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Title: The Life of Clara Barton (Vol. 1 of 2)
       Founder of the American Red Cross

Author: William E. Barton

Release Date: February 25, 2022 [eBook #67505]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON
(VOL. 1 OF 2) ***





  THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON

  IN TWO VOLUMES

  VOLUME I

  [Illustration: _Clara Barton_]




  THE LIFE OF
  CLARA BARTON

  FOUNDER OF
  THE AMERICAN RED CROSS

  BY

  WILLIAM E. BARTON

  AUTHOR OF “THE SOUL OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN”
  “THE PATERNITY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,” ETC.

  _With Illustrations_


  VOLUME I

  [Illustration: Decorative Image]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

  The Riverside Press Cambridge

  1922




  COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY WILLIAM E. BARTON

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  The Riverside Press
  CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
  PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.




  TO

  STEPHEN E. BARTON

  HER TRUSTED NEPHEW; MY KINSMAN AND FRIEND




  CONTENTS

  VOLUME I


  INTRODUCTION                                        xi

  I. HER FIRST ATTEMPT AT AUTOBIOGRAPHY                1

  II. THE BIRTH OF CLARA BARTON                        6

  III. HER ANCESTRY                                    9

  IV. HER PARENTAGE AND INFANCY                       16

  V. HER SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS                         22

  VI. THE DAYS OF HER YOUTH                           36

  VII. HER FIRST EXPERIENCE AS A TEACHER              50

  VIII. LEAVES FROM HER UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY     56

  IX. THE HEART OF CLARA BARTON                       76

  X. FROM SCHOOLROOM TO PATENT OFFICE                 89

  XI. THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM                      107

  XII. HOME AND COUNTRY                              131

  XIII. CLARA BARTON TO THE FRONT                    172

  XIV. HARPER’S FERRY TO ANTIETAM                    191

  XV. CLARA BARTON’S CHANGE OF BASE                  225

  XVI. THE ATTEMPT TO RECAPTURE SUMTER               238

  XVII. FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE JAMES             263

  XVIII. TO THE END OF THE WAR                       282

  XIX. ANDERSONVILLE AND AFTER                       304

  XX. ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM                        328




  ILLUSTRATIONS


  CLARA BARTON AT THE TIME OF THE CIVIL WAR

  MOTHER AND FATHER OF CLARA BARTON

  BIRTHPLACE OF CLARA BARTON

  STONE SCHOOLHOUSE WHERE SHE FIRST TAUGHT

  CLARA BARTON AT EIGHTEEN

  MISS FANNIE CHILDS (MRS. BERNARD VASSALL)

  THE SCHOOLHOUSE AT BORDENTOWN

  FACSIMILE OF SENATOR HENRY WILSON’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN

  FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF CLARA BARTON TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON WITH
  INDORSEMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT, GENERAL GRANT, AND OTHERS




INTRODUCTION


The life of Clara Barton is a story of unique and permanent interest;
but it is more than an interesting story. It is an important chapter in
the history of our country, and in that of the progress of philanthropy
in this country and the world. Without that chapter, some events of
large importance can never be adequately understood.

Hers was a long life. She lived to enter her tenth decade, and when she
died was still so normal in the soundness of her bodily organs and in
the clarity of her mind and memory that it seemed she might easily have
lived to see her hundredth birthday. Hers was a life spent largely in
the Nation’s capital. She knew personally every president from Lincoln
to Roosevelt, and was acquainted with nearly every man of prominence in
our national life. When she went abroad, her associates were people of
high rank and wide influence in their respective countries. No American
woman received more honor while she lived, either at home or abroad,
and how worthily she bore these honors those know best who knew her
best.

The time has come for the publication of a definitive biography of
Clara Barton. Such a book could not earlier have been prepared. The
“Life of Clara Barton,” by Percy H. Epler, published in 1915, was
issued to meet the demand which rose immediately after her death for a
comprehensive biography, and it was published with the full approval
of Miss Barton’s relatives and of her literary executors, including
the author of the present work. But, by agreement, the two large
vaults containing some tons of manuscripts which Miss Barton left,
were not opened until after the publication of Mr. Epler’s book. It
was the judgment of her literary executors, concurred in by Mr. Epler,
that this mine of information could not be adequately explored within
any period consistent with the publication of a biography such as he
contemplated. For this reason, the two vaults remained unopened until
his book was on the market. The contents of these vaults, containing
more than forty closely packed boxes, is the chief source of the
present volume, and this abundant material has been supplemented by
letters and personal reminiscences from Clara Barton’s relatives and
intimate friends.

Clara Barton considered often the question of writing her own
biography. A friend urged this duty upon her in the spring of 1876, and
she promised to consider the matter. But the incessant demands made
upon her time by duties that grew more steadily imperative prevented
her doing this.

In 1906 the request came to her from a number of school-children that
she would tell about her childhood; and she wrote a little volume of
one hundred and twenty-five pages, published in 1907 by Baker and
Taylor, entitled, “The Story of my Childhood.” She was gratified by the
reception of this little book, and seriously considered using it as the
corner stone of her long contemplated autobiography. She wrote a second
section of about fifteen thousand words, covering her girlhood and her
experiences as a teacher at home and in Borden town, New Jersey. This
was never published, and has been utilized in this present biography.

Beside these two formal and valuable contributions toward her
biography, she left journals covering most of the years from her
girlhood until her death, besides vast quantities of letters received
by her and copies of her replies. Her personal letters to her intimate
friends were not copied, as a rule, but it has been possible to gather
some hundreds of these. Letter-books, scrap-books, newspaper clippings,
magazine articles, records of the American Red Cross, and papers,
official and personal, swell the volume of material for this book to
proportions not simply embarrassing, but almost overwhelming.

She appears never to have destroyed anything. Her temperament and the
habits of a lifetime impelled her to save every scrap of material
bearing upon her work and the subjects in which she was interested.
She gathered, and with her own hand labeled, and neatly tied up her
documents, and preserved them against the day when she should be able
to sift and classify them and prepare them for such use as might
ultimately be made of them. It troubled her that she was leaving these
in such great bulk, and she hoped vainly for the time when she could go
through them, box by box, and put them into shape. But they accumulated
far more rapidly than she could have assorted them, and so they were
left until her death, and still remained untouched, until December,
1915, when the vaults were opened and the heavy task began of examining
this material, selecting from it the papers that tell the whole story
of her life, and preparing the present volumes. If this book is large,
it is because the material compelled it to be so. It could easily have
been ten times as thick.

The will of Clara Barton named as her executor her beloved and trusted
nephew, Stephen E. Barton. It also named a committee of literary
executors, to whom she entrusted the use of her manuscripts for such
purpose, biographical or otherwise, as they should deem best. The
author of these volumes was named by her as a member of that committee.
The committee elected him as its chairman, and requested him to
undertake the preparation of the biography. This task was undertaken
gladly, for the writer knew and loved his kinswoman and held her in
honor and affection; but he knew too well the magnitude of the task
ahead of him to be altogether eager to accept it. The burden, however,
has been measurably lightened by the assistance of Miss Saidee F.
Riccius, a grand-niece of Miss Barton, who, under the instruction of
the literary executors, and the immediate direction of Stephen E.
Barton and the author, has rendered invaluable service, without which
the author could not have undertaken this work.

In her will, written a few days before her death, Miss Barton virtually
apologized to the committee and to her biographer for the heavy task
which she bequeathed to them. She said:

“I regret exceedingly that such a labor should devolve upon my friends
as the overlooking of the letters of a lifetime, which should properly
be done by me, and shall be, if I am so fortunate as to regain a
sufficient amount of strength to enable me to do it. I have never
destroyed my letters, regarding them as the surest chronological
testimony of my life, whenever I could find the time to attempt to
write it. That time has never come to me, and the letters still wait my
call.”

They still were there, undisturbed, thousands of them, when the
vaults were opened, and none of them have been destroyed or mutilated.
They are of every sort, personal and official; and they bear their
consistent and cumulative testimony to her indefatigability, her
patience, her heroic resolution, and most of all to her greatness of
heart and integrity of soul.

