field-work;1 one's heart grows sick to think of it." 1 At this point of the factional differences raised by the opposing wing of the red cross. Miss [M][*B*]arton dismisses Fredericksburg with the following retrospect: "The long autumn march down the mountain passes -- Falmouth and old Frederic?sburg with its pontoon bridge -- sharp-shooters -- deserted streets -- its rocky brow of frowning forts -- the day of bombardment, and the charge! The broad [glascee] [*glacis*] -- one vast Aceldama -- 'Where slaughter strewed the purple plain With torture and di[s][*s*]may, Till strength seemed weak, and valour vain, And grim and gas[s][*d*]tly with the slain, full [m][*d*] hero lay.' "The falling back -- the night retreat -- across the Rappahannock -- and Fredericksburg was [*narry a*] fought and lost!" Fredericksburg was unspeakable awful to the memory of Clara Barton. Yet afterward, in clear vision, she saw through it a mighty fact -- that it was this defeat that wrenched from President Lincoln and the American people the Emancipation Proclamation! By it, not only was the false self-confidence of the North dispelled forever, but there came out of it also the moral courage that was to turn defeat into victory. "And the white May blossoms of '63 fell over the glad faces[*,*] -- the swarthy brows, the toil worn hands[*,*] of 4,000,000 liberated slaves." "America," writes Miss Barton, "had freed a race." drawn, more confident as our latent strength develops and more hopeful now that we see more to hope for, as we realize that we are fighting the battles of the world, with the armies of freedom." Miss Barton was now to be officially recognized by appointment to the Army of the James under General Butler. Her department was to be the Department of Nurses of which she was to have the office of Superintendent under Surgeon McCormack, Chief Director of the Army of the James, stationed at City Point, Virginia. The government felt that this honor would not only show appreciation for the magnificent success of Miss Barton's field work on the firing lines, but it would also give her sufficient authority to enable her to execute her ideas. Dorothy Dix, another Worcester girl, was already General Superintendent of Nurses in the war and in many ways was a woman of Miss Barton's own kind, though Miss Dix's greater work for the race was the founding of the present system of Insane Retreats in American and Europe. But gratifying though this official approval of Miss Barton's work doubtless was, it pales into insignificance when set against the work itself, particularly her services on the field. "Discontent and gloom, with ever lessening ranks even of the recruiting forces," is her description of the winter of 1864. "The blossoms of May, however," she explained, "fell on a world-renowned army of veterans with hard, brown faces, sinews of steel, tread of iron, and hearts as soldierly, true and brave as the Old Guard of Napoleon!" she said in an address once delivered to the soldiers. "Uniforms still bright? Uniforms!! Heaven knows if you had any. It were well, if you had shoes. But the weary spring brought the great Captain (General Grant) to the east to fight it out on that line if it took all summer -- aye and all winter too." She could never be kept from the firing line. All of the appointments to all the offices in the world could not hold her back from personally going to the front. In May news came of the conflict between Grant and Lee in the wilderness of Virginia. From 5 to 7 occurred terrific fighting between the Confederate forces under General Lee and the Union troops under Major General George C. Meade, Major Lee, Major General Hancock (2d corps) Major General Warren (5th corps), Major General Burnside (9th), and General Sheridan with the cavalry. On the Union side, 2,246 were killed, 12,037 wounded, and 3,387 reported missing, a total of 17,666. From May 8 to May 20 there was almost continuous fighting from Alsop's ferry to the Fredericksburg pike. these engagements are known in history as the battle of Spottsylvania. Of the U[*n*]ion forces 3,725 were killed, 12,416 wounded, and 2.256 missing, total 18,399. By the 18th these terrible losses had reached the total of 36,065 on the Union side alone. May 8, the day the battle of Spottsylvania began, Miss Barton hastened to the front and took her position on the road ten miles from Fredericksburg. Conditions may be best realized by taking one experience and multiplying it into the thousands. Among the too few men alive to-day who remember the scenes of that time vividly is J. Brainerd Hall of the 57th Massachusetts. "It was at the battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, that I was wounded and reported killed," he says. "On the afternoon of May 6 when General Grant began to fall back towards Chancellorsvill[*e*], the 2d Corps Field Hospital was left between the lines. There were no ambulances and among many such groups was one of fifty men of which I was one, left for want of transportation facilities. All night we lay between the dead and the dying, most of us mortally wounded. We were kept busy through the night watching the shells as they passed over us, as well as some that did not but exploded near us and nearly buried us out of sight. Three times I was nearly suffocated and was snatched from a premature burial. "The next afternoon Captain Barton of the 57th Massachusetts, Clara Barton's cousin, who had been put in charge of the ambulance train, found me. Three days later[*,*] after being three times captured by Moseby's men, we reached Fredericksburg. As soon as I was made as comfortable as possible on the floor of the Southern M. E. Church, Captain Barton found Miss Barton, told her where I was and that I was thought to be mortally wounded. My exhausted condition at that time was such that I have only an indistinct recollection of the first aid Miss Barton gave me, but later when my father, who was with the Sanitary Commission arrived, I had many evidences of her watchful care of me. "Before Miss Barton arrived, another Angel of Mercy at Fredericksburg had tenderly washed my face for the first time in four days. Then when my father could find no bandages, she loosened her underskirt and cut it up for a bandage. Twenty-three years later learning who this good woman was I visited her at her home at the foot of Marie's Heights. It was Mrs. Martin Stevens, better known in Fredericksburg as Grandmother Stevens. "When Clara Barton came I was, with her help, moved from the crowded church to a private house where I remained until the railroad to Aquia Creek was rebuilt when Miss Barton secured me transportation. At Washington I was met by an old employee [*?*] of my grandmother, Senator Henry Wilson; he at once secured me a furlough and I went north on a stretcher hung over the seats in the passenger car." Thus it was five days before Sergeant Hall, so neglected that maggots filled his wounds, was treated. His report is but a single evidence of thousands whose sufferings were prolonged through lack of means of transportation. But being taken to Fredericksburg did not end the suffering of ever those that could go. For these and more recent multitudes waiting a Belle Plaine and Aquia Creek came a gigantic blockade. At Belle Plain on the left river bank Miss Barton faced this army of wounded men stalled in the glue-like mash of red clay covering many acres. Here they could not move, or be moved. She was dumbfounded at the deadlock of the stricken host and the utter in- bility of the Army Hospital corps or the great commissions to cope with the stranded thousands of wounded, dying alone like "unattended dogs." She determined to alarm Washington, for she utterly mistrusted the red-tape-stupidity of the officials[*,*] who were apparently helpless before the colossal [multitude mired and literally "stuck in the mud." 555 22 to ironclads, and the pretentious little turrets of the Monitor had peeped above the wave, till one continuous line of floating batteries circled the coast of Carolina. "And if ever in the night their thunders ceased the strangeness of the quiet startled the camping soldier from his uncertain slumber and seductive dream of home. "But had all this conquered Charleston? "Sumter had crumbled to a shapeless mass of stone and sand; Wagner was ours; and the swamp angel hurled fire and destruction through her deserted streets every hour of the day and night. "Still did she surrender? Was she humbled? Humbled! Prouder than ever she sat under her palmetto and rattlesnake flag, with her haughty face still turned to the sea. "While our weary armies fought on month after month, officers and men pouring out their blood like water for the holy cause which must not be abandoned, the great heart cry of the whole country went up. How long, oh, God, how long? "Suddenly a whole army is missing, A mighty army gone from sight, an army that fought battles above the clouds. Where can it be? Not at Atlanta? Not back at Chattanooga? The country is electrified with alternate hope and fear. "It may be that Charleston deigns now an anxious glance at armies as well as navies. "Hark! That strange mingled sound. A heavy tramp! A clashing of steel and a ringing rap at her western gate! One glance, and the proud dame recoils in horror and indignation, while far across the old time slave-wrought fields of Carolina swept the wild march of Sherman's men. "Did people call them 'Sherman's Boys'? They might have been boys when they left home, but they are men now, warriors, veterans. "Then when at length the rebel flag no longer waved from the parapets of Wagner, the first to stand within its conquered walls was that grand old regiment whose banner never fell, whose courage was coolest when the fire was hottest, whose step was firmest when the foe was nearest, and whose shout was ever clearest when it rose above the thunder of the enemy's guns, a child of your own raising, your friends and mine, and whose name I ever speak with the pride of a loyal woman and the tenderness of a sister, the 39th Illinois!" CHAPTER XVI CLARA BARTON ENTERS HER 14-YEAR-OLD NEPHEW STEPHEN INTO THE WAR NOVEMBER, 1863 BY March, 1862, Miss Barton's brother, Captain David Barton, had advanced to the post of quartermaster in the army at Hilton Head, South Carolina, near Charleston. About this time, his son Stephen, but 14 years old, demanded to go. To his Aunt Clara, he was dear and near as a child of her own would have been. He had been so from the time when before the sixties, in Oxford, he had learned to admire and follow her in her wild gallops in the saddle over green pastures and by winding walls of field stone. Little did either dream then of the use to which they would later put their ability to cling to the back of a speeding horse. In the fall of 1863, after having watched other boys enlist, a patriotic fervor possessed Stephen, which was probably only enhanced by his father's office. "I must go," he declared. "But you can't be mustered in at 15 years old, -- it is impossible," they told him. Even after he had vainly tried to enlist as a drummer boy he was not pacified. His father and Aunt Clara had offered their services to their country -- why not he? "If you want to go, I don't see why you shouldn't, and you shall," said Clara Barton, who was on a brief visit home at the time. Thereupon she took him with his father (who was on a short furlough), to D. H. Eames, Clothier, then on the site now occupied by the Riker-Jaynes drug store, Corner of Front and Main Streets, Worcester. Here they fitted him with a uniform. It was so small that it had to be made for him. It consisted of blue trousers, reinforced cavalry style,[*|*] and a natty blue jacket, with big brass buttons with eagles on them. A soldier's cap was added and he was a complete soldier, with a cavalry uniform, minus the yellow braid. "Never was I so proud in my life as when I walked out of Eames store with my Aunt Clara, in my new blue uniform," Stephen Barton said to me in 1912. Hilton Head Island, where Stephen's father was quartermaster, is known now as Port Royal, South Carolina. To find a place in the service before Charleston the boy returned there with his father and aunt in November, 1863, where a post was soon found for him in the Military Telegraph Department, a great and dangerous field for patriotic youths in the war of the Rebellion. This department of the service at Hilton Head Island was in charge of Captain L. F. Sheldon. Captain Sheldon and Captain Barton were members of an officers' mess, and Captain Sheldon, having seen Stephen riding around on the government horses in the keeping of the quartermaster's department, proposed to Captain Barton that he act as a mounted messenger, an aide then very much needed. The suggestion was at once acted upon and the next day Stephen was in the service with one horse for forenoons, and another for afternoons. In his leisure moments, the young lad learned the art of telegraphing, and in thirty days he was pronounced an operator and sent to Port Royal Ferry, a small picket station on the creek, dividing Beaufort island from the mainland. The operator at that point, one Montalvo, had been captured on a raid to tap the Confederate wires at Pocotaligo, S. C. No one else being available, Stephen was sent to take his place. The Confederate pickets were on the mainland, and the Federal pickets (a company of South Carolina colored troops) on the island. As the first night came on, thick and dark, a fierce storm drove upon the island, with vivid lightning and heavy thunder. Just then the Confederate pickets made a sharp attack under cover of the darkness and the storm. Bullets whistled about and the crack of rifles and the screech of balls added to the tumult. Stephen however stood by his555 16 well spread table. But as I had no table, I spread my cloth upon the ground, poured the coffee, and sent my driver to call the men to supper. "They came, a little slowly, and not all at once, but as I cordially assigned each to his place, I took my seat with them, and ate and chatted as if nothing had happened. "They were not talkative but respectful, ate well, and when through retreated in better order than they came. "I washed my dishes and was spending the last few moments by the broad bed of coals, for it was chilly, when I saw this whole body of men emerge from the darkness and come toward me. "As they approached I received them graciously, and invited them all to sit by the fire. "They halted, reminding one of a band of brigands, with the red glare of the embers lighting up their bare, brown faces, and confronted me in the silence, awaiting their spokesman, George who was, of course, their leader, and whose coal-black hair and eyes would well befit the chief of a banditti. As they waited, I again invited them to sit by the fire. "'No thank you,' George replied. "We didn't come to warm us, are used to the cold. But,' -- he went on slowly, as if it were a "They mounted and followed their leader and I followed them. "As early as 4 o'clock, they turned into a field, formed a circle, and prepared to camp. "I sent for the leader and inquired his purpose. With some surplus of English he assured me that: 'He wasn't going to drive in the night.' "I replied that he could drive till night, and he would find it for his interest to do so and I said no more. "By some course of reasoning he seemed to arrive at the same conclusion. For after a few minutes consultation with the men, who stood grouped about their wagons, cracking their long whips, as a kind of safety valve to their indignation, they drew their teams out into the road, and moved on at a speedy by no means retarded by their late adventure. And with full measure of human perversity they not only drove till night, but far into it. But as they were moving in the right direction, and working off their surplus energy, I did not interfere with them. "They evidently wanted to drive a little after they had been told to stop. But I was not disposed to gratify them, and about nine o'clock getting weary of their fun, they halted beside a field, and announced their intention of camping for the night. They had eight days dry rations of meat and bread in their feed boxes, upon which they expected to subsist cold, and with little cooking. "While they were busy with their animals, with the aid of my ambulance driver, a fire was kindled, (these were the days when fence rails suffered), and I prepared a supper, which I now think would grace a 555 11 The Battle of Chantilly came to its climax late in the afternoon of September 1, 1862, and after General Pope had ordered that his forces fall back towards Washington. Pope had reached Centreville, where he was joined by the corps of Franklin and Sumner. At the same time McDowell was ordered to move towards Fairfax Court House; Reno toward Chantilly; Hentzelman to a point between Centreville and Fairfax and in the rear of Reno. General Franklin was sent to the left and rear of McDowell; while Sigel and Porter went to the right of Sumner and the left of Hentzelman. As General Reno, who was to cover the withdrawal to Centreville, was nearing Chantilly he met Jackson, Ewell, and Hill just as a terrific Virginia thundershower broke over them. Hooker, McDowell, and Kearney came to the support of Reno and the severe fighting was only ended by darkness. Miss Barton describes the scene: foe was nearest, and whose shout was ever clearest when it rose above the thunder of the enemy's guns, a child of our own raising, your friends and mine, and whose name I ever speak with the pride of a loyal woman and the tenderness of a sister, the 39th Illinois!" CHAPTER XVI CLARA BARTON ENTERS HER 14-YEAR-OLD NEPHEW STEPHEN INTO THE WAR NOVEMBER, 1863 BY March, 1862, Miss Barton's brother, Captain David Barton, had advanced to the post of quartermaster in the army at Hilton Head, South Carolina, near Charleston. About this time, his son Stephen, but 14 years old, demanded to go. To his Aunt Clara, he was dear and near as a child of her own would have been. He had been so from the time when before the sixties, in Oxford, he had learned to admire and follow her in her wild gallops in the saddle over green pastures and by winding walls of field stone. Little did either dream then of the use to which they would later put their ability to cling to the back of a speeding horse. In the fall of 1863, after having watched other boys enlist, a patriotic fervor possessed Stephen, which was probably only enhanced by his father's office. "I must go," he declared. "But you can't be mustered in at 15 years old, -- it is impossible," they told him. Even after he had vainly tried to enlist as a drummer boy he was not pacified. His father and Aunt Clara had offered their services to their country -- why not he? "If you want to go, I don't see why you shouldn't, and you shall," said Clara Barton, who was on a brief visit home at the time. Thereupon she took him with his father (who was on a short furlough), to D. H. Eames, Clothier, then on the site now occupied by the Riker-Jaynes drug store, corner of Front and Main Streets, Worcester. Here they fitted him with a uniform. It was so small that it had to be made for him. It consisted of blue trousers, reenforced cavalry style, and a natty blue jacket, with big brass buttons with eagles on them. A soldier's cap was added and he was a complete soldier, with a cavalry uniform, minus the yellow braid. "Never was I so proud in my life as when I walked out of Eames store with my Aunt Clara, in my new blue uniform," Stephen Barton said to me in 1912. Hilton Head Island, where Stephen's father was quartermaster, is known now as Port Royal, South Carolina. To find a place in the service before Charleston the boy returned there with his father and aunt in November, 1863, where a post was soon found for him in the Military Telegraph Department, a great and dangerous field for patriotic youths in the war of the Rebellion. This department of the service at Hilton Head Island was in charge of Captain L. F. Sheldon. Captain Sheldon and Captain Barton were members of an officers' mess, and Captain Sheldon, having seen Stephen riding around on the government horses in the keeping of the quartermaster's department, proposed to Captain Barton that he act as a mounted messenger, an aide then very much needed. The suggestion was at once acted upon and the next day Stephen was in the service with one horse for forenoons, and another for afternoons. In his leisure moments, the young lad learned the art of telegraphing, and in thirty days he was pronounced an operator and sent to Port Royal Ferry, a small picket station on the creek, dividing Beaufort island from the mainland. The operator at that point, one Montalvo, had been captured on a raid to tap the Confederate wires at Pocotaligo, S. C. No one else being available, Stephen was sent to take his place. The Confederate pickets were on the mainland, and the Federal pickets (a company of South Carolina colored troops) on the island. As the first night came on, thick and dark, a fierce storm drove upon the island, with vivid lightning and heavy thunder. Just then the Confederate pickets made a sharp attack under cover of the darkness and the storm. Bullets whistled about and the crack of rifles and the screech of balls added to the tumult. Stephen, however, stood by his post at the telegraph in his tent. But suddenly, there broke upon the "click-click" of the instrument a darkey's frightened voice. "Bettah get out o' heah, Boss! Heah's de hoss, sah!" All bridled and saddled, kept ready by the boy's black brother for a moment's notice, the big Kentucky mare was snorting with dread, and pawing the ground. The colored groom, scared to the whites of his rolling eyes, could hardly hold the lunging animal. Without hesitation the boy picked up the instrument and leaped into the saddle. But the mare took the bit in her teeth and ran away! She ran in the right direction, however. Clattering along she fled from the firing, each shot frightening her headlong like the snap of a rawhide, each rifle ball like the dig of a spur. Stephen's tug at the reins was no more to her than the pull of a ratline to an ocean liner under full steam. She ran a long distance over the muddy roads, through tall groves of live oaks, festooned with moss and dripping with rain, to Beaufort's stockade, and into the sally-port, indeed right into the arms of sentries on guard. Though challenged to "halt," the boy could not stop. Finally, when he and the horse were stopped by the sentries, it was many minutes before he could find his tongue, and give an account of himself and of the attack on the exposed island, where he had taken the post of the captured operator[,] that very morning. Through such an initiation as this, Stephen Barton's courage grew stronger, and we find him serving with honor to himself and his country throughout the war. In the summer of 1864 he was transferred from the Department of the South to the Army of the Potomac in the service of the United States Military Telegraph and Railroad. He was at City Point and with the 9th and 6th Corps during the last six months of the siege of Petersburg and the final surrender in April, 1865.CHAPTER XIII ON THE MARCH THROUGH MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1862 AT the Battle of Antietam with its three days fighting, Clara Barton had remained on the battle field till fever came upon her. Even then she