Interesting and valuable in their record of every period and almost
every day and hour of her long and eventful life, they are the
indisputable record of the birth and development of the organization
which almost single-handed she created, the American Red Cross.

Among those who suggested to Miss Barton the desirability of her
writing the story of her own life, was Mr. Houghton, senior partner in
the firm of Houghton, Mifflin and Company. He had one or more personal
conferences with her relating to this matter. Had she been able to
write the story of her own life, she would have expected it to be
published by that firm. It is to the author a gratifying circumstance
that this work, which must take the place of her autobiography, is
published by the firm with whose senior member she first discussed the
preparation of such a work.

The author of this biography was a relative and friend of Clara Barton,
and knew her intimately. By her request he conducted her funeral
services, and spoke the last words at her grave. His own knowledge
of her has been supplemented and greatly enlarged by the personal
reminiscences of her nearer relatives and of the friends who lived
under her roof, and those who accompanied her on her many missions of
mercy.

In a work where so much compression was inevitable, some incidents may
well have received scant mention which deserved fuller treatment. The
question of proportion is never an easy one to settle in a work of this
character. If she had given any direction, it would have been that
little be said about her, and much about the work she loved. That work,
the founding of the American Red Cross, must receive marked emphasis
in a Life of Clara Barton: for she was its mother. She conceived the
American Red Cross, carried it under her heart for years before it
could be brought forth, nurtured it in its cradle, and left it to her
country and the world, an organization whose record in the great World
War shines bright against that black cloud of horror, as the emblem of
mercy and of hope.

Wherever, in America or in lands beyond, the flag of the Red Cross
flies beside the Stars and Stripes, there the soul of Clara Barton
marches on.

  FIRST CHURCH STUDY
  OAK PARK, _July 16, 1921_




THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON




CHAPTER I

HER FIRST ATTEMPT AT AUTOBIOGRAPHY


Though she had often been importuned to furnish to the public some
account of her life and work, Clara Barton’s first autobiographical
outline was not written until September, 1876, when Susan B. Anthony
requested her to prepare a sketch of her life for an encyclopædia of
noted women of America. Miss Barton labored long over her reply. She
knew that the story must be short, and that she must clip conjunctions
and prepositions and omit “all the sweetest and best things.” When she
had finished the sketch, she was appalled at its length, and still was
unwilling that any one else should make it shorter; so she sent it with
stamps for its return in case it should prove too long. “It has not an
adjective in it,” she said.

Her original draft is still preserved, and reads as follows:

  FOR SUSAN B. ANTHONY
  SKETCH FOR CYCLOPÆDIA

  SEPTEMBER, 1876

 BARTON, CLARA; her father, Capt. Stephen Barton, a
 non-commissioned officer under “Mad Anthony Wayne,” was a farmer
 in Oxford, Mass. Clara, youngest child, finished her education at
 Clinton, N.Y. Teacher, popularized free schools in New Jersey.

 First woman appointed to an independent clerkship by Government at
 Washington.

 On outbreak of Civil War, went to aid suffering soldiers. Labored in
 advance and independent of commissions. Never in hospitals; selecting
 as scene of operations the battle-field from its earliest moment,
 ’till the wounded and dead were removed or cared for; carrying her own
 supplies by Government transportation.

 At the battles of Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Chantilly, South
 Mountain, Falmouth and “Old Fredericksburg,” Siege of Charleston,
 Morris Island, Wagner, Wilderness, Fredericksburg, The Mine, Deep
 Bottom, through sieges of Petersburg and Richmond under Butler and
 Grant.

 At Annapolis on arrival of prisoners.

 Established search for missing soldiers, and, aided by Dorence
 Atwater, enclosed cemetery, identified and marked the graves of
 Andersonville.

 Lectured on Incidents of the War in 1866-67. In 1869 went to Europe
 for health. In Switzerland on outbreak of Franco-Prussian War;
 tendered services. Was invited by Grand Duchess of Baden, daughter
 of Emperor William, to aid in establishing her hospitals. On fall of
 Strassburg entered with German Army, remained eight months, instituted
 work for women which held twelve hundred persons from beggary and
 clothed thirty thousand.

 Entered Metz on its fall. Entered Paris the day succeeding the fall of
 Commune; remained two months, distributing money and clothing which
 she carried. Met the poor of every besieged city of France, giving
 help.

 Is representative of the “Comité International of the Red Cross” of
 Geneva. Honorary and only woman member of Comité de Strasbourgoes. Was
 decorated with the Gold Cross of Remembrance by the Grand Duke and
 Duchess of Baden and with the “Iron Cross” by the Emperor and Empress
 of Germany.

Miss Anthony regarded the sketch with the horror of offended modesty.

“For Heaven’s sake, Clara,” she wrote, “put some flesh and clothes on
this skeleton!”

Thus admonished, Miss Barton set to work to drape the bones of her
first attempt, and was in need of some assistance from Miss Anthony and
others. The work as completed was not wholly her own. The adjectives,
which had been conspicuously absent from the first draft together with
some characterizations of Miss Barton and her work, were supplied by
Miss Anthony and her editors. It need not here be reprinted in its
final form; for it is accessible in Miss Anthony’s book. As it finally
appeared, it is several times as long as when Clara Barton wrote it,
and is more Miss Anthony’s than Miss Barton’s.

In the foregoing account, mention is made of her being an official
member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In that
capacity she did not at that time represent any American organization
known as the Red Cross, for there was no such body. Although such an
organization had been in existence in Europe from the time of our Civil
War, and the Reverend Dr. Henry W. Bellows, late of the Christian
Commission, had most earnestly endeavored to organize a branch of it
in this country, and to secure official representation from America
in the international body, the proposal had been met not merely by
indifference, but by hostility.

Clara Barton wrote her autobiographical sketch from a sanitarium.
She had not yet recovered from the strain of her service in the
Franco-Prussian War. One reason why she did not recover more rapidly
was that she was bearing on her heart the burden of this as yet unborn
organization, and as yet had found no friends of sufficient influence
and faith to afford to America a share in the honor of belonging to the
sisterhood of nations that marched under that banner.

       *       *       *       *       *

The outbreak of the World War found America unprepared save only in
her wealth of material resources, her high moral purpose, and her
ability to adapt her forms of organized life to changed and unwelcome
conditions. The rapidity with which she increased her army and her
navy to a strength that made it possible for her to turn the scale,
where the fate of the world hung trembling in the balance, was not more
remarkable than her skill in adapting her institutions of peace to the
exigencies of war. Most of the agencies, which, under the direction of
civilians, ministered to men in arms had either to be created out of
hand or adapted from institutions formed in time of peace and for other
objects. But the American Red Cross was already organized and in active
service. It was a factor in the fight from the first day of the world’s
agony, through the invasion of Belgium, and the three years of our
professed neutrality; and by the time of America’s own entrance into
the war it had assumed such proportions that everywhere the Red Cross
was seen floating beside the Stars and Stripes. Every one knew what it
stood for. It was the emblem of mercy, even as the flag of our Nation
was the symbol of liberty and the hope of the world.

The history of the American Red Cross cannot be written apart from the
story of its founder, Clara Barton. For years before it came into
being, her voice almost alone pleaded for it, and to her persistent and
almost sole endeavor it came at length to be established in America.
For other years she was its animating spirit, its voice, its soul.
Had she lived to see its work in the great World War, she would have
been humbly and unselfishly grateful for her part in its beginnings,
and overjoyed that it had outgrown them. The story of the founding and
of the early history of the American Red Cross is the story of Clara
Barton.




CHAPTER II

THE BIRTH OF CLARA BARTON


Clara Barton was a Christmas gift to the world. She was born December
25, 1821. Her parents named her Clarissa Harlowe. It was a name with
interesting literary associations.

Novels now grow overnight and are forgotten in a day. The paper mills
are glutted with the waste of yesterday’s popular works of fiction; and
the perishability of paper is all that prevents the stopping of all the
wheels of progress with the accumulation of obsolete “best-sellers.”
But it was not so in 1821. The novels of Samuel Richardson, issued
in the middle of the previous century, were still popular. He wrote
“Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded,” a novel named for its heroine, a pure
and simple-minded country girl, who repelled the dishonorable proposals
of her employer until he came to respect her, and married her, and
they lived happily ever after. The plot of this story lives again in
a thousand moving-picture dramas, in which the heroine is a shop girl
or an art student; but Richardson required two volumes to tell the
story, and it ran through five editions in a year. He also wrote “Sir
Charles Grandison,” and it required six volumes to portray that hero’s
smug priggishness; but the Reverend Dr. Finney, president of Oberlin
College, who was also the foremost evangelist of his time, and whose
system of theology wrought in its day a revolution, was not the only
distinguished man who bore the name of Charles Grandison.

But Richardson’s greatest literary triumph was “Clarissa Harlowe.”
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was not far wrong when she declared that
the chambermaids of all nations wept over Pamela, and that all the
ladies of quality were on their knees to Richardson imploring him to
spare Clarissa. Clarissa was not a servant like Pamela: she was a lady
of quality, and she had a lover socially her equal, but morally on a
par with a considerable number of the gentry of his day. His name,
Lovelace, became the popular designation of the gentleman profligate.
Clarissa’s sorrows at his hands ran through eight volumes, and, as the
lachrymose sentiment ran out to volume after volume, the gentlewomen
of the English-reading world wept tears that might have made another
flood. Samuel Richardson wrote the story of “Clarissa Harlowe” in 1748,
but the story still was read, and the name of the heroine was loved, in
1821.

But Clarissa Harlowe Barton did not permanently bear the incubus of so
long a name. Among her friends she was always Clara, and though for
years she signed her name “Clara H. Barton,” the convenience and rhythm
of the shorter name won over the time-honored sentiment attached to the
title of the novel, and the world knows her simply as Clara Barton.

He who rides on the electric cars from Worcester to Webster will pass
Bartlett’s Upper Mills, where a weather-beaten sign at the crossroads
points the way “TO CLARA BARTON’S BIRTHPLACE.” About a mile
from the main street, on the summit of a rounded hill, the visitor
will find the house where she was born. It stands with its side to the
road, a hall dividing it through the middle. It is an unpretentious
home, but comfortable, one story high at the eaves, but rising with
the rafters to afford elevation for chambers upstairs. In the rear
room, on the left side, on the ground floor, the children of the Barton
family were born. Clara was the fifth and youngest child, ten years
younger than her sister next older. The eldest child, Dorothy, was born
October 2, 1804, and died April 19, 1846. The next two children were
sons, Stephen, the third to bear the name, born March 29, 1806, and
David, born August 15, 1808. Then came another daughter, Sarah, born
March 20, 1811. These four children followed each other at intervals of
a little more than two years; but Clara had between her and the other
children the wide gap of more than a decade. Her brothers were fifteen
and thirteen, respectively, and her sister was “going on eleven” when
she arrived. She came into a world that was already well grown up and
fully occupied with concerns of its own. Had there been between her and
the other children an ascending series of four or five graduated steps
of heads, the first a little taller than her own, and the others rising
in orderly sequence, the rest of the universe would not have been
quite so formidable; but she was the sole representative of babyhood
in the home at the time of her arrival. So she began her somewhat
solitary pilgrimage, from a cradle fringed about with interested and
affectionate observers, all of whom had been babies a good while
before, but had forgotten about it, into that vast and vague domain
inhabited by the adult portion of the human race; and while she was not
unattended, her journey had its elements of solitude.




CHAPTER III

HER ANCESTRY


The Bartons of America are descended from a number of immigrant
ancestors, who have come to this country from England, Scotland, and
Ireland. The name, however, is neither Scotch nor Irish, but English.
While the several families in Great Britain have not as yet traced
their ancestry to a single source, there appears to have been such
a source. The ancestral home of the Barton family is Lancashire.
The family is of Norman stock, and came to England with William
the Conqueror, deriving their English surname from Barton Manor in
Lancashire. From 1086, when the name was recorded in the Doomsday Book,
it is found in the records of Lancashire.

The derivation of the name is disputed. It is said that originally
it was derived from the Saxon _bere_, barley, and _tun_, a
field, and to mean the enclosed lands immediately adjacent to a manor;
but most English names that end with “ton” are derived from “town”
with a prefix, and it is claimed that _bar_, or defense, and
_ton_, or town, once meant a defended or enclosed town, or one who
protects a town. The name is held to mean “defender of the town.”

In the time of Henry I, Sir Leysing de Barton, Knight, was mentioned
as a feudal vassal of lands between the rivers Ribbe and Mersey,
under Stephen, Count of Mortagne, grandson of William the Conqueror,
who later became King Stephen of England. Sir Leysing de Barton
was the father of Matthew de Barton, and the grandfather of several
granddaughters, one of whom was Editha de Barton, Lady of Barton Manor.
She inherited the great estate, and was a woman of note in her day. She
married Augustine de Barton, possibly a cousin, by whom she had two
children, John de Barton, who died before his mother, and a daughter
Cecilly.

After the death of Augustine de Barton, his widow, Lady Editha, married
Gilbert de Notton, a landed proprietor of Lincolnshire, who also
had possessions in Yorkshire and Lancashire. He had three sons by a
previous marriage, one of whom, William, married Cecilly de Barton,
daughter of Editha and her first husband Augustine. Their son, named
for his uncle, Gilbert de Notton, inherited the Barton Manor and
assumed the surname Barton.

The Barton estate was large, containing several villages and
settlements. The homestead was at Barton-on-Irwell, now in the
municipality of Eccles, near the city of Manchester.

Other Barton families in England are quite possibly descended from
younger sons of the original Barton line.

The arms of the Bartons of Barton were, _Argent_, _three boars’
heads_, _armed_, _or_.

In the Wars of the Roses the Bartons were with the house of Lancaster,
and the Red Rose is the traditional flower of the Barton family. Clara
Barton, when she wore flowers, habitually wore red roses; and whatever
her attire there was almost invariably about it somewhere a touch
of red, “her color,” she called it, as it had been the color of her
ancestors for many generations.

In the seventeenth century there were several families of Bartons
in the American colonies. The name is found early in Virginia, in
Pennsylvania, in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and other
colonies.

Salem had two families of Bartons, probably related,--those of Dr.
John Barton, physician and chirurgeon, who came from Huntingdonshire,
England, in 1672, and was prominent in the early life of Salem, and
Edward Barton, who arrived thirty-two years earlier, but, receiving a
grant of land on the Piscataqua, removed to Portsmouth, and about 1666
to Cape Porpoise, Maine. On account of Indian troubles, the homestead
was deserted for some years, but Cape Porpoise continued to be the
traditional home of this branch of the Barton family.

Edward’s eldest son, Matthew, returned to Salem, and lived there, at
Portsmouth, and at Cape Porpoise. His eldest son, born probably at
Salem in or about 1664, was Samuel Barton, founder of the Barton family
of Oxford.

Not long after the pathetic witchcraft delusion of Salem, a number of
enterprising families migrated from Salem to Framingham, among them the
family of Samuel Barton. On July 19, 1716, as recorded in the Suffolk
County Registry of Deeds in Boston, Jonathan Provender, husbandman, of
Oxford, sold to Samuel Barton, Sr., husbandman, of Framingham, a tract
of land including about one-thirtieth of the village of Oxford, as well
as a fourth interest in two mills, a sawmill and a gristmill.

In 1720, Samuel Barton and a few of his neighbors met at the home
of John Towne, where, after prayer, “they mutually considered their
obligations to promote the kingdom of their Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ,” and covenanted together to seek to establish and build a
church of Christ in Oxford. On January 3, 1721, the church was formally
constituted, Samuel Barton and his wife bringing their letters of
dismission from the church in Framingham of which both were members,
and uniting as charter members of the new church in Oxford. The
Reverend John Campbell was their first pastor. For over forty years he
led his people, and his name lives in the history of that town as a man
of learning, piety, and rare capacity for spiritual leadership. Long
after his death, it was discovered that he was Colonel John Campbell,
of Scotland, heir to the earldom of Loudon, who had fled from Scotland
for political reasons, and who became a soldier of Christ in the new
world.