did not leave till her stores were exhausted. Dragging herself back to the train, she was carried to Washington where she remained till the fever left her. She could not walk. Could she have done so she would have been somewhere in action. When well enough to stand upon her feet, she made her way to Quartermaster-General Rucker. In the conversation between them she said that if she could have had five wagons she could also have had supplies for all the wounded at Antietam. At this General Rucker in tears declared: "You shall have enough next time!" It was not long till "next time." She tells it this way: "South Mountain and Antietam were fought, and I had returned to take breath. Then followed six weeks of rest to the army -- and unrest to the country. For in those days, every man felt himself fully competent to comprehend the situation,and dictate, if he were not called to direct. "Both armies rested in the valleys and their cavalry skirted the blue cliffs of Maryland heights. "And I too, in my littleness and weakness felt that something more remained for me to do, and asked for three army wagons, to proceed again to Harper's Ferry, where rumor predicted the forces would next engage. "A private message from - came to me, which said, 'They will fight again -- can you go? What transportation do you want?' I answered, 'Yes I can go, and I want three six-mule army wagons with good drivers.' "My request was twice granted. They gave me six and an ambulance. And in the sun and dust of a dry, hot, October day (October 23, 1862) I superintended the loading of them, and at two o'clock ordered my little train to move out on the same road I had traveled a few weeks earlier to Antietam. CHAPTER XX FOUR YEARS' SEARCH FOR MISSING MEN 1865-1869 THE close of the long hard struggle between the North and the South opened up a new line of service for Miss Barton. Every great battle of the Civil War records thousands of "missing" men. They may have been alive or they may have been prisoners; or that may have been on the roll of the "unknown dead." The Quartermaster of the Federal Army reported 359,528 deaths among the Northern troops during the war and 315,555 graves. Of these only 172,400 were identified. This means that 143,155 lay in graves unidentified and unknown. Added to this, the thousands of missing still alive and the many thousands of unlocated prisoners, rolled up a list unspeakably appalling. What had become of these men was a source of inquiry of tens of thousands of grief-stricken relatives. The matter lay heavy on Clara Barton's heart: "The white spring blossoms fall again, and still on marching armies, but with steps reversed, arms at rest, and the faces no longer toward the foe! And they fall again on the bowed heads, and the sorrowing hearts of the widows and orphans of the old Northern homes! On an army worn out, on sick and wounded men from hospital and barrack! On an army of skeletons dragged from prisons of which it shames humanity to tell! On the graves of an army of martyrs and on one solitary bier, flag draped, borne reverently through the land, with a mourning nation weeping in its train! "Yes, it is over. The calls are answered. The marches are ended, the nation saved. And with the glory of gladness in her eyes, the shekinah of victory on her brow, she covers her tear-stained face, and with grief-bowed head sits humbly in the ashes of her woe, to mourn her lost, to weep for her dead! "Victory, yes! but oh, the cost! The desolation, the woe, and the want, that spread over the whole land. 13,000 dead in one prison! 300,000 dead in one year! Dead everywhere! On every battle field they lie! In the crowded yards of every prison ground! In the dark ravines of the tangled forest! In the miry prison swamps, where the slimy serpent crawls by day, and the will-o-the-wisp dances at night! In the beds of the mighty rivers! Under the waves of the salt sea! In the drifting sands of the desert-islands! On the lonely picket line! And by the roadside, where the weary soldier lay down with his knapsack, and his gun, and his march of life was ended! There, in the strange beds they sleep, till the morning of the great reveille! "Facing the frowning battlements of Petersburg, Richmond and Charleston, and the flower of the Rebel Army, there I saw them fight and die. And there, with their Eastern comrades, their bones whiten in the sand. The fields of Virginia are rich with their blood." The fact the dear ones did not come home -- this was still all their families knew. Heart-breaking appeals from all over the nation kept flowing into Washington. Finally, early in March, President Lincoln, unable longer to stand the strain of this correspondence without doing anything, summoned Miss Barton. For over four awful years she had ministered to the soldiers' needs on the battle field. Now, as if that were not enough, the President and the country fell back on her to locate over 80,000 men. Of the gigantic task which confronted her, Miss Barton writes: "The heart-broken friends appealed to me for help, and by the aid of surviving comrades, I gained intelligence of the fate of nearly one-half the number of soldiers; I greatly fear there are some whose names stand to-day on the rolls against the dark word - Deserter - who were never faithless to their trust, who fell in the stern path of duty on the lonely picket line, perhaps, or wounded, and left in some tangled ravine to perish alone, under the waters in some dark night, or, crazed with fever, to lie in some tent or hut, or by the wayside, unknowing and unknown, with none to tell his fate, or save his honor. 'Alone with his tarnished name he sleeps - quiet and sweet.' "This may not be a fact, but I have stronger grounds for fear than those who have never searched the fate of soldiers on the field, or looked after the losses of an army, and in justice to our men, I am glad of every opportunity to name my apprehensions for it has long been my honest belief that, in spite of the best efforts, our army records show a larger number of deserters than we ever really had. "The very nature of the grounds over which our armies fought, their wildness, ruggedness, the unparalleled extent of territory and the great duration of time, all conspired to render it one of the most difficult of wars, of which to keep accurate and positive record." With the assassination of President Lincoln on the 14th of April, Miss Barton was left to face the great problem of the missing men alone. Not disheartened, however, she conceived a plan of action which she outlined for Congress as follows: "During the last year of the War, I became aware from letters received from various parts of the country, that a very large number of our soldiers had disappeared from view without leaving behind them any visible trace or record. Whether they had fallen in battle, were lingering in rebel prisons, or perished in some other way, was only to be conjectured. "In the then painfully excited state of the public mind any information respecting them would have afforded the most grateful relief to their families. "These considerations induced me in the spring of 1865 to endeavor to gather from our returning armies such information as individual soldiers could furnish of the fate of their missing comrades. "I assumed that where official records existed the officers of the Government would willingly furnish all the information required, and I, therefore, sought only to glean these barren fields which would be overlooked, from the scantiness of the return they would yield. "The fresh memory of each surviving veteran, and of every citizen who had watched the last hours of a dying soldier were the records555 55 In October Miss Barton had sufficiently recovered her strength to attempt the passage home and she set sail for the United States during the first week of the month, carrying with her as her deepest hope, "The founding of the Red Cross in America." CHAPTER XXX CONTINUED NERVOUS PROSTRATION IN AMERICA, 1873-1880. THROUGH all her long periods of illness Miss Barton never forgot her resolve to establish the National Red Cross in the United States. Yet while her mind and soul were inspired by the vision of what was to be, her body was weak. The crossing of the ocean proved too much for her, and shortly after her arrival in Washington she was forced to go to the hospital and then to Bryant House, where she spent the winter. By February, 1874 her active spirit planned her propaganda for the establishment of the American National Red Cross, and she aimed at a residence on Capitol Hill -- to be near the seat of affairs. But in the latter half of the following letter she discloses the warning hand of her physician. Beginning with putting herself in another's place as usual, she writes: "DEAREST POLLY: "It is so nice to hear that you run about in the snow. Do all you can of such nonsense without getting cold. It cannot harm you in any other way. Just rush out and gallop around, and have a good time generally. What is the use of living in the country if we can't get its freedom of action. Romp around over your back hills -- they are splendid, - but tie up the ears, don't try to breath through them. You are not a fish that you should take air in through your gills. I know my dear little girl how 'hard it is to forget them,' and their troubles but be kind to them, they will complain less. "Don't get cold from it more than you can help. Do anything to keep warm, especially the feet. Grandpa Barton used to say he did not believe a person ever took cold while their feet were really thoroughly warm. "I am so glad to know that your Papa David is a little better, if it only lasts. But you have had another storm since your last, at least we have, and the ground is covered to-day. Sleighs are out, but it is bright and warm like May -- only for the snow. . . . "Dr. Thompson came to make his first call, and then I had an opportunity to ask him if I could live on Capitol Hill. You should have heard his decided and determined 'NO. No, my child, you cannot! The thing is not to be thought of for a moment for you. Other people of different temperament and in full strength may live there with safety, but not you. So that is settled for all my aspirations. Dr. Thompson wants me to go and visit them in his beautiful home and stay as many weeks as I can content myself. He is as good as a brother -- and I think perhaps the most successful physician in Washington -- 'What am I going to do with myself now.' - "I neglected to say that the Dr. gave my limits where I could live in the city, viz.: from 7th to 16th sts. & from N. Y. Ave. [to]. [*only.*] These are my jail limits. . . ." On May 24th, word reached Miss Barton there that her sister Sally was dying. Ill thought she was, Miss Barton left Washington for Worcester in a Pullman car. Heartbroken, she reached Worcester the evening after her sister's death. She felt the wrench of loneliness that comes at the breaking of the home circle. Only David remained. The father and mother and oldest sister Dorothy had been dead some years. Stephen, her oldest brother, she had lost in 1865. "Worn out, sleepless, wretched and despairing," she wrote in 1886, "news came to me that the last sister, lovely as an angel, named for my mother, was fading in Worcester, Massachusetts. I was taken from my bed and rushed through palace cars to meet her at once. I reached there in the evening. She had gone in the morning. It was too much. Body and soul were stricken. Two years of utter prostration without power to walk or wearily to rise from my bed, or to sleep, eat or to see friends, write or read a letter, taught me deeper sympathy for human suffering than I had known before, or than can be known save by living it." Miss Barton remained for part of the year with Mrs. Vassal of Worcester and Mrs. Mary Stafford of Oxford, and then still, failing in health, went to a countryside home of the Learned family in "New England Village" -- (North Grafton), where Minnie Kupfer, her faithful companion in the Franco-Prussian War, was by her side and wrote of her as follows to Mary Barton: "WORCESTER, October 21, 1874. "MY DEAR MISS MAMIE: "I wish I could tell you that your dear Aunty is very much better, but I cannot say as much as that, there are many ups and downs yet, I can only hope and trust that she will grow stronger, perhaps so much the better if the progress is slow and sure. 'I send you some little drawings which your dear Aunty made. She takes up now and then the box of pencils which you took down from the upper room and uses them very skillfully as you may see. "Yours sincerely, 'M. W. KUPFER." A sketch of her own condition Miss Barton gives in another letter to the same niece: "DEAREST MAMIE: "They let me see no one at present - I am weak - night before last I had a chill which lasted ten hours without once letting up. I was cold and wet as a fish every minute of the time. "Give great love to all. "BYAS." In another note she added: "Want to see Dave and Julian so, so, so much. Had an ugly old chill yesterday -- wanted them both to come to me then --" These severe chills had now been prostrating her for many weeks, Mrs. Abby Sheldon having written of them as far back as July 28th: While Clara Barton was in London, Florence Nightingale, the world's other little sister to the Soldier, invalided also by her war experiences, was seeking the road to recovery. The place of Florence Nightingale in Miss Barton's affections, we may happily now recount from her own words. She points to Miss Nightingale and her assistants as they started to carry aid to the wounded in the Crimean War in 1854. "Begging leave in the name of humanity to go and render it, they marked," she says, "an era never before reached in the progress of the world; and when two weeks later Miss Nightingale with her forty faithful attendants sailed from the shores of England, it meant more for its future history than all the fleets of armies or navies, cannon and commissary, munitions of war and regiments of men that had sailed before her in that vast campaign! "This little unarmed pilgrim band of women that day struck a blow not only at the barbarities of war, but they laid the axe deep at the root of war itself. " The world knows by heart the story of Scutari and the Barrack Hospitals, and how under the intelligent direction and labors of the civil volunteer corps, disease lessened, gangrene disappeared, and pestilence fell away as the moths and mildew and poisonous vapors of night flee before the purifying rays of the morning sun, and how under the strong support of the military head and England's gracious queen, this work went on until the hospitals of the entire British armies in the Crimean, from awful depths of wretchedness, became types. "Did you see Florence Nightingale, when you wintered in London?" I asked Miss Barton in 1909. "No, I was shut in and so was Miss Nightingale. I think she was in a hospital." Miss Barton's work at the front in the Civil War had been done in entire ignorance of the great example that Florence Nightingale had set. "But the great example had been given," she said of Miss Nightingale later, "the slow but willing world had learned its lesson at the cost of its teacher. For when Florence Nightingale, covered with the praises and honors of the world, bending under the weight of England's gratitude, again sought her green Island home, it was to seek also a bed to painful invalidism from which she has never risen and probably never will. At such cost is the good work of the world accomplished." England, in later Governmental acts, was more appreciative of her war heroine than was the Government of America of hers, a fact unpleasantly reminding one of the platitude that "Republics are ungrateful." Popular veneration of Miss Nightingale was widespread. Illustrative of the people's love is a story told much at the time. "At the close of the Crimean War," it was said, "a dinner was given in London to a number of the more prominent officers. Talk turned upon the war and the exploits of its heroes. Lord Stratford suggested that it would be interesting to discover who, in the opinion of the company, was the person whose war-time career would longest be remembered in the history of England. "Each took a slip of paper on which the name of his choice was written and handed the slip to Lord Stratford, who read them and announced the name which had secured a majority of votes. When the little papers were unfolded, a strange thing became manifest - the vote was unanimous. Every man present had written the same name and that not a soldier, though they were loyal admirers of their most famous captains. Each slip bore the two words - Florence Nightingale!" But physical nature was to be as kind to Miss Barton in London as human nature was to Florence Nightingale, and England's early Spring revived her drooping spirits. With the warm sunshine and the growing green things and the flowers her spirits and strength rose again. She even, as she wrote, set out to go as far as Shakespeare's home at Stratford-on-Avon. "I can go about town and even once have been out of town but not for a long trip," she wrote rejoicingly. "I believe I shall be able to get over my difficulties without giving too much trouble. By getting over them, I mean measurably over them." Antoinette Margot was still faithfully by her side, and her niece Mamie Barton, now Mrs. [Mary] [*John*] Stafford of Oxford, [always] [*then*] a [favorite] [*guest*] of Miss Barton's, had spent the winter with her.it is bright and warm like May -- only for the snow. . . . "Dr. Thompson came to make his first call, and then I had an opportunity to ask him if I could live on Capitol Hill. You should have heard his decided and determined 'NO. No, my child, you cannot! The thing is not to be thought of for a moment for you. Other people of different temperament and in full strength may live there with safety, but not you. So that is settled for all my aspirations. Dr. Thompson wants me to go and visit them in his beautiful home and stay as many weeks as I can content myself. He is as good as a brother -- and I think perhaps the most successful physician in Washington -- 'What am I going to do with myself now.' -- "I neglected to say the the Dr. gave my limits where I could live in the city, viz.: from 7th to 16th sts. & from N. Y. Ave. to . These are my jail mimits. . . ." On May 24th, word reached Miss Barton there that her sister Sally was dying. Ill though she was, Miss Barton left Washington for Worcester in a Pullman car. Heartbroken, she reached Worcester the evening after her sister's death. She felt the wrench of loneliness that comes at the breaking of the home circle. Only David remained. The father and mother and oldest sister Dorothy had been dead some years. Stephen, her oldest brother, she had lost in 1865. "Worn out, sleepless, wretched and despairing," she wrote in 1886, "news came to me that the last sister, lovely as an angel, named for my mother, was fading in Worcester, Massachusetts. I was taken from my bed and rushed through palace cars to meet her at once. I reached there in the evening. She had gone in the morning. It was too much. Body and soul were stricken. Two years of utter prostration without power to walk or wearily to rise from my bed, or to sleep, eat or to see friends, write or read a letter, taught me deeper sympathy for human suffering than I had known before, or than can be known save by living it." Miss Barton remained for part of the year with Mrs. Vassal of Worcester and Mrs. Mary Stafford of Oxford, and then still, failing in health, went to a countryside home of the Learned family in "New England Village" -- (North Grafton), where Minnie Kupfer, her faithful companion in the Franco-Prussian War, was by her side and wrote of her as follows to Mary Barton: "WORCESTER, October 21, 1874. "MY DEAR MISS MAMIE: "I wish I could tell you that your dear Aunty is very much better, but I cannot say as much as that, there are many ups and downs yet, I can only hope and trust that she will grow stronger, perhaps so much the better if the progress low and sure. "I send you some little drawings which your dear Aunty made. She takes up now and then the box of pencils which you took down from the upper room and uses them very skillfully as you may see. "Yours sincerely, "M. W. KUPFER." A sketch of her own condition Miss Barton gives in another letter to the same niece: "DEAREST MAMIE: "They let me see no one at present -- I am weak -- night before last I had a chill which lasted ten hours without once letting up. I was cold and wet as a fish every minute of the time. "Give great love to all. "BYAS" In another note she added: "Want to see Dave and Julian so, so, so much. Had an ugly old chill yesterday -- wanted them both to come to me then --" These severe chills had now been prostrating her for many weeks, Mrs. Abby Sheldon having written of them as far back as July 28th: "WORCESTER, July 28, 1874. "Tues., P.M. "DEAR MAMIE: "Aunt Clara gained every day last week until Friday -- then she had another chill -- slight, but enough to keep her back Saturday and Monday. Yesterday she felt remarkably well, but this morning she had another touch of chill -- lighter than before, but a decided hindrance. If the Dr. could only manage these chills, I am sure she would very soon be on her feet. "I can see that she is better in many ways than she was a week ago, but she is still a sick woman. "Very sincerely yours, "ABBY SHELDON." That the sunniness of Miss Barton's disposition penetrated even into her sick room is shown in the following plea for company: "NEW ENGLAND VILLAGE, Mass., 1874- "DEAREST MAMIE: "I have only one minute in which to say pocket your popgun and come on. No one here ain't afraid of ye. "Bring your pictures and stay your stay. I meant to have written yesterday, but I did not. "All so so. Miss K. has a little bilious attack to-day and I ain't firstrate today it is all the weather. Here is the postman. "BYAS." On June 30th, 1875, she wrote: "DEAREST POLLY: "We go on just as usual, no interruptions, nothing to hinder and nothing to help. We are haying to-day, i.e. cutting the grass in the orchard and about the house. I don't go out to superintend it. "School is closed here for 12 weeks, and it is said the mills will stop July 1st. I do not know this surely. Our roses are in full bloom and cherries getting red. "This Village is just as nice as ever. Everyone is so kind and polite, and such freedom from gossip. Society has been well lead here in the past and low things put down unnoticed, instead of being carried about and retailed and laughed at. [*Send To Rev Wm E Barton*] 555 2 mentals of conscience and honor peculiar to their forefathers' faith. Sarah Stone, the mother of Clara Barton, is described as having been a beautiful girl. She was only seventeen when she married Stephen and before she was out of her twenties she had borne him four children. Mrs. Barton was preeminently the housewife -practical and full of common-sense, a fact which partly accounts for the marvelous balance of Clara's whole life. As in the mother of George Bancroft, the historian and Clara Barton's contemporary in Worcester County, these elements in Sarah Barton brought the unusual in her child down to earth and kept her from the eccentricities of genius. The mother was not a teacher in the book sense, but what Clara learned of her even in the details of cooking -and