Samuel Barton, son of Edward and Martha Barton, and grandson of Edward
and Elizabeth Barton, died in Oxford September 12, 1732. His wife,
Hannah Bridges, died there March 13, 1737. From them sprang the family
of the Oxford Bartons, whose most illustrious representative was Clara
Barton.

The maternal side of this line, that of Bridges, began in America
with Edmund Bridges, who came to Massachusetts from England in 1635,
and lived successively at Lynn, Rowley, and Ipswich. His eldest son,
Edmund, Jr., was born about 1637, married Sarah Towne in 1659, lived
in Topsfield and Salem, and died in 1682. The fourth of their five
children was a daughter, Hannah, who, probably at Salem about 1690,
married Samuel Barton, progenitor of the Bartons of Oxford, to which
town he removed from Framingham in 1716.

Edmund, youngest son of Samuel and Hannah Barton, was born in
Framingham, August 15, 1715. He married, April 9, 1739, Anna Flint,
of Salem. She was born June 9, 1718, eldest daughter of Stephen Flint
and his wife, Hannah Moulton. Anna Flint was the granddaughter of John
Flint, of Salem Village (Danvers), and great-granddaughter of Thomas
Flint, who came to Salem before 1650.

Edmund settled in Sutton, and owned lands there and in Oxford. He
and his wife became members of the First Church in Sutton, and later
transferred their membership to the Second Church in Sutton, which
subsequently became the First Church in Millbury. He served in the
French War, and was at Fort Edward in 1753. He died December 13, 1799,
and Anna, his wife, died March 20, 1795.

The eldest son of Edmund and Anna Barton was Stephen Barton, born June
10, 1740, at Sutton. He studied medicine with Dr. Green, of Leicester,
and practiced his profession in Oxford and in Maine. He had unusual
professional skill, as well as great sympathy and charity. He married
at Oxford, May 28, 1765, Dorothy Moore, who was born at Oxford, April
12, 1747, daughter of Elijah Moore and Dorothy Learned. On her father’s
side she was the granddaughter of Richard, great-granddaughter of
Jacob, and great-great-granddaughter of John Moore. John Moore and his
wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Philemon Whale, bought a home in Sudbury
in 1642. Their son, Jacob, married Elizabeth Looker, daughter of Henry
Looker, of Sudbury, and lived in Sudbury. Their son Richard, born in
Sudbury in 1670, married Mary Collins, daughter of Samuel Collins,
of Middletown, Connecticut, and granddaughter of Edward Collins, of
Cambridge. Richard Moore was one of the most capable and trusted
men in early Oxford. Dorothy Learned, wife of Elijah Moore, was the
daughter of Colonel Ebenezer Learned, the largest landowner in Oxford,
one of the original thirty proprietors. He was a man of superior
personality, for thirty-two years one of the selectmen, for many years
chairman of that body, and moderator of town meetings, a justice of the
peace, a representative in the Great and General Court, and an officer
in the militia from 1718 to 1750, beginning as Ensign and reaching the
rank of Colonel. He was active in the affairs of the town, the church,
and the military organization during his long and useful life. His
wife was Deborah Haynes, daughter of John Haynes, of Sudbury. He was
the son of Isaac Learned, Jr., of Framingham, who had been a soldier
in the Narraganset War, and his wife, Sarah Bigelow, daughter of John
Bigelow, of Watertown. Isaac Learned was the son of Isaac Learned, Sr.,
of Woburn and Chelmsford, and his wife, Mary Stearns, daughter of Isaac
Stearns, of Watertown. The parents of Isaac Learned, Sr., were William
and Goditha Learned, members of the Charlestown Church in 1632, and of
Woburn Church in 1642.

The Learned family shared with the Barton family in the formation
of the English settlement in Oxford, and were intimately related by
intermarriage and many mutual interests. Brigadier-General Ebenezer
Learned, a distinguished officer in the Revolution, was a brother of
Dorothy Learned Moore, the great-grandmother of Clara Barton.

Dr. Stephen Barton and his wife, Dorothy Moore, had thirteen children.
Their sons were Elijah Moore, born October 12, 1765, and died June 13,
1769; Gideon, born March 29, 1767, and died October 27, 1770; Stephen,
born August 18, 1774; Elijah Moore, born August 10, 1784; Gideon, born
June 18, 1786; and Luke, born September 3, 1791. The first two sons
died at an early age; the four remaining sons lived to marry, and
three of them lived in Maine. The daughters of Dr. Stephen Barton and
Dorothy, his wife, were Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, Hannah, Parthena,
Polly, and Dolly.

It is interesting to note in the names of these daughters a departure
from the common New England custom of seeking Bible names, and the
naming of the first two daughters after the two principal heroines of
Samuel Richardson.

Of this family, the third son, and the eldest to survive, was Stephen
Barton, Jr., known as Captain Stephen Barton, father of Clara Barton.




CHAPTER IV

HER PARENTAGE AND INFANCY


Captain Stephen Barton won his military title by that system of
_post-bellum_ promotion familiar in all American communities. He
was a non-commissioned officer in the wars against the Indians. He was
nineteen when he enlisted, and marched on foot with his troop from
Boston to Philadelphia, which at that time was the Nation’s capital.
The main army was then at Detroit under command of General Wayne, whom
the soldiers lovingly knew as “Mad Anthony.” William Henry Harrison
and Richard M. Johnson, later President and Vice-President of the
United States, were then lieutenants, and Stephen Barton fought side
by side with them. He was present when Tecumseh was slain, and at the
signing of the treaty of peace which followed. His military service
extended over three years. At the close of the war he marched home
on foot through northern Ohio and central New York. He and the other
officers were greatly charmed by the Genesee and Mohawk valleys, and
he purchased land somewhere in the vicinity of Rochester. He had some
thought of establishing a home in that remote region, but it was so far
distant from civilization that he sold his New York land and made his
home in Oxford.

In 1796, Stephen Barton returned from the Indian War. He was then
twenty-two years of age. Eight years later he married Sarah Stone, who
was only seventeen. They established their home west of Oxford, near
Charlton, and later removed to the farm where Clara Barton was born.

[Illustration: MOTHER AND FATHER OF CLARA BARTON]

It was a modest home, and Stephen Barton was a hardworking man, though
a man of influence in the community. He served often as moderator of
town meetings and as selectman for the town. He served also as a member
of the Legislature. But he wrought with his own hands in the tillage of
his farm, and in the construction of most of the articles of furniture
in his home, including the cradle in which his children were rocked.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF CLARA BARTON]

Stephen Barton combined a military spirit with a gentle disposition
and a broad spirit of philanthropy. Sarah Stone was a woman of great
decision of character, and a quick temper. She was a housewife of
the good old New England sort, looking well to the ways of her
household and eating not the bread of idleness. From her father Clara
Barton inherited those humanitarian tendencies which became notably
characteristic, and from her mother she derived a strong will which
achieved results almost regardless of opposition. Her mother’s hot
temper found its restraint in her through the inherited influence of
her father’s poise and benignity. Of him she wrote:

 His military habits and tastes never left him. Those were also strong
 political days--Andrew Jackson Days--and very naturally my father
 became my instructor in military and political lore. I listened
 breathlessly to his war stories. Illustrations were called for and
 we made battles and fought them. Every shade of military etiquette
 was regarded. Colonels, captains, and sergeants were given their
 proper place and rank. So with the political world; the President,
 Cabinet, and leading officers of the government were learned by
 heart, and nothing gratified the keen humor of my father more than
 the parrot-like readiness with which I lisped these difficult names.
 I thought the President might be as large as the meeting-house, and
 the Vice-President perhaps the size of the schoolhouse. And yet, when
 later I, like all the rest of our country’s people, was suddenly
 thrust into the mysteries of war, and had to find and take my place
 and part in it, I found myself far less a stranger to the conditions
 than most women, or even ordinary men for that matter. I never
 addressed a colonel as captain, got my cavalry on foot, or mounted my
 infantry!