all the rest -was never lost. "My mother as good mothers will, endeavored to interest me in the ways and mysteries of housekeeping but complained,"" Clara is quoted as having said, "that among them all she had a poor chance, although it is my belief that her efforts have been as lasting and as much honored by me as any." In many greater ways her mother 's training helped her - when she had to be mother to an army and little sister to the soldier. For example, once, after Antietam, a dying soldier.asked for a custard pie - to remind him of home, -"one crinkly around the edges, please, and with just the marks of the finger prints." Her eyes swam but in a few moments Clara Barton herself in the crude commissary made a pie "crinkly at the edges" and scalloped wit.h "finger prints." A level bead was what,;Sarah Barton sought to give her daughter. Her matter-of-fact face, firm, penetrating with determination - bears out the part she played. Possibly she may have been too severe. No dolls were allowed her little girl, but as time went on, garden and flower beds, sewing, especially for the poor, and the care of pets about the barn and dooryard, became her pastimes. Should she share her candies or cake and forget a piece for herself, her mother, when one of the company offered to give theirs back, insisted that Clara must not be an "Indian Giver," and so taught her daughter to be "a good loser," a trait which she was to need sorely when apparent defeats were again and again to discourage her before a final victory. Other circumstances show that Mrs. Barton's looks did not belie a spirited determination. When a girl she had loved to ride mettlesome horses and had frequently been thrown and hurt, but persevered until she gained the mastery. Her fine saddle she kept Clara's day, and gave it to her in 1835. Sarah Barton's father was a patriot and faced death at the Battle of Bennington. In many ways the mother inherited his spirit. "Far and beyond it all," Clara Barton once wrote of her mother, "as the years sped on and the hands were still, shone the gleam of the far-sighted mother's watchfulness that neither toil could obscure nor mirth relax." CHAPTER III HER TEACHERS The atmosphere of Clara Barton's home was favorable to an early education. Her two sisters, Dorothy and Sally, were teachers, as was Stephen her brother. It is not surprising, then, that before she was three years old Clara had learned to read. As in the case of Edward Everett Hale, she was unable to remember when she could not read a story for herself. In spelling, arithmetic and geography, she had also made some progress. "I had no playmates," she once said, "but in effect six fathers and mothers. They were a family of school teachers. All took charge of me, all educated me, each according to personal taste. My two sisters were scholars and artistic and strove in that direction. My brothers were strong, ruddy, daring young men, full of life and business." In the winter of 1824, Clara was hoisted on Stephen's strong shoulders and carried a mile and a half to the school taught by Colonel Richard C. Stone. He was the first of a number of fine-grained personalities to come into her life and to leave a strong impress upon it. her schooling continued under him until 1829 when the fame of his teaching led him to establish the Oxford High School, in which Clara later enrolled. He was succeeded in the district school by Clara's brother, Stephen, in the winter, and by her sisters, in the summer. By the time Clara was eight years old her father had moved his family down the long hill to a 300 acre farm at its foot, extending "from Peaked Hill to Jim Brown's across the flowed swamp." The brook-like French River threaded the broad meadows. Between the intervale and the house, which was none other than the old Ebenezer Learned house, stood three barns and in these Clara climbed and jumped from the great beams, and played at hide and seek in the hay. To this new home came the four children of Captain Barton's nephew who had died, but Clara's sisters remained with her two brothers, who took charge of the little hillside farms about her birthplace - buying them for their own. This new home on the highway in North Oxford offorded opportunities for exciting out-door games and feats of daring. Here the woman who later was to cross the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg under fire and with skirt shot away, learned to cross the little winding French River on teetering logs at its most dangerous depths. Later, when this sport had become tame, she would go to the saw mill and ride out on the saw carriage twenty feet above the stream and be pulled back on the returning log. These, and other water sports, were new and fascinating and were enjoyed the year round. In summer the "circular" pond was the home of a beautiful flock of ducks, which by the first fall had so increased that wild "divers and dippers" paused in their southward migration to swoop down on the pond's calm surface. Hens, turkeys, dogs, geese, and cats were added to Clara's stock of pets and later three or four of the sleekest heifers which she learned to milk. This was an art which she never forgot and which she used to good advantage when food failed and she rode with the foragers in the Civil War. which Captain Barton renovated and which stands 555 3 I found myself on a strange horse, in a trooper's saddle, flying for life or liberty in front of pursuit, I blessed the baby lessons of the wild gallops among the beautiful colts." - "At five years old I rode wild horses like a little Mexican" she said in another retrospect. With three teachers of books in the persons of her two sisters and one brother it was well David followed his mother's practical mindedness and became his youngest sisters companion, racing her around in [all-] out-of door sports till she could run and ride like a boy. Thus the little frame toughened and she laid away energy to meet many sicknesses, among them an almost fatal attack of blood dysentery and convulsions, which came the very year that she began to ride. CHAPTER IV A NURSE AT ELEVEN 1832-1833 In 1832, when Clara was eleven her schooling was interrupted by an accident that approached the tragic in its consequences though it disclosed the talent that later was to make her the greatest of war nurses and the founder of the Red Cross in America. In the group of new buildings on the 300-acre farm occurred a barn raising. The high rafters had to be fixed to the ridge pole. David, the athlete of the community, and unexcelled in taking a dare, climbed to the peak. A board broke under his feet, precipitating him to the ground, where his body struck heavy timbers. Seriously injured by a blow on his head, he lingered between life and death for two years. Leeches, setons, counter-irritating blisters, and blood letting failed to allay the fever. Clara felt herself chained to him by an unspeakable and uncontrollable impulse to nurse. She became so skilled that her small fingers were chosen by the doctor to apply the leeches and the plasters, and to give the prescribed medicines, hour after hour. The mental effect on the patient of her faith and unfailing presence was miraculous. "In his nervous wretchedness he clung to me. I could not be taken away from him except by compulsion," she later remarked. Yet he remained a "sleepless, nervous, cold dyspeptic - the mere wreck of his former self." Bending over him, hurrying to obey his every impulse, Clara locked herself up with the patient for two years. Referring to this period Miss Barton once said: "For two years I only left his bedside for one half day. I almost forgot that there was an outside to the house." In 1834 David was given the new system of treatment of steam baths which in time proved successful. Under it he completely recovered. It was almost, however, at the sacrifice of Clara's life. The serious strain of the long confinement and the continuous care of the patient seriously impaired her health and it was some time before she regained her normal strength. But the experience had brought out the gift that was in her; it was almost prophetic of things to come. CHAPTER V "I REMEMBER NOTHING BUT FEAR" "IN the earlier years of my life, I remember nothing but fear," Miss Barton confessed in 1907. Fear would seem to be a most impossible characteristic of one destined to play the part that Miss Barton later did on the firing lines of human tragedy. Had it not been for her mother's training and her father's and brother's interest in her out of doors, Clara would doubtless have drooped away for, however paradoxical it may seem, fear never ceased to haunt her in one way or another. The courage that she later attained was due not to its absence, but to the fact that she had overcome it. She had a too vivid imagination. At four years old it peopled the clouds with angry rams and once when she was left alone it threw her screaming in hysterics to the floor. In 1824, to face her first teacher alone overcame her with a convulsion of fear that the teacher relieved with difficulty. But with wise personal care her delicate sensibilities and her fears and embarrassments were thoughtfully shielded. But her supersensitiveness did not leave her. So tender-hearted was she that even when she was ten the butchering of an ox made her faint and gave her a distaste for eating meat that stayed with her all her life. Extreme fear and "chicken-heartedness" - seemingly impossible endowments for a soul that was to face more bloody battlefields than any of her sex since the world began - instead of decreasing, grew upon her. Silence was another sign of her panic of fear. Often rather than speak she suffered silently. She early betrayed such bashfulness before strangers and such shrinking timidity that it was painful to herself and to others. "To this day," she said in 1907, "I would rather stand behind the lines of artillery at Antietam or cross the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg than he expected to preside at a public meeting." From eleven to thirteen, while she was buried in her nursing, her family forgot the physical effects upon her until, at David's recovery, they woke to find her growth arrested at what should have been the growing age. "So little!" This was the epithet applied to her. She had not grown an inch in two years nor increased a pound! She was but five feet three inches tall - nor was she ever taller. David's recovery left her without enough to do. The seclusion had made her a hermit - more unused to society than ever - "afraid," she admitted, "of giving trouble by letting my wants be known, thereby giving the very pain I sought to avoid." Even the loss of a pair of gloves she concealed in silence, preferring to suffer and stay home than to speak. Sally, to divert her sister's mind from herself, turned her attention to Scotch and English poetry - particularly Scott's romantic poems. The love of poetry, thus early fostered, had a great effect upon her one of the company must not be an "Indian Giver," and so taught her daughter to be "a good loser," a trait which she was to need sorely when apparent defeats were again and again to discourage her before a final victory. Other circumstances show that Mrs. Barton's looks did not belie a spirited determination. When a girl she had loved to ride mettlesome horses and had frequently been thrown and hurt but persevered until she gained the mastery. Her fine saddle she kept until Clara's day, and gave it to here in 1835. Sarah Barton's father was a patriot and faced death at the Battle of Bennington. In many ways the mother inherited his spirit. "Far and beyond it all," Clara Barton once wrote of her mother, "as the years sped on and the hands were still, shone the gleam of the far-sighted mother's watchfulness that neither toil could obscure nor mirth relax." CHAPTER III HER TEACHERS THE atmosphere of Clara Barton's home was favorable to an early education. Her two sisters, Dorothy and Sally, were teachers, as was Stephen her brother. It is not surprising, then, that before she was three years old Clara had learned to read. As in the case of Edward Everett Hale, she was unable to remember when she could not read a story for herself. In spelling, arithmetic and geography, she had also some progress. "I had no playmates," she once said, "but in effect six fathers and mothers. They were a family of school teachers. All took charge of me, all educated me, each according to personal taste. My two sisters were scholars and artistic and strove in that direction. My brothers were strong, ruddy, daring young men, full of life and business." In the winter of 1824, Clara was hoisted on Stephen's strong shoulders and carried a mile and a half to the school taught by Colonel Richard C. Stone. He was the first of a number of fine-grained personalities to come into her life and to leave a strong impress upon it. Her schooling continued under him until 1829 when the fame of his teaching led him to establish the Oxford High School, in which Clara later enrolled. He was succeeded in the district school by Clara's brother, Stephen, in the winter, and by her sisters, in the summer. By the time Clara was eight years old her father had moved his family down the long hill to a 300 acre farm at its foot, extending "from Peaked Hill to Jim Brown's across the flowed swamp." The brook-like French River threaded the broad meadows. Between the intervale and the house, which was none other than the old Ebenezer Learned house, stood three barns and in these Clara climbed and jumped from the great beams, and played at hide and seek in the hay. To this new home came the four children of Captain Barton's nephew who had died, but Clara's sisters remained with her two brothers, who took charge of the little hillside farms about her birthplace -- buying them for their own. This new home on the highway in North Oxford offorded opportunities for exciting out-door games and feats of daring. Here the woman who later was to cross the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg under fire and with skirt shot away, learned to cross the winding French River on teetering logs at its most dangerous depths. Later, when this sport had become tame, she would to to the saw mill and ride out on the saw carriage twenty feet above the stream and be pulled back on the returning log. These, and other water sports, were new and fascinating and were enjoyed the year round. In summer the "circular" pond was the home of a beautiful flock of ducks, which by the first fall had so increased that wild "divers and dippers" paused in their southward migration to swoop down on the pond's calm surface. Hens, turkeys, dogs, geese, and cats were added to Clara's stock of pets and later three or four of the sleekest heifers which she learned to milk. This was an art which she never forgot and which she used to good advantage when food failed and she rode with the foragers in the Civil War. The old house which Captain Barton renovated and which stands to-day much as it did then, claimed its share of the little daughter's attention. She learned to grind and mix paints and apply them as well as the painter; also to match, trim and hang paper; and she had a hand in brightening the walls of every room. Further down the street, on the southeast corner, her father later built a smaller house which, however, failed to equal the big Learned house in her affections. By 1832 her brothers had been so successful that they, too, sold their hill farms and followed their father to the French River at the foot of the mile long hill where they eventually erected homes across the street from the Learned house. David, with Stephen, bought the saw mill, and erected new dams and a new grain mill. Stephen married, as also did Sally, and both settled in the neighborhood. Dorothy remained single. The schools that Clara now attended were imperfect. She missed the fine instruction of Colonel Stone, and Dorothy, who had tutored her in days gone by, was unable, through ill health, to help her. Sally was her one instructor, but self-education was still the prime note of the Barton household. Captain Barton, through "Black Stallion" the kind of the stable, had introduced blooded stock on his large grassy farm lands. Nervous, high-bred "Highlander, Virginian, and Morgan" colts raced about the fields. They added a new verve to farm life. "David," Clara Barton wrote in "The Story of My Childhood" "was the Buffalo Bill of the surrounding county. It was his delight to take me, a little girl five years old, to the field, seize a couple of those beautiful grazing creatures, broken only to the halter and bit, and gathering the reins of both bridles in one hand, throw me upon th back of one colt, spring upon the other himself, and catching me by one foot, and bidding me 'cling fast to the mane,' gallop away over field and fen, in and out among other colts, in wild glee like ourselves. They were merry rides we took. This was my riding school. I never had any other, but it served me well. To this day my seat on a saddle or on the back of a horse is as secure and tireless as in a rocking chair and far more pleasurable. Sometimes in later years when small fingers were plasters, and to give the prescribed medicines, hour after hour. The mental effort on the patient of her faith and unfailing presence was miraculous. "In his nervous wretchedness he clung to me. I could not be taken away from him except by compulsion," she later remarked. Yet he remained a "sleepless, nervous, cold dyspeptic -- the mere wreck of his former self." Bending over him, hurrying to obey his every impulse, Clara locked herself up with the patient for two years. Referring to this period Miss Barton once said: "For two years I only left his bedside for one half day. I almost forgot that there was an outside to the house." In 1834 David was given the new system of treatment of steam baths which in time proved successful. Under it he completely recovered. It was almost, however, at the sacrifice of Clara's life. The serious strain of the long confinement and the continuous care of the patient seriously impaired her health and it was some time before she regained her normal strength. But the experience had broug[*/h*]t out the gift that was in her; it was almost prophetic of things to come. CHAPTER V "I REMEMBER NOTHING BUT FEAR" "In the earlier years of my life, I remember nothing but fear," Miss Barton confessed in 1907. Fear would seem to be a most impossible characteristic of one destined to play the part that Miss Barton later did on the firing lines of human tragedy. Had it not been for her mother's training and her father's and brother's interest in her out of doors, Clara would doubtless have drooped away for, however paradoxical it may seem, fear never ceased to haunt her in one way or another. The courage that she later attained was due not to its absence, but to the fact that she had overcome it. She had a too vivid imagination. At four years old it peopled the clouds with angry rams and once when she was left along it threw her screaming in hysterics to the floor. In 1824, to face her first teacher alone overcame her with a convulsion of fear that the teacher relieved with difficulty. But with wise personal care her delicate sensibilities and her fears and embarrassments were thoughtfully shielded. But her supersensitiveness did not leave her. So tender-hearted was she that even when she was ten the butchering of an ox made her faint and gave her a distaste for eating meat that stayed with her all her life. Extreme fear and "chicken-heartedness" -- seemingly impossible endowments for a soul that was to face more bloody battlefields than any of her sex since the world began -- instead of decreasing, grew upon her. Silence was another sign of her panic of fear. Often rather than speak she suffered silently. She early betrayed such bashfulness before strangers and such shrinking timidity that it was painful to herself and to others. "To this day," she said in 1907, "I would rather stand behind the lines of artillery at Antietam or cross the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg than be expected to preside at a public meeting." From eleven to thirteen, while she was buried in her nursing, her family forgot the physical effects upon her until, at David's recovery, they woke to find her growth arrested at what should have been the growing age. "So little!" This was the epithet applied to her. She had not grown an inch in two years nor increased a pound! She was but five feet three inches tall -- nor was she ever taller. David's recovery left her without enough to do. The seclusion had made her a hermit -- more unused to society than ever -- "afraid," she admitted, "of giving trouble by letting my wants be known, thereby giving the very pain I sought to avoid." Even the loss of a pair of gloves she concealed in silence, preferring to suffer and stay home than to speak. Sally, to divert her sister's mind from herself, turned her attention to Scotch and English poetry -- particularly Scott's romantic poems. The love of poetry, thus early fostered, had a great effect upon her throughout her life. Her brothers and father wisely continued her interest in horseback riding. In 1831 her heart was overjoyed at the present of a fine horse, a brown Morgan named Billy. His slim legs and curly mane and tail made him a much admired animal. He could change from single foot to a rock, pace, or trot. She could ride so fast that she outdistanced every boy in the neighborhood. With two girls, each on high steppers, the three covered the stretches in the beautiful hill country to Worcester and back in short time. They ended the year in a dashing run away on Thanksgiving Day in a blinding snow storm, through which, however, they all kept their saddles. With the hope of curing her of sensitiveness and bashfulness before strangers, Captain Barton sent Clara in 1829 to the boarding school conducted by her former teacher, Colonel Stone. But she soon became homesick in the huge halls of the academy and among the one hundred and fifty strange girls, and finally her health suffered to such a degree that she had to be taken home. Colonel Stone was kind and thoughtful to the timid, lisping girl, but it was of no avail. "My timid sensitiveness," Miss Barton said in recalling these days, "must have given great annoyance to my friends. If I could have gotten over it, it would have given far less annoyance and trouble to myself all through life." This supersensiteveness that threatened to undo her extended to her conscience. Skating was denied girls. But one clear starlit Sunday morning the spirit of an adventurer came upon her and in response to a whistle of the boys she climbed out of the window dressed for a lark on the ice. She was drawn about at the end of a comforter. Then there came rough ice and a fall. She was dragged cruelly and scraped her knee till it bled profusely. She secreted it for two days till, alleging a pretext of tumbling and falling, she told of the hurt member and had it dressed. But she confessed: "My mental suffering far exceeded by physical. I hated myself and failed to sleep and eat." Her mother, always the balance wheel of the family, upon seeing that her three weeks of mental suffering were far out of proportion to the fault, told her soothingly that she did not think it the worst thing that could have been done; that other little girls had done as badly. She recalled, in fact, that she herself had disobeyed when she rode the wild colt and was thrown and hurt.555 4 "But God will punish me awfully," Clara cried. "It is not so much God that punishes us, my child," said Stephen Barton taking her on his knee. "We punish ourselves." This lesson Clara Barton never forgot, relating it in September, 1909, as freshly as if it had all happened yesterday. Stephen, her brother-teacher, taught her mathematics and, with this home instruction even after all the time lost in nursing, she was far ahead of many of the schools of the vicinity. In 1834 Lucian Burleigh, who taught nearby and was a man of superior ability, became her tutor, giving her the personal attention which made the education of the day of crude externals so effective. History, language, composition, and English literature were studied. In 1835 an even more able teacher, Jonathan Dana, took the school of sixty pupils to the south of North Oxford. Clara at once enrolled under him. Philosophy, chemistry, and Latin were the more advanced studies which she now took up. After school closed there asserted itself the practical mindedness of her nature which refused to let her remain idle. Idleness was torture to her then and forever after, and meant worry and ultimate breakdown. With work and sacrifice present she could live. Without them life was consumed by that oversensitiveness with which it was so charged. During vacation it was her ambition to weave cloth in the satinet mills of her two brothers. But Clara's mother objected and had it not been for Stephen, who saw more clearly Clara's need of a vent for her restlessness and pent-up energies, it is probable she would not have been permitted this outlet. In answer to his mother he said: "I wonder if we are not drawing the lines too tightly on my little sister? A few years ago she wanted to learn to dance; this was denied as frivolous and improper; now she asks to work. She took up a work herself and did it two years, a work that no child would be expected to do and did it well. She is certainly a properly behaved little girl, and I cannot understand why we should trouble ourselves or her so much concerning the proprieties of her life. For my part I am willing to arrange a pair of looms for her and let her try." Stephen and Clara had their way. On a raised platform before a loom, not because she had to but because she loved it, "like a queen whose foot presses the throne," she mastered the flying shuttle. It seems worth while here, perhaps, to correct a misconception. It has been said that from her earnings in the mill Clara paid off the mortgage on her father's farm. This is not so. In the first place, there had never been a mortgage on it, and in the second place, Clara had only worked about two weeks in the mills when they burned down. Once in commenting on the report that for years she had been employed in a cloth factory Miss Barton said: "Nothing to-day could gratify me more than to know that I had been one of those self-reliant intelligent American girls like our sweet poetess, Lucy Larcom, and had stood like her before the power looms in the early progress of the manufactures of our great and matchless country." Nevertheless despite the short duration of her stay, it was in these factories housing the second spindle and power looms in America that were set at work those influences which were to take her out of herself and to uproot her sensitiveness. Here concern for others, absorption in a worthy task, and control under pressure began to govern her life. CHAPTER VI EIGHTEEN YEARS OF TEACHING AFTER the terms of advanced preparatory study under Jonathan Dana, and the summer experience in the factory, came the winter of 1836. The mother of Clara Barton faced the question that puzzles every parent: What shall the child do? She asked this question of the phrenologist, L. W. Fowler, who was then staying at the Barton home, where the latchstring was always out for visiting lecturers, literary men, and clergymen. The matter-of-fact mother, overheard by Clara, who was sick with the mumps and lying on a lounge listening to it all, detailed her faults of timidity, bashfulness, and aggravating silence which sometimes ended, when she was questioned, in a burst of tears. "The sensitive nature will always remain," declare[*d*] the wise student of child life, who was really a psychologist. "She will never assert herself for herself; she will suffer wrong first. But for others she will be perfectly fearless. Throw responsibility upon her, give her a school to teach." This advice was at once followed. At fifteen she took the family role and became a teacher. For nearly twenty years her sensitive nature was subjected to the discipline of that profession and her energies controlled by it. District No. 9, up in "Texas village," a mile or so away from her former home in North Oxford, was her first school. It was in May, 1836, that, after passing the teachers' examination with a mark of excellent, she "put down her skirts and put up her hair," and walked to the little schoolhouse. In 1914 I visited one of the forty pupils of this first school of Clara's - Mrs. Shumway Davis, who still lives near the Barton homestead. Mrs. Davis, who is eighty-four, was only nine years younger than her teacher. She recalls how Clara Barton at once won her class by taking them into her confidence and drawing them out. Even in the opening Scripture in place of the Puritan dictatorial sternness, she broke the pedagogic ice by having the children read in turn. Then she asked them what the Savior meant in the verses in the Sermon on the Mount. Social, friendly, and human, she joined with them in the playground till her athletic prowess amazed the four "roughies" of the school who at once gave her their right hand of fellowship. Instead of being locked out as the previous teacher had been she "locked" herself "in" the hearts of every boy and girl. It made not only men and women of them, but more -- it made them patriots. "Their blood crimsoned the hardest fields," Miss Barton once said recalling how many of this first class had served their country in time of crisis. "They respected me because I was as strong as they were," the child teacher wrote in a school diary. Child that she was, she lately reflected she did not know 555 5 they have now. Every girl should bless these pioneer women in her daily prayers. I got all the institute could give me. While there my mother passed to the better land. My grand old father was claimed by his married children, and I was free to take my course in the world, and seek its work." At Clinton Liberal Institute she met Mary Norton. Miss Norton recognized her friend's genius for teaching and in 1853 prevailed upon her to accept a post in the New Jersey town of [Heights] [*Hightstown ?*] Some ten miles from [Heights] [*Hightstown ?*] was Bordentown. Rumors of the extraordinary ability of the little woman to conquer schools where strongmen had been driven out by unruly pupils radiated wherever Clara Barton went, and from [Heights] [*Hights*] news of her power came to Bordentown. Prejudices existed there against public schools. Some were too denominational in religion to be broad enough to desire them; others too proud to send their children to the public school which had often been styles "free schools for paupers." Whenever the public school system had been tried among a people divided by sectarian quarrels, the citizens themselves split over the question, while the children, catching their lack of respect for a school system, broke up the sessions and ran wild on the streets. Miss Barton saw the need in Bordentown and she went to meet it. "A public school is impossible," she was told. "It has failed every time." "Give me three months [*trial ?*] and[*I*] will teach free," was her challenge. Never was there a campaign against odds but Clara Barton answered it with this argument of action. She did not demand that something should be done; she demonstrated that it could be. She took a tumbled-down unoccupied building with six scholars. In five weeks the building was too small. Each of the six scholars had become a living advertisement. Emerson has said that it is not the school that educates -- it is the schoolmate. Clara Barton recognized this truth and sought to reach out through these first pupils. She studied each child individually even as Fowler had studied her. In this was the magic of her success. Something of the way in which she was regarded is shown by the following letter from a member of this first class - George Ferguson, now of Brazil, Indiana. "My memories of Miss Barton are certainly the most pleasant. She was kind to her students, pleasant in her work, gentle in disposition and took an interest in us all. We loved her almost as much as we loved our mothers, and it was not without pangs of regret that we saw her give up her pupils and school work on account of failing health. She taught school for several years in Bordentown and showed her charitable spirit by giving up her private school to establish the first public school in the state. I don't think she ever had a pupil but that loved her. Bad boys interested her as much as the good ones. The first letter I ever wrote in my life I wrote to Miss Barton. When she went away on her vacation she asked her students to write to her. We all did, and she answered all with personal letters. I can remember myself writing that letter as if it were only yesterday, and I was mighty proud of the answer I received. Since then I have been corresponding with her and have letters from her which I prize highly." At the end of five weeks her personality had built up the school so that it was rapidly increasing to six hundred, each scholar having brought on an average one hundred others. A regular salary was now offered and Miss Barton engaged as teacher with Miss Fannie Childs as associate.1 1 Now Mrs. Vassal[s] of Worcester, daughter-in-law of Clara Barton's sister, Sally Barton Vassal. Mrs. Vassal was near Miss Barton in Washington during the war period, and the many letters in her possession, growing out of her early and long acquaintance with her, compose one of the most important commentaries on Miss Barton's life in existence. By 1885 the citizens of Bordentown had completely changed their minds about public schools. They had erected a new building with eight rooms in it and boasted continually of the well-disciplined system inaugurated by Miss Barton out of nothing but opposition and rowdyism. Even the "first families" sent their children to the once much condemned public school, preferring the superior teachers there to those of doubtful ability in the private institutions. There exists in Miss Barton's own words a description of this Bordentown chapter of her life that is at once so interesting and vivid that it warrants reproduction here even though it restates much that has already been said. "Something drew me tot he state of New Jersey. I was a teacher dyed in the wool, and soon discovered that this good state had no public school, that a part of its children were in private schools, the remainder in the streets. The people said they were not paupers, and would not have their children schooled at public expense, would not send them to 'pauper schools.' I considered this state of things and decided to take upon me the opening of public schools generally in that state as well as the eyes of the people. I went to Bordentown, found two hundred children in school, four hundred on the street. They had public school laws, but not enforced; perfectly inoperative. All seemed afraid to undertake it. Friends, I believe every law once made should either be enforced and made operative, or annulled and be no longer a law. The respect of laws, the welfare of the community and the safety of people and property demanded this. "I found the trustees were nominal officials, arranged with them, apprehensive as they were, and had them officially announce the opening of a public school in the village of Bordentown to be taught by a lady at her own expense[*,*] if preferred. A house was found and opened, and one bright morning I found myself there with six bright renegade boys (not a girl could be trusted with me) and the public school was commenced. I understood boys and school teaching [as] [*was*] my trade. We got on well and at the end of twelve months I stood in a new schoolhouse building, which had been built for me at the cost of $4000 and my six pupils had grown to six hundred, a bright, loving, faithful phalanx among whom never a punishment had been administered. At length broken in strength, with a complete loss of voice, I was compelled to leave them. That, too, was a hard good-by to make. A few years later I found them all over the southern fields standing firmly behind their muskets or lying in their blood; but every one remembered. They remember to-day, those pupils; gray-loom, not because she had to but because she loved it, "like a queen whose foot presses the throne," she mastered the flying shuttle. It seems worth while here, perhaps, to correct a misconception. It has been said that from her earnings in the mill Clara paid off the mortgage on her father's farm. This is not so. In the first place, there had never been a mortgage on it, and in the second place, Clara had only worked about two weeks in the mills when they burned down. Once in commenting on the report that for years she had been employed in a cloth factory Miss Barton said: "Nothing to-day could gratify me more than to know that I had been one of those self-reliant intelligent American girls like our sweet poetess, Lucy Larcom, and had stood like her before the power looms in the early progress of the manufactures of our great and matchless country." Nevertheless despite the short duration of her stay, it was in these factories housing the second spindle and power looms in America that were set at work those influences which were to take her out of herself and to uproot her sensitiveness. Here concern for others, absorption in a worthy task, and control under pressure began to govern her life. CHAPTER VI EIGHTEEN YEARS OF TEACHING After the terms of advanced preparatory study under Jonathan Dana, and the summer experience in the factory, came the winter of 1836. The mother of Clara Barton faced the question that puzzles every parent: What shall the child do? She asked this question of the phrenologist, L. W. Fowler, who was then staying at the Barton home, where the latchstring was always out for visiting lecturers, literary men, and clergymen. The matter- of-fact mother, overheard by Clara, who was sick with the mumps and lying on a lounge listening to it all, detailed her faults of timidity, bashfulness, and aggravating silence which sometimes ended, when she was questioned, in a burst of tears. "The sensitive nature will always remain," declared the wise student of child life, who was really a psychologist. "She will never assert herself for herself; she will suffer wrong first. But for others she will be perfectly fearless. Throw responsibility upon her, give her a school to teach." This advice was at once followed. At fifteen she took the family role and became a teacher. For nearly twenty years her sensitive nature was subjected to the discipline of that profession and her energies controlled by it. District No. 9, up in "Texas village," a mile or so away from her former home in North Oxford, was her first school. It was in May, 1836, that, after passing the teachers' examination with a mark of excellent, she "put down her skirts and put up her hair," and walked to the little schoolhouse. In 1914 I visited one of the forty pupils of this first school of Clara's - Mrs. Shumway Davis, who still lives near the Barton homestead. Mrs. Davis, who is eighty-four, was only nine years younger than her teacher. She recalls how Clara Barton at once won her class by taking them into her confidence and drawing them out. Even in the opening Scripture in place of the Puritan dictatorial sternness, she broke the pedagogic ice by having the children read in turn. Then she asked them what the Savior meant in the verses in the Sermon on the Mount. Social, friendly, and human, she joined with them in the playground till her athletic prowess amazed the four "roughies" of the school who at once gave her their right hand of fellowship. Instead of being locked out as the previous teacher had been she "locked" herself "in" the hearts of every boy and girl. It made not only men and women of them, but more - it made them patriots. "Their blood crimsoned the hardest fields," Miss Barton once said recalling how many of this first class had served their country in time of crisis. "They respected me because I was as strong as they were," the child teacher wrote in a school diary. Child that she was, she lately reflected she did not know that the severest test of discipline is its absence. All this time her constitution was gradually changing from that of a weak girl to that of a robust young woman with tremendous powers of endurance. The bracing New England climate, the out-door activities - riding in summer, the gardens, and the hay fields, sleighing and coasting in winter - engaged her attention when not in the schoolroom, and made her glow with health. As an indication of her strength it is rumored that she could swing a keg of sweet cider to her shoulder as easily as any youth. Her success with her first school led to a call to "Millward" - a Charlton school - the next summer. Then followed sixteen years of continuous teaching both summer and winter, ten of which were spent in a school which she founded in North Oxford. Speaking of this interesting experience Miss Barton said in 1886: "North Oxford, where my brothers lived, had become by this time a prosperous little place. The humming factories confined, and the quick toned bells set free, hundreds of children and young people every day, and I was requested to plan and draft a schoolhouse, and take charge of the schooling of these operatives. I did so, and for ten consecutive years I stood with them in the crowded schoolroom, summer and winter, without change or relaxation. I saw my little lisping boys become overseers, and my stalwart overseers become business men and themselves owners of mills. My little girls grew to be teachers and mothers of families." In addition to teaching Clara found time to act as Stephen's bookkeeper in the mill and to read and study extensively. In 1852 her teaching and her own independent study had so well trained her in the more advanced courses that she decided to complete her education by enrolling in Clinton Liberal Institute in New York. "I broke away from my long shackles," she said in 1886, recalling this important change in her life, "came to Clinton, Oneida County, and entered a seminary as a pupil for graduation. There were then no colleges for girls. Glorious Susan Anthony, Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Blackwell had no labored and succeeded as now of Brazil, Indiana. My memories the most pleasant. She was kind to her students, pleasant in her work, gentle in disposition and took an interest in us all. We loved her almost as much as we loved our mothers, and it was not without pangs of regret that we saw her give up her pupils and school work on account of failing health. She taught school for several years in Bordentown and showed her charitable spirit by giving up her private school to establish the first public school in the state. I don't think she ever had a pupil but that loved her. Bad boys interested her as much as the good ones. The first letter I ever wrote in my life I wrote to Miss Barton. When she went away on her vacation she asked her students to write her. We all did, and she answered all with personal letters. I can remember myself writing that letter as if it were only yesterday, and I was mighty proud of the answer I received. Since then I have been corresponding with her and have letters from her which I prize highly." At the end of five weeks her personality had built up the school so that it was rapidly increasing to six hundred, each scholar having brought on an average one hundred others. A regular salary was now offered and Miss Barton engaged as teacher with Miss Fannie Childs as associate.1 1 Now Mrs. Vassal[s] of Worcester, daughter-in-law of Clara Barton's sister, Sally Barton Vassal. Mrs. Vassal was near Miss Barton in Washington during the war period, and the many letters in her possession, growing out of her early and long acquaintance with her, compose on the the most important commentaries on Miss Barton's life in existence. By 1885 the citizens of Bordentown had completely changed their minds about public schools. They had erected a new building with eight rooms in it and boasted continually of the well-disciplined system inaugurated by Miss Barton out of nothing but opposition and rowdyism. Even the "first families" sent their children to the once much condemned public school, preferring the superior teachers there to those of doubtful ability in the private institutions. There exists in Miss Barton's own words a description of this Bordentown chapter of her life that is at once so interesting and vivid that it warrants reproduction here even though it restates much that has already been said. "Something drew me to the state of New Jersey. I was a teacher dyed in the wool, and soon discovered that this good state had no public school, that a part of its children were in private schools, the remainder in the streets. The people said they were not paupers, and would to have their children schooled at public expense, would not send them to 'pauper schools.' I considered this state of things and decided to take upon me the opening of public schools generally in that state as well as the eyes of the people. I went to Bordentown, found two hundred children in school, four hundred on the street. They had public school laws, but not reinforced; perfectly inoperative. All seemed afraid to undertake it. Friends, I believe every law once made should either be and made operative, or annulled and be no longer a law. The respect of laws, the welfare of the community and the safety of people and property demanded this. "I found the trustees were nominal officials, arranged with them, apprehensive as they were, and had them officially announce the opening of a public school in the village of Bordentown to be taught by a lady at her own expense, if preferred. A house was found and opened, and one bright morning I found myself there with six bright renegade boys (not a girl could be trusted with me) and the public school was commenced. I understood boys and school teaching [as] was my trade. We got on well and at the end of twelve months I stood in a new schoolhouse building, which had been built for me at the cost of $4000 and my six pupils had grown to six hundred, a bright, loving, faithful phalanx among whom never a punishment had been administered. At length broken in strength, with a complete loss of voice, I was compelled to leave them. That, too, was a hard good-by to make. A few years later I found them all over the southern fields standing firmly behind their muskets or lying in their blood; but every one remembered. They remember to-day, those pupils; gray- haired men of business all over the land and seas, their letters come faithfully to my table." Despite Miss