 When a little child upon his knee he told me that, as he lay helpless
 in the tangled marshes of Michigan the muddy water oozed up from the
 track of an officer’s horse and saved him from death by thirst. And
 that a mouthful of a lean dog that had followed the march saved him
 from starvation. When he told me how the feathered arrow quivered in
 the flesh and the tomahawk swung over the white man’s head, he told me
 also, with tears of honest pride, of the great and beautiful country
 that had sprung up from those wild scenes of suffering and danger. How
 he loved these new States for which he gave the strength of his youth!

Two sons and two daughters were born to Stephen and Sarah Barton in
their early married life. Then for ten years no other children were
born to them. On Christmas, 1821, their eldest daughter, Dorothy, was
as old as her mother had been at the time of their marriage. Their
eldest son, Stephen, was fifteen, the younger son, David, was thirteen,
and the daughter, Sally, was ten. The family had long considered itself
complete, when the household received Clara as a Christmas present.
Her brothers and sisters were too old to be her playmates. They were
her protectors, but not her companions. She was a little child in the
midst of a household of grown-up people, as they seemed to her. In her
little book entitled “The Story of my Childhood,” she thus describes
her brothers and sisters:

 I became the seventh member of a household consisting of the father
 and mother, two sisters and two brothers, each of whom for his and her
 intrinsic merits and special characteristics deserves an individual
 history, which it shall be my conscientious duty to portray as far
 as possible as these pages progress. For the present it is enough
 to say that each one manifested an increasing personal interest in
 the newcomer, and, as soon as developments permitted, set about
 instructing her in the various directions most in accord with the
 tastes and pursuits of each.

 Of the two sisters, the elder was already a teacher. The younger
 followed soon, and naturally my book education became their first
 care, and under these conditions it is little to say, that I have no
 knowledge of ever learning to read, or of a time that I did not do my
 own story reading. The other studies followed very early.

 My elder brother, Stephen, was a noted mathematician. He inducted me
 into the mystery of figures. Multiplication, division, subtraction,
 halves, quarters, and wholes, soon ceased to be a mystery, and no toy
 equaled my little slate. But the younger brother had entirely other
 tastes, and would have none of these things. My father was a lover
 of horses, and one of the first in the vicinity to introduce blooded
 stock. He had large lands, for New England. He raised his own colts;
 and Highlanders, Virginians, and Morgans pranced the fields in idle
 contempt of the solid old farm-horses.

 Of my brother, David, to say that he was fond of horses describes
 nothing; one could almost add that he was fond of nothing else. He was
 the Buffalo Bill of the surrounding country, and here commences his
 part of my education. It was his delight to take me, a little girl
 of five years old, to the field, seize a couple of those beautiful
 young creatures, broken only to the halter and bit, and gathering the
 reins of both bridles firmly in hand, throw me upon the 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 the 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 I found
 myself suddenly 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.

One of the bravest of women, Clara Barton was a child of unusual
timidity. Looking back upon her earliest recollections she said, “I
remember nothing but fear.” Her earliest memory was of her grief in
failing to catch “a pretty bird” when she was two and a half years old.
She cried in disappointment, and her mother ran to learn what was the
trouble. On hearing her complaint, that “Baby” had lost a pretty bird
which she had almost caught, her mother asked, “Where did it go, Baby?”
“Baby” indicated a small round hole under the doorstep, and her mother
gave a terrified scream. That scream awoke terror in the mind of the
little girl, and she never quite recovered from it. The “bird” she had
almost caught was a snake.

Her next memory also was one of fear. The family had gone to a funeral,
leaving her in the care of her brother David. She told of it afterward
as follows:

 I can picture the large family sitting-room with its four open
 windows, which room I was not to leave, and my guardian was to remain
 near me. Some outside duty called him from the house and I was left to
 my own observations. A sudden thunder-shower came up; massive rifts
 of clouds rolled up in the east, and the lightning darted among them
 like blazing fires. The thunder gave them language and my terrified
 imagination endowed them with life.

 Among the animals of the farm was a huge old ram, that doubtless
 upon some occasion had taught me to respect him, and of which I had
 a mortal fear. My terrors transformed those rising, rolling clouds
 into a whole heaven full of angry rams, marching down upon me. Again
 my screams alarmed, and the poor brother, conscience-stricken that he
 had left his charge, rushed breathless in, to find me on the floor in
 hysterics, a condition of things he had never seen; and neither memory
 nor history relates how either of us got out of it.

 In these later years I have observed that writers of sketches, in
 a friendly desire to compliment me, have been wont to dwell upon
 my courage, representing me as personally devoid of fear, not even
 knowing the feeling. However correct that may have become, it is
 evident I was not constructed that way, as in the earlier years of my
 life I remember nothing but fear.




CHAPTER V

HER SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS


Clara Barton’s education began at her cradle. She was not able to
remember when she learned to read. When three years old she had
acquired the art of reading, and her lessons in spelling, arithmetic,
and geography began in her infancy. Both of her sisters and her eldest
brother were school-teachers. Recalling their efforts, she said: “I
had no playmates, 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.”

Before she was four years old she entered school. By that time she was
able to read easily, and could spell words of three syllables. She
told the story of her first schooling in an account which must not be
abridged:

 My home instruction was by no means permitted to stand in the way
 of the “regular school,” which consisted of two terms each year,
 of three months each. The winter term included not only the large
 boys and girls, but in reality the young men and young women of the
 neighborhood. An exceptionally fine teacher often drew the daily
 attendance of advanced scholars for several miles. Our district had
 this good fortune. I introduce with pleasure and with reverence the
 name of Richard Stone; a firmly set, handsome young man of twenty-six
 or seven, of commanding figure and presence, combining all the
 elements of a teacher with a discipline never questioned. His
 glance of disapproval was a reprimand, his frown something he never
 needed to go beyond. The love and respect of his pupils exceeded even
 their fear. It was no uncommon thing for summer teachers to come
 twenty miles to avail themselves of the winter term of “Colonel”
 Stone, for he was a high militia officer, and at that young age was a
 settled man with a family of four little children. He had married at
 eighteen.

 I am thus particular in my description of him, both because of my
 childish worship of him, and because I shall have occasion to refer to
 him later. The opening of his first term was a signal for the Barton
 family, and seated on the strong shoulders of my stalwart brother
 Stephen, I was taken a mile through the tall drifts to school. I have
 often questioned if in this movement there might not have been a
 touch of mischievous curiosity on the part of these not at all dull
 youngsters, to see what my performance at school might be.

 I was, of course, the baby of the school. I recall no introduction
 to the teacher, but was set down among the many pupils in the by no
 means spacious room, with my spelling book and the traditional slate,
 from which nothing could separate me. I was seated on one of the low
 benches and sat very still. At length the majestic school-master
 seated himself, and taking a primer, called the class of little ones
 to him. He pointed the letters to each. I named them all, and was
 asked to spell some little words, “dog,” “cat,” etc., whereupon I
 hesitatingly informed him that I did “not spell there.” “Where do you
 spell?” “I spell in ‘Artichoke,’” that being the leading word in the
 three syllable column in my speller. He good naturedly conformed to
 my suggestion, and I was put into the “artichoke” class to bear my
 part for the winter, and read and “spell for the head.” When, after a
 few weeks, my brother Stephen was declared by the committee to be too
 advanced for a common school, and was placed in charge of an important
 school himself, my unique transportation devolved upon the other
 brother, David.

 No colts now, but solid wading through the high New England drifts.

 The Reverend Mr. Menseur of the Episcopal church of Leicester,
 Massachusetts, if I recollect aright, wisely comprehending the
 grievous inadaptability of the schoolbooks of that time, had compiled
 a small geography and atlas suited to young children, known as
 Menseur’s Geography. It was a novelty, as well as a beneficence;
 nothing of its kind having occurred to makers of the schoolbooks of
 that day. They seemed not to have recognized the existence of a state
 of childhood in the intellectual creation. During the winter I had
 become the happy possessor of a Menseur’s Geography and Atlas. It is
 questionable if my satisfaction was fully shared by others of the
 household. I required a great deal of assistance in the study of my
 maps, and became so interested that I could not sleep, and was not
 willing that others should, but persisted in waking my poor drowsy
 sister in the cold winter mornings to sit up in bed and by the light
 of a tallow candle, help me to find mountains, rivers, counties,
 oceans, lakes, islands, isthmuses, channels, cities, towns, and
 capitals.