Barton's great success in Bordentown the old prejudice against a woman principal was strong there and in consequence a male principal was installed against the wishes of the pupils. Miss Barton's work was through life primarily that of a founder. When that which she had founded had become firmly established her interest in it was never as keen as she was apt to look for new worlds to conquer. And yet while at Bordentown she ended her career as a teacher, she never ceased to feel a personal sympathy with teacher, pupil, and parent. "Remembering that fully one-fifth of my life has been passed as a teacher of schools," she remarked twenty years after, "it is not strange that I should feel some interest in the cause of education, some sympathy with those who labor in it as its teachers, some affiliation with the parents and people who bear its expenses, and secure its benefits, and some interest in the children and youth who receive them." At the end of 1855 leaving the perfected public school system of Bordentown, Miss Barton felt the reaction of the superlative test of strength to which she had been put in establishing it. As in every successful compaign, when it was over - but never until then - it deenergized her. This time the physical weariness manifested itself in a complete breakdown of her voice. For recuperation she retired to Washington. CHAPTER VII FIVE YEARS BEFORE THE WAR IN WASHINGTON 1855-1860 The capital of the country was now to be Miss Barton's residence and the center of her activities for a large part of the next sixty years. As it was evident that she could no longer teach, she was again confronted with the old question of what she should do. At the Oxford mill she had perfected a "copper plate" style of handwriting. She decided finally to make use of this talent and accepted a position as555 6 a clerk in Washington, little dreaming to what international achievements this would later lead her. She was already fascinated, however, by the national questions around which, consciously or unconsciously, her mind more and more revolved. An apparent defeat in life had become the impulse of a new decision. Were her voice and vocation gone? Her hands remained! "She laid her hands upon my shoulder," Eleanor Ames recalled three years ago, (she had beautiful hands[*,*] long and slim and firm), and said [in reply to Miss Ames, who had expressed the wish that opportunities for doing good existed now]: "'My dear, we all tumble over opportunities for being brave and doing good at every step we take. Life is just made of such opportunities. Not nearly all the sick and crippled are on the battlefield, nor is all the danger there either.'" For such a spirit, work, and interesting work, is never absent. "I met her often during those years as I have since," writes a friend, as to what she did at this time, "and rarely saw her without some pet scheme of benevolence which she pursued with an enthusiasm that was quite heroic and sometimes amusing. The roll of those she helped or tried to help with her purse, her personal influence, or her counsel would be a long one. Orphan children, deserted wives, destitute women, sick or unsuccessful relatives, men who had failed in business, all who were in want or in trouble, and could claim the slightest acquaintance, came to her for aid, and they were never repulsed. For means for all this she must work and earn a salary." A weakness in the public service attracted her attention. In the Patent Office secret inventions were being copied and stolen by dishonest clerks. Especially did the child of a county of such inventive genius as Worcester resent such a theft as this. During the administration of President Pierce, in 1854, at the request of the representative from Massachusetts, she received the appointment she had asked for. The old records of the Department of the Interior, which was established in 1849, disclose her there by 1855 and show that she was one of the first Government clerks of her sex, if indeed not the first. In 1903 the Commissioner of Patents in a letter of November 12 stated that "no Miss Barton was found on the rolls of the Patent Office from January 1, 1853, to date." But further research on the part of the commissioner brought forth the following letter, written September 22, 1855, by the Hon. Alexander Dewitt, a member of Congress from Oxford to the Secretary of the Interior, Robert McClelland: "Having understood the Department had decided to remove the ladies employed in the Patent Office on the 1st of October, I have taken the liberty to address a line in behalf of Miss Clara Barton, a native of my town and district, who has been employed the past year in the Patent Office, and I trust to the entire satisfaction of the Commissioner." A sentence in a letter to the head of the Department, written by Miss Barton in 1876, offers further proof of her early service. It declares: "Having been the first woman every appointed independently to a clerkship in the department over which you preside, and trodden among the thorny paths of earlier days, I ought to know what should be required to constitute a good and suitable clerk." Referring to this matter in 1886, Miss Barton again said : "After some rest I was requested by the commissioner of patents to take charge of a confidential desk, with which he had found difficulty. The secrecy of its papers had not been carefully guarded. I accepted and thus became as I believe the first woman who entered a public office in the Departments of Washington in her own name drawing the salary over her own signature. I was placed equal with the male clerks at $1400 per year. This called for some criticism and not little denunciation on the part of those who foresaw dangerous precedents." Jealousy, suspicion, and hatred were engendered. The huge building under the Superintendent of Patents, Mr. Charles Mason, was filled, with men only. The loafed in the corridors. They whiffed smoke in her face. They spat on the floor before here. Insulting remarks, whistles, and catcalls increased in number and maliciousness. And yet, so excellent was she as a copyist that with an increase of salary she was advanced over her detractors to expert work on original prints, patent abridgments, and caveats. Her opponents, beaten at open opposition, whispered slander. Convicted of untruthfulness[*,*] the slanderers, --among them some of the guilty patent thieves who were afraid of her -- were removed from office by Mr. Mason. Miss Barton remained in her position till after 1856, when President Buchanan was elected. Then arose the cry of "black republicanism" against all who held antislavery sympathies, and every one connected with the abolition movement felt the whip of the administration. Miss Barton was no exception. In 1857, when she was dismissed, she returned to Oxford, where she stayed for nearly two years. But so tangled were the records and so expert had she become that she was recalled towards the end of Buchanan's administration. At the earnest solicitation of her father, with whom the old ties of confidence had never been broken, she accepted. Even now war clouds thickened and signs of conflict were overshadowing everything in Washington. Slavery sentiments swayed the Government, the army, the navy, the President, the Cabinet, the statesmen, the capital, and even the Treasury, whose loot seemed imminent. To do the work of two disloyal clerks, receive the salary of one, and give the other to the Treasury, was the plan that possessed her. "Money is where the shoe pinches" -- "Money talks" --these are very common axioms, but true, and when it comes to actual giving, the enthusiasm of many patriots is apt to lessen. 'It was not so with Miss Barton. When a cause or a public service was the issue, money was with her the first thing to be sacrificed. In this, which runs so contrary to the common conception of "Yankee shrewdness," she passed the acid test. Her one reply to all who quarreled with her for wanting to give up her salary, was "What is money without a 555 33 to fix upon some common sign by which they could be recognized by all parties and all nations uniting in the Treaty. Thus Article 7 provides for hospital and convoys and an arm badge for persons. The design proposed was a red cross upon a white ground." Thus proceeded the Articles of the Red Cross Convention to which Miss Barton's attention had been drawn. "The question naturally arises in every mind," Miss Barton continued in further explanation, "why were we not a party to the Treaty and why we had no societies?" "Although the fact seems not only singular, but painful, I think the reasons can be made obvious. "It will be remembered that the conference and congress of Geneva was held during the years 1863 and 1864. The United States, having been invited with all other nations to send delegates, was officially represented at the latter by Mr. Bowles, then residing in Paris, and by him the Resolutions and articles of both assemblies were officially transmitted to our government for action. "It was not unnatural that our renowned Secretary of State, William H. Seward, should have declined on the officially stated ground that we already were in the midst of a relentless and barbarous war. "Some years later, another convention, known as the convention of 1868, was held in Paris, and another set of articles dealing with the wounded in maritime warfare, as well as the land forces, was submitted to the nations. "In this convention, the United States was most fitly represented by its noble and world-renowned philanthropist, Rev. Dr. Henry V. N. Bellows, who was appointed its representative in this country. By that honored gentleman, the articles of the original Treaty, including the additions of 1868, were again presented to the U. S. Government and were again declined, most likely for the reason they had once before been declined. But through the faithful endeavors of Dr. Bellows, a society was actually formed during that year ; though the subject, as well as its literature, was foreign to our people, who knowing little of it, felt no interest, and still further, a society formed forthe purpose of International Relief in War, lacking any International Treaty to that end, and lacking all the privileges and powers to be conferred by the Treaty, was simply Hamlet with Hamlet left out, and like a sapling planted without a root, it naturally withered away. "It is not singular that the International Committee of Geneva became perplexed by the repeated declinations and apathy of a nation which had given to the world the examples of a sanitary and Christian commission, and sought explanation." All that winter of 1896-70, Geneva was the centre of Miss Barton's residence where she made her home mostly at the Consulate, with U. S. Consul Upton and Mrs. Upton. She felt the sting of the cold, however, and sought the Islands of Corsica. But she found that the climate induced conditions resembling the malarial attacks in Carolina in the War, when much quinine had to be "pumped" into her system. She returned in March to Switzerland, and went again to the home of the Upton's. On the 26th of May she set out for Berne, "in quest of strength among its mountain views and baths." A few days after her arrival there she wrote to her brother David and interestingly set forth her impression of the place: In 1903 the Commissioner of Patents in a letter of November 12 stated that "no Miss Barton was found on the rolls of the Patent Office from January 1,1 1853, to date." But further research on the part of the commissioner brought forth the following letter, written September 22, 1855, by the Hon. Alexander Dewitt, a member of Congress from Oxford to the Secretary of the Interior, Robert McClelland: "Having understood the Department had decided to remove the ladies employed in the Patent Office on the 1st of October, I have taken the liberty to address a line in behalf of Miss Clara Barton, a native of my town and district, who has been employed the past year in the Patent Office, and I trust to the entire satisfaction of the Commissioner." A sentence in a lutter to the head of the Department, written by Miss Barton in 1876, offers further proof of her early service. It declares: "Having been the first woman ever appointed independently to a clerkship in the department over which you preside, and trodden among the thorny paths of earlier days, I ought to know what should be required to constitute a good and suitable clerk." Referring to this matter in 1886, Miss Barton again said: "After some rest I was requested by the commissioner of patents to take charge of a confidential desk, with which he had found difficulty. The secrecy of its papers had not been carefully guarded. Iaccepted and thus became as I believe the first woman who entered a public office in the Departments of Washington in her own name drawing the salary over her own signature. I was placed equal with the male clerks at $1400 per year. This called for some criticism and no little denunciation on the part of those who foresaw dangerous precedents." Jealousy, suspicion, and hatred were engendered. The huge building under the Superintendent of Patents, Mr. Charles Mason, was filled with men only. They loafed in the corridors. They whiffed snoke in her face. They spat on the floor before her. Insulting remarks, whistles, and catcalls increased in number and maliciousness. And yet, so excellent was she as a copyist that with an increase of salary she was advanced over her detractors to expert work on original prints, patent abridgments, and caveats. Her opponents, beaten at open opposition, whispered slander. Convicted of untruthfulness the slanderers, - among them some of the guilty patent thieves who were afraid of her - were removed from office by Mr. Mason. Miss Barton remained in her position till after 1856, when President Buchanan was elected. Then arose the cry of "black republicanism" against all who held antislavery sympathies, and every one connected with the abolition movement felt the whip of the administration. Miss Barton was no exception. In 1857, when she was dismissed, she returned to Oxford, where she stayed for nearly two years. But so tangled were the records and so expert had she become that she was recalled towards the end of Buchanan's administration. At the earnest solicitation of her father, with whom the old ties of confidence had never been broken, she accepted. Even now war clouds thickened and signs of conflict were overshadowing everything in Washington. Slavery sentiments swayed the Government, the army, the navy, the President, the Cabinet, the statesmen, the capital, and even the Treasury, whose loot seemed imminent. To do the work of two disloyal clerks, receive the salary of one, and give the other to the Treasury, was the plan that possessed her. "Money is where the shoe pinches" - "Money talks" - these are very common axioms, but true, and when it comes to actual giving, the enthusiasm of many patriots is apt to lessen. "It was not so with Miss Barton. When a cause or a public service was the issue, money was with her the first thing to be sacrificed. In this, which runs so contrary to the common conception of "Yankee shrewdness," she passed the acid test. He one reply to all who quarreled with her for wanting to give up her salary, was "What is money without a country?" In Washington where the reins of power and the whole vehicle of Government were proslavery, the patriotism of her position stands out all the more strikingly. Buchanan wished to pacify every one, especially the dominant statesmen of the South, with the result that he satisfied none. As the awful possibilities of fratricidal war grew nearer, however, it is little wonder that millions of honest men hesitated between two opinions. There was no question which side Clara Barton was on. Her mind was made up. On the night of May 25, 1800, [*1860?*] she heard Charles Sumner in the Senate. His powerful speech - "The Crime Against Kansas" - in which he voiced the principle that "Freedom is national, slavery is sectional" - held her fascinated until after one o'clock in the morning. "I heard Sumner's midnight speech," she said to me in 1911. "It was an oration of greater power than any I ever knew. It was upon this very point of the extension of slavery, and it settled it. It was the night before he was struck down. I have often said that that night was began! It began not at Sumter but at Sumner." Further on, in a conversation that turned on the Civil War, Miss Barton was asked if it would not have been better if it had never been. Her reply was instant: "Could the great issue of slavery ever have been settled any other way? If the mere buying of the slaves would have solved the problem, the young men in the field would have dug potatoes till they could have bought every slave. "But buying the slaves would not have settled it, because the question to be settled was whether new territory such as Kansas and Nebraska, should be slave or free territory. If slave territory, and all other new states slave territory, the South would have had preponderance and could have outvoted the North. Slavery would have been entrenched, forever, the question eternally settled, and a slave pen would have been set up on Bunker Hill! To prevent that meant war!" 555 35 which one has faith. Down all her mountain sides, and through all her valleys, and over her fields, come one, and two, and three, her sturdy brown cheeked mountain farmers in their neat uniforms of blue, with knapsack, and cartridge-box, grasping the ready musket with hands long calloused by the plow, the sickle and the scythe. "Since twenty-four hours from the declaration of war, there has been pouring across her green, peaceful bosom, this strange, steady stream of soldier-life, till one fancies the fiery torch of Duncraggan must have been sped over the hills. "Forty thousand troops to-day line her borders; the entire length of her frontiers from Basle to Lake Leman and the Boden Sea glistens with bayonets and darkens with men. "Switzerland means nothing but honest neutrality and the preservation of her liberties at any cost, and when she tells you that she needs help, you may believe it and know that she deserves it." In this long letter Miss Barton shows how closely she has been following the events of the international crisis which was to open up for her a new field of service. Though since 1864 there had occurred the war between Napoleon and Italy, and the war between Germany and Austrin in 1866, both of which offered a kind of trial of the International Red Cross, the real and major test was reserved for the impending conflict between France and Germany. Miss Barton was therefore "on the ground" at the psychological moment to see just how the association worked and to participate in its ultimate triumph. At this moment there broke one day upon the keep clear air of her Swiss home, the distant sounds of a royal party hastening back from a tour of the Alps. To Miss Barton's amazement it came in the direction of her villa. Finally flashed the scarlet and gold of the liveries of the Grand Duke of Baden. After the outriders came the splendid coach of the Grand Duchess, the daughter of King Wilhelm of Prussia, so soon to be Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany. In it rode the Grand Duchess herself. After presenting her card through the footman she personally alighted and clasped Miss Barton's hand. She hailed her in the name of humanity and said she already knew her through what she had done in the Civil War. Holding her hand clasp the more firmly she plead with Miss Barton to go with her and consecrate this knowledge to fields of relief in the opening war. Thus came a motive to discount ill health and proceed to the Franco-Prussian front. Mrs. James R. Bolton, daughter of Judge Sheldon, was in the chalet which the Sheldons had entered June 4th, 1870. "I remember perfectly well, said Mrs Bolton, then six years old, "when the Grand Duchess of Baden came to our chalet." The wheels of her cortege had rumbled along the highway when suddenly her large retinue appeared in royal livery. The Grand Duchess alighted and met Miss Barton. She stated that the fame of Clara Barton's heroism in the American Civil War had captured Europe and especially Germany. She asked if she would not come to Strassburg, await the siege at Carlsruhe, and when it lifted organize relief." Miss Barton was much touched by this royal and unexpected invitation, but in her independent way she decided when ready to proceed alone. CHAPTER XXII THE CALL TO BEAR THE RED CROSS TO THE PRUSSIAN FIRING LINE On July 19, 1870, nearly a year after their first visit to her and following the declaration of war, the officers of the International Red Cross of Europe came to Clara Barton a second time. Their purpose like that of the Grand Duchess was to enlist her help. They reiterated what they had heard of her leadership in deeds of mercy in the American Civil War just closed - indeed her fame, far more than she realized, had become international. The committee appealed to her therefore to lead with them a great systematic plan of relief at the front in the sure crisis between France and Prussia. In reply Miss Barton told them that she was an invalid and that her exertions were limited to the baths at Berne. She explained how for months before she left America she had been confined to her bed and that the physicians had decided that her only hope of life lay in securing absolute rest and freedom from care for at least three years. And yet in spite of all this she could not say "no." In the past when Miss Barton saw the need of service she was given the necessary strength to perform it, and so it was now. It would almost seem as though once again the call for help, the picture of suffering and distress to come drawn by the Grand Duchess of Baden and the Red Cross officers, untapped new and fresh reservoirs of energy. In the face of consequences which in the opinion of her medical advisers would probably prove fatal to herself she decided to answer the irresistible and compelling cry of humanity. Of the invitation and of her subsequent journey to Basle, the Swiss Headquarters of the Red Cross Society, and really the International Headquarters as well, she says: On the 15th of July, while she was at her villa at Berne, came the shocking tidings of Napoleon's declaration of war against King William of Germany. The cause of the Franco-Prussian War Miss Barton studied carefully. Residing in the neutral territory of Switzerland and being conversant with many savants, scholars, and reformers, she was in a position to formulate a just opinion on the conflict. In a letter of July 21st, she diagnoses the situation, a situation in which seeds are sown for the war forty-four years after, the international crisis of 1914-15. "It is scarcely possible to conceive of anything more precipitous than the business of this little week of time, which has thrown the great nations into the attitude of war, and put to the test of decision the courts or people of every country in Europe. "A week ago she thought herself at peace. True, she had heard a day or two before of a few hasty words between France and Prussia, but no one deemed it to mean more than words until the wires of the 15th flashed Napoleon's declaration of war. All Europe stood aghast. What did it mean? What was it all about? "No one could believe it meant war