 The next May the summer school opened, taught by Miss Susan Torrey.
 Again, I write the name reverently, as gracing one of the most perfect
 of personalities. I was not alone in my childish admiration, for her
 memory remained a living reality in the town long years after the
 gentle spirit fled. My sisters were both teaching other schools,
 and I must make my own way, which I did, walking a mile with my one
 precious little schoolmate, Nancy Fitts. Nancy Fitts! The playmate of
 my childhood; the “chum” of laughing girlhood; the faithful, trusted
 companion of young womanhood, and the beloved life friend that the
 relentless grasp of time has neither changed, nor taken from me.

 On entering the wide-open door of the inviting schoolhouse, armed
 with some most unsuitable reader, a spelling book, geography, atlas,
 and slate, I was seized with an intense fear at finding myself with
 no member of the family near, and my trepidation became so visible
 that the gentle teacher, relieving me of my burden of books, took
 me tenderly on her lap and did her best to reassure and calm me. At
 length I was given my seat, with a desk in front for my atlas and
 slate, my toes at least a foot from the floor, and that became my
 daily, happy home for the next three months.

All the members of Clara Barton’s household became her teachers, except
her mother, who looked with interest, and not always with approval,
on the methods of instruction practiced by the others. Captain Barton
was teaching her military tactics, David was teaching her to ride
horseback, Sally, and later Dorothy, established a kind of school at
home and practiced on their younger sister, and Stephen contributed his
share in characteristic fashion. Sarah Stone alone attempted nothing
until the little daughter should be old enough to learn to do housework.

“My mother, like the sensible woman that she was, seemed to conclude
that there were plenty of instructors without her,” said Miss Barton.
“She attempted very little, but rather regarded the whole thing as a
sort of mental conglomeration, and looked on with a kind of amused
curiosity to see what they would make of it. Indeed, I heard her remark
many years after that I came out of it with a more level head than she
would have thought possible.”

Clara Barton’s first piece of personal property was a sprightly,
medium-sized white dog, with silky ears and a short tail. His name was
Button. Her affection for Button continued throughout her life. Of him
she said:

 My first individual ownership was “Button.” In personality (if the
 term be admissible), Button represented a sprightly, medium-sized,
 very white dog, with silky ears, sparkling black eyes and a very
 short tail. His bark spoke for itself. Button belonged to me. No
 other claim was instituted, or ever had been. It was said that on my
 entrance into the family, Button constituted himself my guardian. He
 watched my first steps and tried to pick me up when I fell down. One
 was never seen without the other. He proved an apt and obedient pupil,
 obeying me precept upon precept, if not line upon line. He stood on
 two feet to ask for his food, and made a bow on receiving it, walked
 on three legs when very lame, and so on, after the manner of his crude
 instruction; went everywhere with me through the day, waited patiently
 while I said my prayers and continued his guard on the foot of the bed
 at night. Button shared my board as well as my bed.

After her first year’s instruction at the hands of Colonel Stone,
that gentleman ceased his connection with the common schools, and
established what was known as the Oxford High School, an institution of
great repute in its day. This left the district school to be taught by
the members of the Barton household. For the next three years Clara’s
sisters were her public school-teachers in the autumn and spring, and
her brother Stephen had charge of the school in the winter terms. Two
things she remembered about those years. One was her preternatural
shyness. She was sensitive and retiring to a degree that seemed to
forbid all hope of her making much progress in study with other
children. The other was that she had a fondness for writing verses,
some of which her brothers and sisters preserved and used to tease her
with in later years. One thing she learned outside the schoolroom, and
she never forgot it. That was how to handle a horse. She inherited her
mother’s sidesaddle, and though she protested against having to use
it, she learned at an early age to lift and buckle it, and to ride her
father’s horses.

Meantime her brothers grew to be men and bought out her father’s
two large farms. Her father purchased another farm of three hundred
acres nearer the center of the town, a farm having upon it one of the
forts used for security against the Indians by the original Huguenot
settlers. She now became interested in history, and added that to her
previous accomplishments.

At the age of eight, Clara Barton entered what was called high school,
which involved boarding away from home. The arrangement met with only
partial success on account of her extreme timidity:

 During the preceding winter I began to hear talk of my going away
 to school, and it was decided that I be sent to Colonel Stone’s
 High School, to board in his family and go home occasionally. This
 arrangement, I learned in later years, had a double object. I was what
 is known as a bashful child, timid in the presence of other persons, a
 condition of things found impossible to correct at home. In the hope
 of overcoming this undesirable _mauvais honte_, it was decided to
 throw me among strangers.

 How well I remember my advent. My father took me in his carriage with
 a little dressing-case which I dignified with the appellation of
 “trunk”--something I had never owned. It was April--cold and bare.
 The house and schoolrooms adjoined, and seemed enormously large. The
 household was also large. The long family table with the dignified
 preceptor, my loved and feared teacher of three years, at its head,
 seemed to me something formidable. There were probably one hundred and
 fifty pupils daily in the ample schoolrooms, of which I was perhaps
 the youngest, except the colonel’s own children.

 My studies were chosen with great care. I remember among them,
 ancient history with charts. The lessons were learned, to repeat by
 rote. I found difficulty both in learning the proper names and in
 pronouncing them, as I had not quite outgrown my lisp. One day I
 had studied very hard on the Ancient Kings of Egypt, and thought I
 had everything perfect, and when the pupil above me failed to give
 the name of a reigning king, I answered very promptly that it was
 “Potlomy.” The colonel checked with a glance the rising laugh of the
 older members of the class, and told me, very gently, that the P was
 silent in that word. I had, however, seen it all, and was so overcome
 by mortification for my mistake, and gratitude for the kindness of my
 teacher, that I burst into tears and was permitted to leave the room.

 I am not sure that I was really homesick, but the days seemed very
 long, especially Sundays. I was in constant dread of doing something
 wrong, and one Sunday afternoon I was sure I had found my occasion.
 It was early spring. The tender leaves had put out and with them
 the buds and half-open blossoms of the little cinnamon roses, an
 unfailing ornamentation of a well-kept New England home of that day.
 The children of the family had gathered in the front yard, admiring
 the roses and daring to pick each a little bouquet. As I stood holding
 mine, the heavy door at my back swung open, and there was the colonel,
 in his long, light dressing-gown and slippers, direct from his study.
 A kindly spoken, “Come with me, Clara,” nearly took my last breath.
 I followed his strides through all the house, up the long flights
 of stairs, through the halls of the schoolrooms, silently wondering
 what I had done more than the others. I knew he was by no means wont
 to spare his own children. I had my handful of roses--so had they.
 I knew it was very wrong to have picked them, but why more wrong for
 me than for the others? At length, and it seemed to me an hour, we
 reached the colonel’s study, and there, advancing to meet us, was the
 Reverend Mr. Chandler, the pastor of our Universalist Church, whom
 I knew well. He greeted me very politely and kindly, and handed the
 large, open school reader which he held, to the colonel, who put it
 into my hands, placed me a little in front of them, and pointing to
 a column of blank verse, very gently directed me to read it. It was
 an extract from Campbell’s “Pleasures of Hope,” commencing, “Unfading
 hope, when life’s last embers burn.” I read it to the end, a page or
 two. When finished, the good pastor came quickly and relieved me of
 the heavy book, and I wondered why there were tears in his eyes. The
 colonel drew me to him, gently stroked my short cropped hair, went
 with me down the long steps, and told me I could “go back to the
 children and play.” I went, much more easy in mind than I came, but it
 was years before I comprehended anything about it.

 My studies gave me no trouble, but I grew very tired, felt hungry
 all the time, but dared not eat, grew thin and pale. The colonel
 noticed it, and watching me at table found that I was eating little
 or nothing, refusing everything that was offered me. Mistrusting that
 it was from timidity, he had food laid on my plate, but I dared not
 eat it, and finally at the end of the term a consultation was held
 between the colonel, my father, and our beloved family physician, Dr.
 Delano Pierce, who lived within a few doors of the school, and it was
 decided to take me home until a little older, and wiser, I could hope.
 My timid sensitiveness must have given great annoyance to my friends.
 If I ever could have gotten entirely over it, it would have given far
 less annoyance and trouble to myself all through life.

 To this day, I would rather stand behind the lines of artillery at
 Antietam, or cross the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg,
 than to be expected to preside at a public meeting.

Again Clara’s instruction fell to her brothers and sisters. Stephen
taught her mathematics, her sisters increased her knowledge of
the common branches, and David continued to give her lessons in
horsemanship. Stephen Barton, her father, was the owner of a fine black
stallion, whose race of colts improved the blooded stock of Oxford and
vicinity. When she was ten years old she received a present of a Morgan
horse named Billy. Mounted on the back of this fine animal, she ranged
the hills of Oxford completely free from that fear with which she was
possessed in the schoolroom.

When she was thirteen years of age, her education took a new start
under the instruction of Lucian Burleigh, who taught her grammar,
composition, English literature, and history. A year later Jonathan
Dana became her instructor, and taught her philosophy, chemistry, and
writing. These two teachers she remembered with unfaltering affection.

While Clara Barton’s brother Stephen taught school, his younger
brother, David, gave himself to business. He, no less than Stephen,
was remembered affectionately as having had an important share in
her education. He had taught her to ride, and she had become his
nurse. When he grew well and strong, he took the little girl under
his instruction, and taught her how to do things directly and with
expedition. If she started anywhere impulsively, and turned back, he
reproved her. She was not to start until she knew where she was going,
and why, and having started, she was to go ahead and accomplish what
she had undertaken. She was to learn the effective way of attaining
results, and having learned it was to follow the method which promoted
efficiency. He taught her to despise false motions, and to avoid
awkward and ineffective attempts to accomplish results. He showed her
how to drive a nail without splitting a board, and she never forgot how
to handle the hammer and the saw. He taught her how to start a screw so
it would drive straight. He taught her not to throw like a girl, but
to hurl a ball or a stone with an under swing like a boy, and to hit
what she threw at. He taught her to avoid “granny-knots” and how to tie
square knots. All this practical instruction she learned to value as
among the best features of her education.

One of her earliest experiences, in accomplishing a memorable piece of
work with her own hands, came to her after her father had sold the two
hill farms to his sons and removed to the farm on the highway nearer
the village. It gave her her opportunity to learn the art of painting.
This was more than the ability to dip a brush in a prepared mixture
and spread the liquid evenly over a plane surface; it involved some
knowledge of the art of preparing and mixing paints. She found joy in
it at the time, and it quickened within her an aspiration to be an
artist. In later years and as part of her education, she learned to
draw and paint, and was able to give instruction in water-color and
oil painting. It is interesting to read her own account of her first
adventure into the field of art:

 The hill farms--for there were two--were sold to my brothers, who,
 entering into partnership, constituted the well-known firm of S. &
 D. Barton, continuing mainly through their lives. Thus I became the
 occupant of two homes, my sisters remaining with my brothers, none of
 whom were married.

 The removal to the second home was a great novelty to me. I became
 observant of all changes made. One of the first things found
 necessary, on entering a house of such ancient date, was a rather
 extensive renovation, for those days, of painting and papering. The
 leading artisan in that line in the town was Mr. Sylvanus Harris, a
 courteous man of fine manners, good scholarly acquirements, and who,
 for nearly half a lifetime, filled the office of town clerk. The
 records of Oxford will bear his name and his beautiful handwriting as
 long as its records exist.

 Mr. Harris was engaged to make the necessary improvements. Painting
 included more then than in these later days of prepared material. The
 painter brought his massive white marble slab, ground his own paints,
 mixed his colors, boiled his oil, calcined his plaster, made his
 putty, and did scores of things that a painter of to-day would not
 only never think of doing, but would often scarcely know how to do.

 Coming from the newly built house where I was born, I had seen nothing
 of this kind done, and was intensely interested. I must have persisted
 in making myself very numerous, for I was constantly reminded not
 to “get in the gentleman’s way.” But I was not to be set aside. My
 combined interest and curiosity for once overcame my timidity, and,
 encouraged by the mild, genial face of Mr. Harris, I gathered the
 courage to walk up in front and address him: “Will you teach me to
 paint, sir?” “With pleasure, little lady; if mamma is willing, I
 should very much like your assistance.” The consent was forthcoming,
 and so was a gown suited to my new work, and I reported for duty.
 I question if any ordinary apprentice was ever more faithfully and
 intelligently instructed in his first month’s apprenticeship. I was
 taught how to hold my brushes, to take care of them, allowed to help
 grind my paints, shown how to mix and blend them, how to make putty
 and use it, to prepare oils and dryings, and learned from experience
 that boiling oil was a great deal hotter than boiling water, was
 taught to trim paper neatly, to match and help to hang it, to make
 the most approved paste, and even varnished the kitchen chairs to the
 entire satisfaction of my mother, which was triumph enough for one
 little girl. So interested was I, that I never wearied of my work for
 a day, and at the end of a month looked on sadly as the utensils,
 brushes, buckets and great marble slabs were taken away. There was
 not a room that I had not helped to make better; there were no longer
 mysteries in paint and paper. I knew them all, and that work would
 bring calluses even on little hands.

 When the work was finished and everything gone, I went to my room,
 lonesome in spite of myself. I found on my candle stand a box
 containing a pretty little locket, neatly inscribed, “To a faithful
 worker.” No one seemed to have any knowledge of it, and I never gained
 any.

One other memory of these early days must be recorded as having an
immediate effect upon her, and a permanent influence upon her life.
While she was still a little girl, she witnessed the killing of an
ox, and it seemed so terrible a thing to her that it had much to do
with her lifelong temperance in the matter of eating meat. She never
became an absolute vegetarian. When she sat at a table where meat was
served, and where a refusal to eat would have called for explanation,
and perhaps would have embarrassed the family, she ate what was set
before her as the Apostle Paul commanded, but she ate very sparingly of
all animal food, and, when she was able to control her own diet, lived
almost entirely on vegetables. Things that grew out of the ground, she
said, were good enough for her:

 A small herd of twenty-five fine milch cows came faithfully home each
 day with the lowering of the sun, for the milking and extra supper
 which they knew awaited them. With the customary greed of childhood, I
 had laid claim to three or four of the handsomest and tamest of them,
 and believing myself to be their real owner, I went faithfully every
 evening to the yards to receive and look after them. My little milk
 pail went as well, and I became proficient in an art never forgotten.

 One afternoon, on going to the barn as usual, I found no cows there;
 all had been driven somewhere else. As I stood in the corner of the
 great yard alone, I saw three or four men--the farm hands--with one
 stranger among them wearing a long, loose shirt or gown. They were all
 trying to get a large red ox onto the barn floor, to which he went
 very reluctantly. At length they succeeded. One of the men carried
 an axe, and, stepping a little to the side and back, raised it high
 in the air and brought it down with a terrible blow. The ox fell, I
 fell too; and the next I knew I was in the house on a bed, and all the
 family about me, with the traditional camphor bottle, bathing my head
 to my great discomfort. As I regained consciousness, they asked me
 what made me fall? I said, “Some one struck me.” “Oh, no,” they said,
 “no one struck you.” But I was not to be convinced, and proceeded to
 argue the case with an impatient putting away of the hurting hands,
 “Then what makes my head so sore?” Happy ignorance! I had not then
 learned the mystery of nerves.