in reality, and the nation: held their breath. "Even the Prussian press said it 'could not be' it was 'zu dumm !" But the reader of history has yet to learn that nothing can be 'too foolish,' and no pretext too slight, where personal interest, roy I dignity, ambition, or pride are injured or threatened. "But in which of these, in the present instance, lies the tenderest nerve, it is difficult, at this early moment of confusion and consternation, to decide. "Spain, which appears to have given, most innocently, the first provocation, holds no place in the quarrel, and has less to say and do about it than any other country. "Her crime consists in that her poor crown goes a begging, and she offered it to one, and another, until at length the young German Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, having neither a crown nor the prospect of one, accepted it. But when France, anxious to preserve the national balance of power, and fearing to see her rival, and old enemy, Germany, ruling on two sides, holding the keys to both to the Baltic and Mediterranean, objected, he declined it. But when for still further security, France insisted upon demanding of the King of Prussia that in case of a pretender, neither the Prince of Hohenzollern nor any other subject of his, should ever accept it, the King refused to confer with the messenger. This insults the dignity of France, and she replies in one word - 'War,' and her populace, wild with enthusiasm, shouts - 'Vive le guerre !' "The decision passes over to Prussia. The old king listens in profound silence while Bismarck reads to him the declaration, and starts with visible astonishment at the passage in M. Olliver's statement, in which he says that France 'accepts the war' and 'throws upon Prussia the responsibility.' "When all is finished, he turns to his son, the Prince Royal, embraces' him tenderly, steps a little to one side, and after a moment's hesitation, replies for Prussia in scarce more words than Napoleon has for France: 'War ! Prepare for War !' And thus it is commenced. "It wer long to tell, and will be the work of later days to gather up and report, the various opinions and actions on the surrounding nations of Europe. "To-day it is enough to know that all France and Prussia with both Northern and Southern Germany, are armed and marching to the Rhine; that at any moment we may hear that her bluewaters are purpled with the flowing tide of human life; that the flying wheels of the artillery are plowing her golden fields, already bending low for the harvest, and the crushing hoof of the cavalry trampling out her unripened vintage. "It may, however, be interesting, or at least amusing, some time after this, if the war continues, when the nations shall have settled themselves and taken position, to refer to these first impressions and decisions, before policy, strategy, or power have wholly entered into the warp and woof of what may yet become a vast political web, enveloping the entire continent of Europe, and with this view I gather a few of the most important. "We are assured that nothing would exceed the outburst of patriotic enthusiasm manifested by the French people at the moment of the declaration, and the troops were with difficulty restrained. "'To the Rhine ! To the Rhine !' rang out on every side. "This is balanced by an enthusiasm equally strong, perhaps a trifle more calm, on the part of the Prussians, the business men of Dresden immediately offering a prize to him who should capture the first French cannon. Baden, Wurtemberg and Bavaria at once proffer money and troops. "Hanover was a little slow to come in at first, and partly turned to France, but overpowered by the stream of public opinion, she wheels into line. "Netherlands takes a decided stand and maintains an armed neutrality under the Prince of Orange. "Italy attempted some demonstration in favor of Prhssia and against Rome, but this was immediately put down, and the people gave their verdict as follows: 'We shall neither French nor Prussians be, but Italians!' Poor Italy has nothing to spare for her neighbors' quarrels; she will need all her military power for the arrest of her own revolutionary element. "Austria at once announced her neutrality, and the Emperor so wrote Napoleon with his own hand. "Denmark, like the Netherlands, hesitated. She remembered bitterly the loss of Schleswig-Holstein by the Prussian Aggression, and naturally turns away. There is exultation in the thought of a blockade of the Baltic at such a moment for Prussia. Revenge is sweet; but this endangers amicable relations with England, Russia, and North America, and perhaps she cannot afford to indulge her resentment, however gratifying it might be. So, via hamburg, at last comes rumor of her declaration of neutrality. "The intelligence from Russia is vague and uncertain. England attempted to act the mediator, but failed, and announces a 'strict neutrality' although she had previously declared her sympathies to be with Prussia. If one be not mistaken, Napoleon will need patience, faith , and a good appetite to relish the neutral dish England will serve up for him under these conditions. Her style of neutrality is something wonderful. Its acts - Lo: Are they not written in the book of the heart of every soldier who fought in the armies of Abraham? "And last comes little Switzerland bright as a diamond in her rough mountain setting, proclaiming a neutrality which she means; with no policy but truth, no strategy but honesty, no diplomatism in this matter, but to preserve inviolate, and at all hazards, her own national independence and God-given liberty. Hers is an armed neutrality in 555 39 The attempts of the military to quiet the fears of the people were most ludicrous. They placed at all the street corners, printed placards to the effect that on one need fear as the city was strongly defended, and the troops would fight till the last loaf was gone, and the last soldier slain. "this was the thing most of all to be dreaded by the inhabitants. It really mattered little to them, individually, in whose hands they were, so long as they were at peace and out of danger. But it did matter much, if a few thousand troops, well protected and bomb proof could close the gages. retire behind their entrenchments, having permitted the enemy to approach within easy range, and hold the city under bombardment while its defenseless inhabitants had nowhere to retire for safety, except, perhaps, to their cellars while their houses burned down over their heads, consuming them in the flame and burying them in the ashes. "The tone of these military assurances was not consoling to the people of Strassburg, who went on saying bitterly: 'A fine protection indeed. In times of peace we were never burdened with less than a garrison of 40,000 troops, and compelled to suffer all the annoyance growing out of it. But now, in war, and active danger, we are left with not more than five to six thousand men, just enough to draw the fire of the enemy, and place us in all the attitude of war and its accompanying perils, with none of its protections.' The military claimed as many as 11,000 troops within the defenses of Strassburg, but the people were confident that the withdrawal of half that number would leave their fortress bare and guns unmanned, and from the bottom of their honest, and terror-stricken hearts, they wished the withdrawal could be effected. "As was suspected, our delay in getting out was occasioned by the density of the fog and mist, the military hesitating to open the gates lest the Prussian force might be massed near, concealed by the fog, waiting to rush in. "At length the clouds lifted, and partially dispelled the fears as well. "The crowd commenced, like 'poor Joe' to 'move on,' and we along with it, finally out of the confines of Strassburg and on our way to the lines of the enemy." Strassburg did not need Miss Barton now. She could return there when famine and suffering came, but for the present her place was at the front. Hagenau was her objective point, the storm center of a terrific and deadly struggle. A mile farther, more pickets, a little more detention, but permitted to pass. Evidently, they all realized that there was a net beyond, fine enough to catch and strong enough to hold us, which we also suspected. "Three miles farther on, we came into it, a full German camp! Troops without number, horses and wagons at rest, tents pitched, and the scarlet and gold of Baden floating gracefully on the breeze ! These were the forces of the Grand Duke and here the bayonets were crossed in the center of the road before us. "The troops were drilling in a broad field at the right, and just at this particular juncture, the band sounded the Long Roll. If you could have seen the Consul's horse ! John Gilpin was not to be spoken of after that. "This stroke of diplomacy left us quite alone in our dilemma. The numerous occupants of the omnibus talked much German to the sentry to little purpose. We were ordered back. Somebody must do something, and I asked for the 'Colonel commanding.' He came, a princely man with a fine Saxon face. He advanced, struck an attitude, and stood before me in perfect silence. "'You speak English, I presume, Colonel?' "'A little, madame,' evidently a trifle flattered by the presumption, I explained our desires. He replied with dignified courtesy that he respected my mission, and regarded the wishes of the other persons, but the orders were most strict. 'No person could pass, and repass the lines.' "'We are an army entire, madame, and proceed to the bombardment of Strassburg. You are free to return but not to advance, save on one condition.' "'What may that be, Colonel?' "'Capture, madame ! You can pass our lines, but you will be a prisoner from that moment.' "'Do you mean by this colonel that we shall be thrown into confinement and held there ?' "'Oh, no madame,' he answered, returning my incredulous smile. "'Oh, no, you will be prisoners of war, free within our lines, but no to pass out of them till the close of the war.' "'The wounded will be within your lines?' "'We hope so, madame, as we intend to lose no fields.' "'And your lines extend from Belgium to Switzerland ?' "'Yes, - and from Berlin surely to here?' "'Certainly.' "'That is space enough for me Colonel. Let me in.' "'You accept the conditions, then?' "'Fully, Colonel, and for us all.' "'The bayonets were withdrawn, our horses moved on, and for the 555 38 "The peasants stopped to speak to us on the way and each spoke from his heart. The ideas associated with war in the minds of these people, are something beyond description. "At half past three, we found ourselves driven into the town of Schlettstadt, and alighted at the door of an inn. Ah, what a babel was that entrance room. About twenty men sat around their beer tables and discussed the situation. I tried in my confused mind to estimate how much more talking twenty women would have done. It was impossible to distinguish our own voices. We did not try, but simply waited. At length the landlord appeared and hastily withdrew us into a portion of the house, and here again we waited, and asked the probability of the passage of any train of cars, as we knew this town lay on the Paris and Strassburg Railroad. "Oh, no, that was not possible. The Prussian army lay between there and Strassburg. It would be quite possible for us to reach there by any conveyance ; we could only go about twenty miles further, when we should be stopped. But having heard this every twenty miles all the way from Basle, it was growing an old story, to which we paid little heed, and stepping out into the street to look about us, we heard a familiar whistle in the distance. Holding our breaths, it repeated itself, nearer and nearer till we could not be mistaken. "It was the train for Strassburg !" "We rushed to the station and saw it come in. Surely enough we were not mistaken. Here was a long train coming up from the central portion of France, and bound to Strassburg, not a regular but a wild train ! None had preceded it and none was to follow it ! It would unload and return directly. It had most probably supplies for the garrison, but no one asked any questions except if we could go on it. A hasty 'Oui, oui' and in two minutes our satchels and selves were transferred from our noisy inn, to a seat in a rough train, which moved on as if it had no time to lose. Every one may know how it seems to be overtaken by a train. But this seemed like being overtaken by a railroad ! Two hours of this speed accomplished as much for us, as all the day before it, and at six o'clock, we drew cautiously before the iron track, and closed gates of the citadel of Strassburg. "Still drizzling rain, mud half over shoes, and a crowd of people, carriages, carts, milk women by the hundred, loads of wood, peasants, wagons piled high with vegetables and fruit for the supplying of a city of 80,000 all huddled and waiting in a line, at least a half a mile in length, which only foot passengers could pass. "Wearily waiting in mist and rain ' wearily watching in doubt and pain ; leaving our train with satchels in hand, we became foot passengers, and walked, or rather waded on to the head of this motley line, up to the gates, under the ramparts, beyond which no one might pass till the commandant of the garrison ordered that these massive gates turn on their hinges. And here we waited, watching the measured tread of the sentinel upon the heights above, where the old grim ramparts, bare and brown, kept faithful guard over the frightened town. Waiting, waiting till the middle of the second hour, when there came a rush of horsemen and a clang of steel up to the other side of the gates. "The ponderous bolts withdrew and with a heavy creak they fell back and the crowd commenced to surge through, across the moat filled to the brim, over the drawbridge, through the stone archway at least forty rods, winding and dark. At length out into the day, among soldiers and citizens, foot and horse, vehicles of all kinds, bayonets and bugles, in all the confusion of an armed city awaiting siege. "It was time for a hotel, supper and sleep, and it was something astonishing the journey we had performed that day under all its difficulties, changing carriages every few miles, riding against the report of the enemy all the way, intercepted at every little village and cross road, detained for hours at a time for conveyance, and yet we had made our way from Mulhausen to Strassburg, a distance of seventy-two miles, in time for supper ! CHAPTER XXIV STRASSBURG "I SENT my card to the American Consulate saying I would call the next morning at 12 o'clock," continues Miss Barton. "This was my first sight of historic old Strassburg, and you will not think me too derelict in my duty, if on my way to the American Consulate next morning, I linger a little longer in the principal streets for a view of the quaint, queer buildings, go some squares out of my way for a glance at the grand old cathedral monument 1000 years old when our nation was born ; its fine red sandstone elaborately carved to the very top of its dome, 495 feet from the pavement ; its famous clock ; its stained glass windows of the middle-ages before the art was lost ; and the meditative storks perched upon the chimneys with their rude nests built roughly upon the tops, and their young training themselves for their long first journey to Africa for the winter. "During all this walk the rain fell continually, often in torrents and we stood in the long covered arches to escape it. Take could, did you say - Oh yes ! But those were the days when colds didn't count. "To my surprise I found the American Consulate profusely decorated with U.S. flags, in honor of my visit, and the residence of both the consul and the vice-consul were the same. "An exclamation of surprise drew from them the fact that both were soldiers of the Union, although both Germans." Miss Barton's story of her departure from Strassburg is interestingly told in her diary : "Battles and rumors of battles had filled our ears for the last two weeks. But at length we received a report from a source which could be trusted. A messenger from the Red Cross Committee came to say that the Germans were over in force, that the troops of Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia have met the French at Hagenau, and they fight like demons A mile farther, more pickets, a little more detention, but permitted to pass. Evidently, they all realized that there was a net beyond, fine enough to catch and strong enough to hold us, which we also suspected. "Three miles farther on, we came into it, a full German camp ! Troops without number, horses and wagons at rest, tents pitched, and the scarlet and gold of Baden floating gracefully on the breeze ! These were the forces of the Grand Duke and here the bayonets were crossed in the center of the road before us. "The troops were drilling in a broad field at the right, and just at this particular juncture, the band sounded the Long Roll. If you could have seen the Consul's horse ! John Gilpin was not to be spoken of after that. "This stroke of diplomacy left us quite alone in our dilemma. The numerous occupants of the omnibus talked much German to the sentry to little purpose. We were ordered back. Somebody must do something, and I asked for the 'Colonel commanding.' He came, a princely man with a fine Saxon face. He advanced, struck an attitude, and stood before me in perfect silence. "'You speak English, I presume, Colonel?' "'A little, madame,' evidently a trifle flattered by the presumption, I explained our desires. He replied with dignified courtesy that he respected my mission, and regarded the wished of the other persons, but the orders were most strict. 'No person could pass, and repass the lines.' "'We are an army entire, madame, and proceed to the bombardment of Strassburg. You are free to return but not to advance, save on one condition.' "'What may that be, Colonel?' "'Capture, madame ! You can pass our lines, but you will be a prisoner from that moment.' "'Do you mean by this colonel that we shall be thrown into confinement and held there?' "'Oh, no, madame,' he answered, returning my incredulous smile. "'Ohn no, you will be prisoners of war, free within our lines, but not to pass out of them till the close of the war.' "'The wounded will be within your lines?' "'We hope so, madame, as we intend to lose no fields.' "'And your lines extend from Belgium to Switzerland?' "'Yes, - and from Berlin surely to here?' "'Certainly.' "'That is space enough for me, Colonel. Let me in.' "'You accept the conditions, then?' "'Fully, Colonel, and for us all.' "'The bayonets were withdrawn, our horses moved on, and for the first time in my life, I was a prisoner. "Just at the juncture the consul hove in sight with his awkward colt, shying sidelong, crossfootings, giving the impression of six or seven legs in place of four. His official position took him through - the consul I mean - not the colt. He didn't appear to hold any position. "And here were we, almost in sound of the guns of the Prince Royal at Hagenau !" Miss Barton was to make Carlsruhe, three hours distant from Strassburg, where there was a huge depot for the wounded, her central station, going out from it in all directions on her errands of mercy to the wounded. The Duchess of Baden, the wife of the Grand Duke of Baden, the founder and first great donor of the International Red Cross, was also at Carlsruhe, where she saw "the beautiful new standard of the Red Cross and the scarlet and gold of Baden floating together in the sky." "The beloved Grand Duchess Louise of Baden, was the only daughter of the Prussian King and coming Emperor. She was untiring," Miss Barton declared, "in the conduct of the noble society she had already formed and patronized. Her many and beautiful castles, with their magnificent grounds, throughout all Baden, were transformed into military hospitals, and her entire court with herself at its head, formed into a committee of superintendence and organization for relief. "I have seen a wounded Arab from the French armies, who knew no word of any language but his own, stretch out his arms to her in adoration and blessings as she passed his bed. "Switzerland which received the entire fleeing fugitives from Alsace-Lorraine, and the outcome of Strassburg after bombardment, and into which Bourbaki threw his whole army in defeat, not only nourished these, but she gave of her money and material as from a bottomless well ' there was no end of her bounty." While at Carlsruhe, Miss Barton was asked to stay at the palace of the Duchess, but except for visits there she declined, preferring to be with the poor and in the besieged cities or on the field with the wounded. "I stood with the besieging armies of the Grand Duke of Baden," she explained while they bombarded Strassburg for 100 days and nights, and the ground on which that splendid besieging army was camped, was level as a lawn, and fertile as a well kept garden.Railroad ! Two hours of this speed accomplished as much for us, as all the day before it, and at six o'clock, we drew cautiously before the iron track, and closed gates of the citadel of Strassburg. "Still drizzling rain, mud half over shoes, and a crowd of people, carriages, carts, milk women by the hundred, loads of wood, peasants, wagons piled high with vegetables and fruit for the supplying of a city of 80,000 all huddled and waiting in a line, at least a half a mile in length, which only foot passengers would pass. "Wearily waiting in mist and rain ; wearily watching in doubt and pain ; leaving our train with satchels in hand, we became foot passengers, and walked, or rather waded on to the head of this motley line, up to the gates, under the ramparts, beyond which no one might pass till the commandant of the garrison ordered that these massive gates turn on their hinges. And here we waited, watching the measured tread of the sentinel upon the heights above, where the old grim ramparts, bare and brown, kept faithful guard over the frightened town. Waiting, waiting till the middle of the second hour, when there came a rush of horsemen and a clang of steel up to the other side of the gates. "The ponderous bolts withdrew and with a heavy creak they fell back and the crowd commenced to surge through, across the moat filled to the brim, over the drawbridge, through the stone archway at least forty rods, winding and dark. At length out into the day, among soldiers and citizens, foot and horse, vehicles of all kinds, bayonets and bugles, in all the confusion of an armed city awaiting siege. "It was time for a hotel, supper and sleep, and it was something astonishing the journey we had performed that day under all its difficulties, changing carriages every few miles, riding against the report of the enemy all the way, intercepted at every little village and cross road, detained for hours at a time for conveyance, and yet we had made our way from Mulhausen to Strassburg, a distance of seventy-two miles, in time for supper ! CHAPTER XXIV STRASSBURG "I SENT my card to the American Consulate saying I would call the next morning at 12 o'clock," continues Miss Barton. "This was my first sight of historic old Strassburg, and you will not think me too derelict in my duty, if on my way to the American Consulate next morning, I linger a little longer in the principal streets for a view of the quaint, queer buildings, go some squares out of my way for a glance at the grand old cathedral monument 1000 years old when our nation was born ; its fine red sandstone elaborately carved to the very top of its dome, 495 feet from the pavement ; its famous clock ; its stained glass windows of the middle-ages before the art was lost ; and the meditative storks perched upon the chimneys with their rude nests built roughly upon the tops, and their young training themselves for their long first journey to Africa for the winter. "During all this walk the rain fell continually, often in torrents and we stood in the long covered arches to escape it. Take could, did you say - Oh yes ! But those were the days when colds didn't count. "To my surprise I found the American Consulate profusely decorated with U.S. flags, in honor of my visit, and the residence of both the consul and the vice-consul were the same. "An exclamation of surprise drew from them the fact that both were soldiers of the Union, although both Germans." Miss Barton's story of her departure from Strassburg is interestingly told in her diary : "Battles and rumors of battles had filled our ears for the last two weeks. But at length we received a report from a source which could be trusted. A messenger from the Red Cross Committee came to say that the Germans were over in force, that the troops of Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia have met the French at Hagenau, and they fight like demons. "The obliging consul offered himself as an escort if we could get out of the city, which we decided to attempt at half past four next morning, this being one of the two times in twenty-four hours in which the gates were opened. There were great numbers of German-Americans in the city, summer visitors and travelers - wild at the thought of being shut up and bombarded, and who besieged the consulate in the name of the Americans for help to get out of Alsace. The consul would attempt to take out a large omnibus full to the German lines that mornings. We left the consulate in a pouring rain, as usual, at four o'clock. "It was a question if the Prussian lines could be passed, but this proved to be only a secondary question, for a drive of five minutes brought us up to the eternal gates of Strassburg. Here were French lines to pass first, and a waiting crowd of persons scarce inferior to that we had seen on the other side at our entrance, and our omnibus constantly filling. "We wait an hours, two hours : it is six o'clock. Such crying of children ! Such groaning of persons not naturally compressible ! We drive to another gate and wait another hour, always in the rain. Five ladies leave. We scarcely miss them. Almost as dense as before ! We drive back again, and wait another hour. It is eight o'clock. "The consul to make more room, and to be free, had mounted a young and almost untrained horse, evidently not a society animal, manifesting a most marked distrust of men and things, and was prancing about in a kind of anxious disgust, and the vice-consul, too bread and coffee. The consul had been a surgeon, the vice-consul a chaplain in our war. The latter had dressed himself in his uniform of army blue which he had made new at the close of the war to take home with him. "There was something in all these unexpected surroundings that carried me back to the brave loyal old days, and set me to wondering if I could ever love other days, and honor other wars as I did those. "The military situation of the city deserves a passing notice. Three days previous a detachment of Prussian Cavalry had appeared before the gates, and demanded the surrender of the city, and had met the refusal with the assurance that the city would be bombarded in twenty-four hours. This naturally filled the inhabitants with terror But Miss Barton and her party found no suffering to relieve - no need of their services - therefore, "on to Strassburg" they cried. This was a journey they were to make against great odds. There was not a vehicle to take them and no driver willing to go towards the awful theater of war, whence came the mad hum and tide of fugitives, with tales of suffering, torture, and death. Finally a driver did appear - but Miss Barton would not engage him. Her reasons she explains in the following passage: "In company with our lovely hostess, Madame Dolfus, we went in search of a carriage, but met only the same response. "There is not a carriage to be had in Mulhausen. Everything has gone to Basle with the fugitives.' At length a man appeared who said he would call a carriage from the country, and start with us at three o'clock next morning. He at first stated his terms by the day, which seemed proper enough, but when asked how much time would be required to perform the journey, he named some four or five days, and when asked his price for the journey, and care for himself and horses, it was something tremendous. This was evidently done with the intention of compelling us back to his proposition by the day and once having us in his power, detain us on the road at pleasure. In every line of his face, was written villainy. That low, flat, broad head, projecting chin, greasy, chocolate colored face and the snaky eye boded no good, and great as was my anxiety to proceed, and impossible as it seemed under the circumstances, in a cold drizzling rain, to find another opportunity, this was not to be accepted. Instinctively putting my hand to my throat as in the presence of a murderer, I informed our proposed coachman that I did not desire his services. At first he seemed astonished, next angry, but seeing that neither produced the desired result, he lowered his terms. But getting no response, he fell again, and when I informed him that I did not wish his services at any price, he went outside and waited, certain I should repent and send for him. He reckoned without his host. I may have been mistaken, but I have never been able to rid myself of the conviction that it would have proved our last journey, if that escort had been accepted. He knew we could not be without money and in all the panic then reigning, there would be none to question. He need not even wait to conceal his victims. When discovered, it would only add one more to the tale of murder by the Prussian troops, and probably be just as true as the others." Just as Miss Barton had about given up hope of securing transportation, she received an offer that seemed almost too good to be true. A well-known man of Mulhausen came to her and explained that he must attempt at whatever risk to take a woman friend to Strassurg the next day. This woman's family needed her. She had become separated from her children by the war and she must get to them. She would like Miss Barton's company. "Love is braver than war, truer than steel, stronger than fear or danger of death, and while others fled in thousands, this woman turned to face them all in a walled and fortified city, certain of siege," Miss Barton writes. "This proposition was welcome, and at five o'clock next morning, we drove out of Julhausen with cards and letters to all the world, but nothing sealed. "Our journey this day was a repetition of the day previous, only less pleasant. The rain fell fitfully all day, the sky was leaden, and the fugitives looked darker and more distressed than ever, not a man at work in his fields. All was consternation and terror. The most terrifying reports were continually poured into our ears. We were told that the Prussian troops had cut off the hands of a French vender who was captured carrying water to the soldiers, that they had cut the throats of the peasants as they passed, and that they slew all the wounded prisoners, that they set fire to the houses, and shot and bayoneted the inhabitants as they rushed out, and scored of other things equally preposterous. "It is all the time to be borne in mind, that with the exception of a few scouts, and here and there a mounted guard, there were yet no Prussians on the French side of the river Rhine. All this vast talk of the army having crossed over was purely imaginary, existing only in their excited terrors, but it was useless to expostulate. In their fright and ignorance, they neither could nor would, be convinced and on they rushed. "To the enthusiastic Frenchman, France is the world, and to the illiterate peasantry, all places outside of France must be very near it. They are a home staying as well as a home loving people. "We hastened to our rendezvous, and found a carriage had really been obtained for the next station of importance, Schlettstadt, a distance of some twenty miles. "This journey, like the other, was performed in the rain, and without the appearance of any enemy. But at each place, we found it difficult to convince the inhabitants that every other town was not in a great state of defense, and determined to resist the Prussians at all hazards, each believing itself to be the only unguarded, unarmed and unresisting city in all the land, all confident of the entire success of France, that she could not be overcome, and that any reverses she might meet, were simply intentional, places not worth retaining ; but that somewhere the armies of France were, or would be, in a day or two, astonishing the world with their marvelous victories. And yet each particular village or city thought it would perhaps be just as well off belonging to the German states, as to France. "It was a study of people never to be forgotten, and never to be as well learned, perhaps, in any other way, or under any other circumstances, this slow travel making one's way through the country at a time like this.555 40 And poor Strassburg, shattered and scathed as it was." But she also spent many happy days in the society of the Duchess, who, as she later wrote, conceived "great affection and admiration" for Miss Barton. "How shall I forget," she says in a letter written in 1912, "what she has been to us here in the year 1870, helping us in such a wonderful way during the time of war we had to go through with then ! She was one of those who understood fully the meaning of the Red Cross and who knew full well how to put in action the great and beautiful, though difficult, duties the Red Cross involved in itself. Next to this, my personal relations with dear Miss Clara Barton have been most particular ones." CHAPTER XXV THE SURRENDER OF METZ, SEDAN, AND STRASSBURG To all Europe Clara Barton was the impersonation of American mercy in the Civil War and her name was widely revered for the work she had done. The wonderful development of the Sanitary Commission, the perfected system of ambulances, the nursing, - in all of these the court circles were much interested. The Duke of Baden, whose invitation to the palace at Carlsruhe she had at length for a time accepted, discussed these topics with her eagerly. The work of the Red Cross in Germany was also doubtless discussed, inasmuch as they had an excellent opportunity to watch its progress at Carlsruhe. Already it was evident that the Society was becoming deeply rooted in German soil - a fact clearly shown by the operations at Berlin, the great center of the movement from which the supplies were sent out. Here they had 200 salaried persons employed, to say nothing of the hundreds who gladly gave their services free. But discussioni and "talk," interesting as they might be, were not for Miss Barton when there was work to be done, and on August 6, 1870 we find her again following the cannon on the battle fields of Hagenau and Worth. "I saw the Prussian army hurled upon the French at hagenau and Worth, till the soft earth for miles, was ploughed with cannon and planted with slain," she says. After the battle of Saarbrucken, the French, defeated on both wings, retreated, losing six thousand prisoners. On August 18 came Gravelotte, where two hundred and eighty thousand Germans were pitted against one hundred and sixty thousand Frenchmen who were driven back to Metz. This main French army outmarched was thus cut off from its base and fell back to the Metz fortress. By September 1, the major part of the French forces had been bottled up in the front. August 30 began a decisive defeat for Marshall MacMahon. The Germans surprised the army at night while circling about the sleeping French soldiers and planted cannon which at daybreak belched forth, and eight thousand capitulated. The second French army, cut off from Paris, had subsequently been surrounded and drawn into the fortress of Sedan. A furious onslaught followed, the fortress finally surrendering. After this battle of September 1, when the entire fortress was captured, Clara Barton was upon the field in person, ministering to the thousands of wounded and mangled. At length, September 28, Strassburg itself gave in. Returning from one of the battle fields in front of another sieged town in Alsace- Loraine, Miss Barton was as always urged to stay with the Grand Duchess of Baden in the ducal castle. The September afternoon of the surrender of Strassburg to the Grand Duchess's husband the Grand Duke of Baden, Miss Barton was sitting in a balcony chatting with the Grand Duchess. The heat was intense. Both were in the shade of the palace walls. Suddenly in a whirl of dust appeared a breathless courier from the siege line. "Strassburg has fallen" was all he could cry - then he fell upon his knees at the foot of the balcony, overcome from running in the heat. All along Miss Barton, pained by the distress of the beleaguered city, had determined to go back and enter Strassburg and relieve the besieged French citizens in their starvation, nakedness, and wounds. And so, when Strassburg threw open its gates to the Grand Duke of Baden, she at once put this determination into effect, crossing the Rhine and entering with the German army. A slight, delicate figure in a plain dark dress, she made her way through shattered streets into the bombarded homes. In cellars where they were hidden, in the damp and mold, her eye found out twenty thousand starving, half-naked women and children and aged men. Many were sick and wounded from shot and shell. The city numbered among its victims many mothers with their breasts shot off many little children maimed. It swarmed with twenty thousand of them crawling forth from dark holes more like skeletons than human forms of flesh and blood. Fathers and sons and husbands had been to a man in the conscripted ranks of the French army and were dead on the field or in German prisons. It was estimated that twenty thousand of the inhabitants of Strassburg were without the shadow of a roof over their heads, an ounce of food or an article of clothing save that which they had rescued from burning buildings, and all were without either work or pay. As one means of practically helping them help themselves, Miss Barton drew upon her own resources, purchased materials, and set two hundred and fifty poor women to work making articles of clothing. There was no building to use as warehouse or workroom. But this made no difference. She noted a huge rock and established first headquarters there. For eight months, 1500 garments a week were turned out, a large workroom being finally obtained. When finally a workroom was procured in a spacious structure so rushing was the distribution of garments to sew that the expert men cutters, up to their knees the first day in the masses of cut-out cloth, found their feet clear, the morning of the next day and all the cloth taken by the mothers of Strassburg as fast as they could cut it.1 [*1*] Told Mrs. Marion Balcom Bullock in 1875, at North Grafton, upon Miss Barton's return from the Franco-Prussian War. An eyewitness's view of Miss Barton at Strassburg has been preserved in a partly finished painting by Antoinette Margot, who had been, as Miss Barton noted, a French artist of merit, before she took her with her to the German sieges. Miss Margot knew Clara Barton's work from day to day for three years, and thus perpetuated [*Nus in gallez we have not corrected on journ sheet - but have on ours - so punctuation & so as we correct & not appear here - E*] 555 31 hungry ! 'Not very,' he said, hesitatingly, 'not very, but Annie is.' 'Who is Annie?' I asked. 'My little sister.' 'Have you no father and mother?' 'Father was killed at Chattanooga, and ma's sick.' His voice trembled a little. ''No brothers?' I asked. 'I had three brothers,' and his little voice grew smaller and trembled more, 'but they all went to the War. Willey was shot in the woods when they were all on fire' (he meant the wilderness) 'and Charlie, he starved to death in Andersonville, and Jamie, he was next to me, and he went for a Drummer Boy, and died in the Hospital. And then there was only Ma and me and Annie. Annie was a baby when they went away, and Ma's grown sick and Annie's often hungry and cold and I can't always get enough for her. I pick up chips and wood, but Ma doesn't like me to ask for food, she says its a bad habit for little boys to learn,' and the tears slid quietly down his child cheeks, wan and care-worn. "I went home with him - far on the outskirts of the city, long beyond the reach of sidewalks, through alternate frost and mud, - a cheerless room, and as we entered a thin hectic woman partly rose from her bed to greet me. Her boys enlisted first and early and the fa(r)ther [*/9il*] partly to be near them(,) [*il*] and partly through dread of the draft which he could not meet, followed them. "One by one they had met their fate. "One by one her idols broken. "One by one her hopes had died. "Till with bleeding feet, and breaking heart she had trodden the wine press alone. "As she talked on quietly and tearfully, Baby Annie stole out of her hiding place(,) [*il*] and peered wistfully into the basket. And the little military guardian drew up to my side with simple, childlike confidence, as he said, "This was Jamie's cap and cloak. They sent them home from the hospital when he was dead. But they didn't send Jamie home. Nor Willey, nor Charlie.' I said 'No !' 'Nor Papa. There's only Ma and me and Annie, - that's all !' "And these were more than there would be long, poor child, for already the pale messenger waits at the gate, and his weird shadow falleth ever nearer." In response to the demand of these thousands who wanted to know the facts of the war, Miss Barton arranged to deliver three hundred lectures in different parts of the country. The proceeds of these addresses were to enable her to continue her work of binding up the bitter wounds of these whose loved ones had never returned. As a public speaker Miss Barton seems to have been singularly successful - due no doubt in part at least to the fact that she had a big message and one in which countless numbers were interested. John B. Gough, regarded at the time as one of the greatest orators in America, said that he had never heard anything more touching, more thrilling, in his life that these talks given by Miss Barton to ease the public heart. "I want everyone to hear her." he declared. The Times of Syracuse concluded its report of a lecture with: "Few eyes but were dim; few hearts but were saddened." These war lectures were given throughout the East were also given in the West where the country's big soul melted before Miss Barton and a tear-stained multitude thronged everywhere to hear her. The report of the Transcript, of Peoria, Illinois, for December 6, 1867, is typical. "Miss Barton is a lady of under medium height, with a broad forehead, a deep eye, and an earnest enthusiasm in manner. (She was modestly dressed in black silk and on being introduced, came) [*il*] forward to the stand and in a clear ringing voice spoke in an animated conversational tone that transported the imagination of the hearer to the scenes she so vividly described. Peoria has seen no more successful speaker." But the strain of lectures following so close on her other superhuman (efforts ultimately proved too much for Miss Barton's strength. The) [*All galleys find you Dr ar uncorrected & need not thus bother you*] But the strain of lectures following so close on her other superhuman efforts ultimately proved too much for Miss Barton's strength. The occasion of her breakdown she describes herself: "One early winter evening in '68, I stood on the platform of one of the finest new opera houses in the East, filled to repletion, with, it seemed to me, the most charming attendance I had ever beheld, plumed and jeweled ladies, stalwart youths, reverend white-haired men, and gradually to my horror I felt my voice giving out, leaving me. The next moment I opened my mouth but no sound followed. Again and again I attempted it, with no result. It was finished ! Nervous prostration had declared itself. I went to my home in Washington, lay helpless all winter, and was finally ordered to Europe by my physician." It was hard for Miss Barton to go. She wished to stay in America and continue her deeds of mercy. But it was impossible. "How gladly would I lay my right arm beside yours, so strong and ready," she wrote to Mrs. Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, "but its strength is gone. The years of unsheltered days and nights, the sun and storm, the dews and damps have done their work and now with bitter tears, I turn my face away from the land I have loved so well and seek in a foreign clime, perchance a little of the good strength once lent me here. "If' ever any of it return and I can serve your noble cause abroad you will tell me. If strong enough I must sail from New York for Europe in a few weeks." CHAPTER XXI AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 1869-1870 It was not until the fall of 1869 that Miss Barton ahd recovered sufficiently to undertake the trip abroad. "Three years of absolute rest," the doctor had prescribed, and at last in September we find her sailing for England doubtless fully determined to follow orders. But circumstances and her great love for humanity were destined to interfere with this determination. Landing in Liverpool there followed - she writes in a manuscript journal of the time - "two weeks in bonny Scotland among its bloom and heather, its lakes and mountains, its classic old cities, its towers and its castles; one night of thundering over a British railway as if shot from a cannon and here is London ; a few days with its miles offrom its base and fell back to the (?) major part of the French forces had been bottled up in the fort. August 30 began a decisive defeat for Marshall MacMahon. The Germans surprised the army at night while circling about the sleeping French soldiers and planted cannon which at daybreak belched forth, and eighty thousand capitulated. The second French army, cut off from Paris, had subsequently been surrounded and drawn into the fortress of Sedan. A furious onslaught followed, the fortress finally surrendering. After this battle on September 1, when the entire fortress was captured, Clara Barton was upon the field in person, ministering to the thousands of wounded and mangled. At length, September 28, Strassburg itself gave in. Returning from one of the battlefields in front of another sieged town in Alsace- Loraine, Miss Barton was as always urged to stay with the Grand Duchess of Baden in the ducal castle. The September afternoon of the surrender of Strassburg to the Grand Duchess's husband the Grand Duke of Baden, Miss Barton was sitting in a balcony chatting with the Grand Duchess. The heat was intense. Both were in the shade of the palace walls. Suddenly in a whirl of dust appeared a breathless courier from the siege line. "Strassburg has fallen" was all he could cry - then he fell upon his knees at the foot of the balcony, overcome from running in the heat. All along Miss Barton, pained by the distress of the beleaguered city, had determined to go back and enter Strassburg and relieve the besieged French citizens in their starvation, nakedness, and wounds. And so, when Strassburg threw open its gates to the Grand Duke of Baden, she at once put this determination into effect, crossing the Rhine and entering with the German army. A slight, delicate figure in a plain dark dress, she made her way through shattered streets into the bombarded homes. In cellars where they were hidden, in the damp and mold, her eye found out twenty thousand starving, half-naked women and children and aged men. Many were sick and wounded from shot and shell. The city numbered among its victims many mothers with their breasts shot off many little children maimed. It swarmed with twenty thousand of them crawling forth from dark holes more like skeletons than human forms of flesh and blood. Fathers and sons and husbands had been to a man in the conscripted ranks of the French army and were dead on the field or in German prisons. It was estimated that twenty thousand of the inhabitants of Strassburg were without the shadow of a roof over their heads, an ounce of food or an article of clothing save that which they had rescued from burning buildings, and all were without either work or pay. As one means of practically helping them help themselves, Miss Barton drew upon her own resources, purchased materials, and set two hundred and fifty poor women to work making articles of clothing. There was no building to use as warehouse or workroom. But this made no difference. She noted a huge rock and established first headquarters there. For eight months, 1500 garments a week were turned out, a large workroom being finally obtained. When finally a workroom was procured in a spacious structure so rushing was the distribution of garments to sew that the expert men cutters, up to their knees the first day in the masses of cut-out cloth, found their feet clear, the morning of the next day and all the cloth taken by the mothers of Strassburg as fast as they could cut it.[*1*] [*1*] Told Mrs. Marion Balcom Bullock in 1875, at North Grafton, upon Miss Barton's return from the Franco-Prussian War. An eyewitness's view of Miss Barton at Strassburg has been preserved in a partly finished painting by Antoinette Margot, who had been, as Miss Barton noted, a French artist of merit, before she took her with her to the German sieges. Miss Margot knew Clara Barton's work from day to day for three years, and thus perpetuated her station at her daily round of duty in Strassburg as the siege lifted. She caught her in this picture with her head turned away to a baby in a woman's arms. Women lean forward toward her to catch her words. Children are clinging to her skirts. One little orphan boy, half afraid, was lifting a corner of her gown to his lips. Her dress in this picture is green - a favorite color of Miss Barton at the time. Indeed it was often in her early life. When Clara goes to town to buy a brown dress, Miss Barton's Grandniece Myrtes has related (quoting her Grandaunt Sally), "I know she will get it for Clara always does what she says, but one way or another, that dress always changes to green, before she can get home. To Miss Barton, a wounded Frenchman was the same as a wounded German. Her charity, like her Christianity, was wide. Herself a Protestant, the ministering of veiled Sisters of Mercy engaged in their work of rescue she saw with joy. But one hundred days and nights are a long time to endure the terrors of a siege, and before the German army entered, the Sisters of Mercy had long passed the limit of human aid. Even horses and animals that had not been eaten had died, fodder long ago having been exhausted and the poor beasts left chewing at one another's tails and hides. Hit by the many thousands of shells dropped in Strassburg in the hundred-day siege, Miss Barton saw as she entered building after building but a heap of ruins. She must begin to rehabilitate and reclothe the thousands crawling torn and tattered from their mole like holes in cellars over which most of the houses were riddled or burned. This is why no house or hall was possible when on a big flat rock she established headquarters and gave our supplies to the crowding victims of the siege. Miss Barton worked alone with Anna Zimmerman for some forty days. She then returned across the Rhine to tell the story to the Grand Duchess. So impressed was the Duchess that she followed Miss Barton back to the distressed city with innumerable boxes of supplies, groups of noble women assistants, and more money than could be used. As practical as she was heroic, Miss Barton at once saw that unless a system was devised, the twenty thousand poor would be pauperized and supported in idleness. So after a time she boldly wrote the Grand Duchess: "You are making paupers of all Strassburg with your [*All galleys find you D uncorrected & need not Quiet*]r thrilling, in his life than these talks given by Miss Barton to ease the public heart. "I want everyone to hear her." he declared. The Times of Syracuse concluded its report of a lecture with: "Few eyes but were dim; few hearts but were saddened." These war lectures were given throughout the East were also given in the West where the country's big soul melted before Miss Barton and a tear-stained multitude thronged everywhere to hear her. The report of the Transcript, of Peoria, Illinois, for December 6, 1867, is typical. "Miss Barton is a lady of under medium height, with a broad forehead, a deep eye, and an earnest enthusiasm in manner. She was modestly dressed in black silk and on being introduced, came forward to the stand and in a clear ringing voice spoke in an animated conversational tone that transported the imagination of the hearer to the scenes she so vividly described. Peoria has seen no more successful speaker." But the strain of lectures following so close on her other superhuman efforts ultimately proved too much for Miss Barton's strength. The occasion of her breakdown she describes herself: "One early winter evening in '68, I stood on the platform of one of the finest new opera houses in the East, filled to repletion, with, it seemed to me, the most charming attendance I had ever beheld, plumed and jeweled ladies, stalwart youths, reverend white-haired men, and gradually to my horror I felt my voice giving out, leaving me. The next moment I opened my mouth but no sound followed. Again and again I attempted it, with no result. It was finished ! Nervous prostration had declared itself. I went to my home in Washington, lay helpless all winter, and was finally ordered to Europe by my physician." It was hard for Miss Barton to go. She wished to stay in America and continue her deeds of mercy. But it was impossible. "How gladly would I lay my right arm beside yours, so strong and ready," she wrote to Mrs. Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, "but its strength is gone. The years of unsheltered days and nights, the sun and storm, the dews and damps have done their work and now with bitter tears, I turn my face away from the land I have loved so well and seek in a foreign clime, perchance a little of the good strength once lent me here. "If' ever any of it return and I can serve your noble cause abroad you will tell me. If strong enough I must sail from New York for Europe in a few weeks." CHAPTER XXI AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 1869-1870 It was not until the fall of 1869 that Miss Barton ahd recovered sufficiently to undertake the trip abroad. "Three years of absolute rest," the doctor had prescribed, and at last in September we find her sailing for England doubtless fully determined to follow orders. But circumstances and her great love for humanity were destined to interfere with this determination. Landing in Liverpool there followed - she writes in a manuscript journal of the time - "two weeks in bonny Scotland among its bloom and heather, its lakes and mountains, its classic old cities, its towers and its castles; one night of thundering over a British railway as if shot from a cannon and here is London ; a few days with its miles of gray granite walls, its atmosphere of smoke, its beautiful parks, its matchless thoroughfares, its millions of living breathing life, its towers, its St. Paul's, its Parliament, its inconceivable charities, its untold wealth, its thieves and its beggars ; a dismal night across the channel and marvelously, you have bade adieu to a possession you have always had, born with you, a friend that has served your every need, and which you never thought before to lose - your mother tongue ! "Bonjour - Madame a votre service. (I hope you like it better than I do.) A day or two in Imperial Paris with all the splendor of the Empire, its regal Empress the pattern of the world, a happy wife and mother. A few hours with my old time, treasured war friend, E. B. Washburn, then our minister to France. A little talk on the 'situation,' a few doubts of the plan of reconstruction and on to the Southeast through happy France, her second crops reopening for the winter and her vineyards purpling in the sunshine. On through the valleys of thirft and beauty, with now and then a glimpse of Alpine ranges in the dim distance, till once more your lungs expand with the atmosphere of a Republic ; for the terminus of this is Switzerland, Cosmopolitan Geneva and here, friends, tired with our rushing journey, let us rest. For we have come to stay three years - so they told us at home, when they sent us away. Oh ! yes ! Time to admire this loveliest of cities, resting on the bosom of its clear blue lade ! Time to return the salutation of the great hoary-headed king, Mont Blanc, as he nods from his distant throne of perpetual snows. Time to make acquaintance with the old residences and labor places of John Calvin, Voltaire, Rousseau, Neckar and Madam de Stael at lovey Copet." But a month after Miss Barton's arrival in Geneva she was visited by the president and members of the "International Committee for the relief of the wounded in war." They called to learn why the United States had declined to sign the treaty of Geneva providing for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers. "Our position," explained Miss Barton, "was incomprehensible to them. If the treaty had originated with a monarchical government they could see some ground for hesitancy. But it originated in a Republic older than our own. To what did America object, and how could these objections be overcome? They had twice formally presented it to the government at Washington, once in 1864, through our Minister Plenipotentiary at555 32 Berne, who was present at the convention; again in 1868, through Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows, the great head of war relief in America. They had failed in both instances. No satisfactory or adequate reason had ever been given by the nation for the course pursued. They had thought the people of America, with their grand sanitary record, would be the first to appreciate and accept it. I listened in silent wonder to all this recital, and when I did reply it was to say that I had never heard of the Convention of Geneva nor of the treaty, and was sure that as a country America did not know she had declined; that she would be the last to withhold recognition of a humane movement; that it had doubtless been referred to and declined by some one department of the government, or some one official, and had never been submitted to the people; and as its literature was in languages foreign to our English-speaking population, it had no way of reaching us. "You will naturally infer that I examined it. I became all the more deeply impressed with the wisdom of its principles, the good practical sense of its details, and its extreme usefulness in practice. Humane intelligence had devised its provisions and peculiarly adapted it to win popular favor. The absurdity of our own position in relation to it was simply marvelous. As I counted up its roll of twenty-two nations, not a civilized people in the world but ourselves missing, and saw Greece, Spain, and Turkey there, I began to fear that in the eyes of the rest of mankind we could not be far from barbarians. This reflection did not furnish a stimulating food for national pride. I grew more and more ashamed. "Although the gradual growth of the idea of something like humanity in war, stimulated by the ignorant and insane horrors of India and the Crimea, and soothed and instructed by the sensible and practical work of Florence Nightingale, had slowly but surely led up to the conditions which made such a movement possible, it was not until the remarkable campaign of Napoleon III in Northern Italy again woke the slumbering sympathies of the world that any definite steps revealed themselves." The International Red Cross thus explained and revealed to Clara Barton made a deep impression upon her mind. Of this impression and the uppermost facts in it she further said: "It was to the direct influence of the work by Monsieur Henry Dunant, entitled 'Un Souvenir de Solferino' as well as to the personal exertions of that gentleman that the movement which led to the International Congress of 1864 and its results were immediately due. "Monsieur Dunant, a Swiss gentleman was traveling in Italy on his own account in the year 1859, and was in the neighborhood of Solferino the day of the great battle of the 24th of June. The aspect of the battlefield, the suffering of the vast numbers of wounded scattered over it and the occurrences which he afterwards observed, the hospitals, where he remained some days assisting as a volunteer in attending upon the wounded, deeply impressed him. "Notwithstanding the liberal provisions which had been made by the French army surgeons, means of transport, surgical stores, and dietary, and in addition, the aid afforded by the inhabitants of the places to which the wounded were first brought, Monsieur Dunant said that owing to the vastness of their numbers, the wounded were left for days without attention or proper surgical relief, and he was led to consider whether there were any means by which this superadded suffering in time of war might be obviated. This led to the publication of the Souvenir de Solferino in 1862, containing descriptions of what he had observed in the battlefield and in hospitals, as well as numerous arguments in favor of a proposition for founding in every country, societies for the relief of the wounded. "The work created a great sensation and was quickly translated into several European languages, and the Genevese Society of Public Utility appointed a committee of which General Dufor, the General in Chief of the Swiss Confederation, accepted the presidency, for the purpose of supporting and encouraging the dissemination of the proposals of Mr. Dunant." February 9th, 1863, Dr. Louis Appia seconded the appeal of the founder, Monsieur Dunant, before the courts of Europe, to whom he had appealed in a Congress at Berlin. The Grand Duke of Baden was the first donor. The International Conference at Geneva that followed earlier in 1864 was attended by delegates from sixteen governments, including Great Britain, France, Spain, Prussia, Austria, and Italy. "This conference sat four days, framed important resolutions and resulted in the calling of an International Congress, known as the International Convention of Geneva of 1864 for the purpose of considering the question of neutralization of the sick and wounded soldiers of belligerent armies. "This congress was assembled from the Supreme Federal Council of Switzerland. The invitation was accepted by sixteen powers and the congress opened on the 8th of August, 1864, at the Hotel de Ville, Geneva, provided for the occasion by the Federal Government. "There were present twenty-five members of the Diplomatic, Military and Medical staff of various nations and armies. "The deliberations lasted nearly a fortnight, and resulted in a code of Nine Articles agreed upon by the convention and signed on the 22d of August by the representatives of those governments which had previously accredited their delegates with sufficient power for signing a treaty. There were submitted ten articles of agreement to the main document known as "The Treaty of Geneva for the Relief of sick and wounded soldiers. "Twelve governments affixed their signatures. The President elected was Gustave Moynier. "This is considered," stated Miss Barton as she reflected upon the results of the founder, Monsieur Dunant, "a most remarkable instance of a general treaty brought about by the exertion of an individual in private life. "It will be borne in mind that the aim of the Congress of 1864 was to obtain the neutralization of the wounded in belligerent armies, and of the persons and material necessary for their care and treatment - and to determine whether the humane principles which had from time to time been applied exceptionally might not under certain limitationsDunant, entitled 'Un Souvenir de Solferino' as well as to the personal exertions of that gentleman that the movement which led to the International Congress of 1864 and its results were immediately due. "Monsieur Dunant, a Swiss gentleman was traveling in Italy on his own account in the year 1859, and was in the neighborhood of Solferino the day of the great battle of the 24th of June. The aspect of hte battlefield, the suffering of the vast numbers of wounded scattered over it and the occurrences which he afterwards observed, the hospitals, where he remained some days assisting as a volunteer in attending upon the wounded, deeply impressed him. "Notwithstanding the liberal provisions which had been made by the French army surgeons, means of transport, surgical stores, and dietary, and in addition, the aid afforded by the inhabitants of the places to which the wounded were first brought, Monsieur Dunant said that owing to the vastness of their numbers, the wounded were left for days without attention or proper surgical relief, and he was led to consider whether there were any means by which this superadded suffering in time of war might be obviated. This led to the publication of the Souvenir de Solferino in 1862, containing descriptions of what he had observed in the battlefield and in hospitals, as well as numerous arguments in favor of a proposition for founding in every country, societies for the relief of the wounded. "The work created a great sensation and was quickly translated into several European languages, and the Genevese Society of Public Utility appointed a committee of which General Dufor, the General in Chief of the Swiss Confederation, accepted the presidency, for the purpose of supporting and encouraging the dissemination of the proposals of Mr. Dunant." February 9th, 1863, Dr. Louis Appia seconded the appeal of the founder, Monsieur Dunant, before the courts of Europe, to whom he had appealed in a Congress at Berlin. The Grand Duke of Baden was the first donor. The International Conference at Geneva that followed earlier in 1864 was attended by delegates from sixteen governments, including Great Britain, France, Spain, Prussia, Austria, and Italy. "This conference sat four days, framed important resolutions and resulted in the calling of an International Congress, known as the International Convention of Geneva of 1864 for the purpose of considering the question of neutralization of the sick and wounded soldiers of belligerent armies. "This congress was assembled from the Supreme Federal Council of Switzerland. The invitation was accepted by sixteen powers and the congress opened on the 8th of August, 1864, at the Hotel de Ville, Geneva, provided for the occasion by the Federal Government. "There were present twenty-five members of the Diplomatic, Military and Medical staff of various nations and armies. "The deliberations lasted nearly a fortnight, and resulted in a code of Nine Articles agreed upon by the convention and signed on the 22d of August by the representatives of those governments which had previously accredited their delegates with sufficient power for signing a treaty. There were submitted ten articles of agreement to the main document known as 'The Treaty of Geneva for the Relief of sick and wounded soldiers.' "Twelve governments affixed their signatures. The President elected was Gustave Moynier. "This is considered," stated Miss Barton as she reflected upon the results of the founder, Monsieur Dunant, "a most remarkable instance of a general treaty brought about by the exertion of an individual in private life. "It will be borne in mind that the aim of the Congress of 1864 was to obtain the neutralization of the wounded in belligerent armies, and of the persons and material necessary for their care and treatment - and to determine whether the humane principles which had from time to time been applied exceptionally might not under certain limitations be rendered consistent with military necessities on all occasions, and be established as a rule. "The conference of 1863, less official in character, had aimed at the foundation of as system of Relief Societies for all countries and its resolutions are to this end. "A word in regard to the character of the Nine Articles, of the Treaty formed by the congress of the convention of 1864, may not be out of place. "The 1st naturally provides for the security of the hospitals in which the wounded might happen to be collected, that they shall be held neutral, and be respected by belligerents and that the sick or wounded remain in them." "Article 2 and 3 provide for the neutrality and safety of all persons employed in the care of the wounded in hospitals, surgeons, chaplains, nurses, attendants, even after the enemy has gained the ground; but when no longer required for the wounded, they shall be promptly conducted under escort to the outposts of the enemy to rejoin the corps to which they belong, thus preventing all opportunity to roam free and make observations under cover of neutrality. "Article 4 settles the terms on which the material of hospitals, field and general shall be regarded, that field hospitals shall not be subject to capture. "Article 5, with the view of quieting the fears of the inhabitants in the vicinity of a battle, who often flee in terror, as well as to secure their assistance, and the comfort of their homes for the care of the wounded, offers military protection and certain exemptions to all who shall entertain and care for the wounded, in their houses. "Article 6 binds the parties contracting the Treaty not only to give the requisite care and treatment to all sick and wounded who fall into their hands, but that their misfortunes shall not be aggravated by the prospect of banishment or imprisonment. They shall not be retained as prisoners of war, but if circumstances admit, may be given up immediately after the action to be cared for by their own army, or if retained until recovered and found disabled for service, they shall be safely returned to their own country and friends, and that all convoys of sick and wounded shall be protected by absolute neutrality. "In order to secure the neutralization of hospitals and materials, and nurses engaged in the services of the wounded, it was necessary