 I have, however, a very clear recollection of the indignation of my
 father (my mother had already expressed herself on the subject), on
 his return from town and hearing what had taken place. The hired men
 were lined up and arraigned for “cruel carelessness.” They had “the
 consideration to keep the cattle away,” he said, “but allowed that
 little girl to stand in full view.” Of course, each protested he
 had not seen me. I was altogether too friendly with the farm hands
 to hear them blamed, especially on my account, and came promptly to
 their side, assuring my father that they had not seen me, and that it
 was “no matter,” I was “all well now.” But, singularly, I lost all
 desire for meat, if I had ever had it--and all through life, to the
 present, have only eaten it when I must for the sake of appearance, or
 as circumstances seemed to make it the more proper thing to do. The
 bountiful ground has always yielded enough for all my needs and wants.




CHAPTER VI

THE DAYS OF HER YOUTH


So large a part of the schooling of Clara Barton was passed under the
instruction of her own sisters and her brother Stephen that she ceased
to feel in school the diffidence which elsewhere characterized her, and
which she never fully overcame. Not all of her education, however, was
accomplished in the schoolroom. While her mother refrained from giving
to her actual instruction as she received from her father and brothers
and sisters, her knowledge of domestic arts was not wholly neglected.
When the family removed to the new home, her two brothers remained upon
the more distant farm, and the older sisters kept house for them. Into
the new home came the widow of her father’s nephew, Jeremiah Larned,
with her four children, whose ages varied from six to thirteen years.
She now had playmates in her own household, with frequent visits to the
old home where her two brothers and two sisters, none of them married,
kept house together. Although her mother still had older kitchen
help, she taught Clara some of the mysteries of cooking. Her mother
complained somewhat that she never really had a fair chance at Clara’s
instruction as a housekeeper, but Clara believed that no instruction
of her youth was more lasting or valuable than that which enabled her,
on the battle-field or elsewhere, to make a pie, “crinkly around the
edges, with marks of finger-prints,” to remind a soldier of home.

Two notable interruptions of her schooling occurred. The first was
caused by an alarming illness when she was five years of age. Dysentery
and convulsions came very near to robbing Captain and Mrs. Barton of
their baby. Of this almost mortal illness, she preserved only one
memory, that of the first meal which she ate when her convalescence
set in. She was propped up in a huge cradle that had been constructed
for an adult invalid, with a little low table at the side. The meal
consisted of a piece of brown bread crust about two inches square,
a tiny glass of homemade blackberry cordial, and a wee bit of her
mother’s well-cured cheese. She dropped asleep from exhaustion as she
finished this first meal, and the memory of it made her mouth water as
long as she lived.

The other interruption occurred when she was eleven. Her brother
David, who was a dare-devil rider and fearless climber, ascended to
the ridge-pole on the occasion of a barn-raising. A board broke under
his feet, and he fell to the ground. He fell upon solid timbers and
sustained a serious injury, especially by a blow on the head. For two
years he was an invalid. For a time he hung between life and death, and
then was “a sleepless, nervous, cold dyspeptic, and a mere wreck of his
former self.” After two years of suffering, he completely recovered
under a new system of steam baths; but those two years did not find
Clara in the schoolroom. She nursed her brother with such assiduity as
almost permanently to injure her own health. In his nervous condition
he clung to her, and she acquired something of that skill in the care
of the sick which remained with her through life.

Clara Barton was growing normally in her twelfth year when she became
her brother’s nurse. Not until that long vigil was completed was it
discovered that she had ceased to grow. Her height in her shoes, with
moderately high heels, was five feet and three inches, and was never
increased. In later life people who met her gave widely divergent
reports of her stature. She was described as “of medium height,” and
now and then she was declared to be tall. She had a remarkable way of
appearing taller than she was. As a matter of fact in her later years,
her height shrank a little, and she measured in her stocking-feet
exactly sixty inches.

Clara was an ambitious child. Her two brothers owned a cloth-mill where
they wove satinet. She was ambitious to learn the art of weaving. Her
mother at first objected, but her brother Stephen pleaded for her,
and she was permitted to enter the mill. She was not tall enough to
tend the loom, so a raised platform was arranged for her between a
pair of looms and she learned to manage the shuttle. To her great
disappointment, the mill burned down when she had been at work only
two weeks; but this brief vocational experience served as a basis of a
pretty piece of fiction at which she always smiled, but which annoyed
her somewhat--that she had entered a factory and earned money to pay
off a mortgage on her father’s farm. The length of her service in the
mill would not have paid a very large mortgage, but fortunately there
was no mortgage to pay off. Her father was a prosperous man for his
time, and the family was well to do, possessing not only broad acres,
but adding to the family income by manufacture and trade. They were
among the most enterprising, prosperous, and respected families in a
thrifty and self-respecting community.

One of the enterprises on the Barton farm afforded her great joy.
The narrow French River ran through her father’s farm. In places it
could be crossed by a foot-log, and there were few days when she did
not cross and recross it for the sheer joy of finding herself on a
trembling log suspended over a deep stream. This river ran the only
sawmill in the neighborhood. Here she delighted to ride the carriage
which conveyed the logs to the old-fashioned up-and-down saw. The
carriage moved very slowly when it was going forward and the saw was
eating its laborious way through the log, but it came back with violent
rapidity, and the little girl, who remembered nothing but fear of her
earliest childhood, was happy when she flaunted her courage in the face
of her natural timidity and rode the sawmill carriage as she rode her
high-stepping blooded Billy.

She went to church every Sunday, and churches in that day had no
fires. Her people had been brought up in the orthodox church, but,
revolting at the harsh dogmatism of the orthodox theology of that day,
they withdrew and became founders of the first Universalist Church
in America. The meeting-house at Oxford, built for the Universalist
Society, is the oldest building in existence erected for this
communion. Hosea Ballou was the first minister--a brave, strong,
resolute man. Though the family liberalized their creed, they did not
greatly modify the austerity of their Puritan living. They kept the
Sabbath about as strictly as they had been accustomed to do before
their break with the Puritan church.

Once in her childhood Clara broke the Sabbath, and it brought a painful
memory:

 One clear, cold, starlight Sunday morning, I heard a low whistle
 under my open chamber window. I realized that the boys were out for
 a skate and wanted to communicate with me. On going to the window,
 they informed me that they had an extra pair of skates and if I could
 come out they would put them on me and “learn” me how to skate. It
 was Sunday morning; no one would be up till late, and the ice was so
 smooth and “glare.” The stars were bright; the temptation was too
 great. I was in my dress in a moment and out. The skates were fastened
 on firmly, one of the boy’s wool neck “comforters” tied about my
 waist, to be held by the boy in front. The other two were to stand
 on either side, and at a signal the cavalcade started. Swifter and
 swifter we went, until at length we reached a spot where the ice had
 been cracked and was full of sharp edges. These threw me, and the
 speed with which we were progressing, and the distance before we could
 quite come to a stop, gave terrific opportunity for cuts and wounded
 knees. The opportunity was not lost. There was more blood flowing than
 any of us had ever seen. Something must be done. Now all of the wool
 neck comforters came into requisition; my wounds were bound up, and I
 was helped into the house, with one knee of ordinary respectable cuts
 and bruises; the other frightful. Then the enormity of the transaction
 and its attendant difficulties began to present themselves, and how
 to surround (for there was no possibility of overcoming) them was the
 question.

 The most feasible way seemed to be to say nothing about it, and we
 decided to all keep silent; but how to conceal the limp? I must have
 no limp, but walk well. I managed breakfast without notice. Dinner not
 quite so well, and I had to acknowledge that I had slipped down and
 hurt my knee a little. This gave my limp more latitude, but the next
 day it was so decided, that I was held up and searched. It happened
 that the best knee was inspected; the stiff wool comforter soaked off,
 and a suitable dressing given it. This was a great relief, as it
 afforded pretext for my limp, no one observing that I limped with the
 wrong knee.

 But the other knee was not a wound to heal by first intention,
 especially under its peculiar dressing, and finally had to be
 revealed. The result was a surgical dressing and my foot held up
 in a chair for three weeks, during which time I read the Arabian
 Nights from end to end. As the first dressing was finished, I heard
 the surgeon say to my father: “That was a hard case, Captain, but
 she stood it like a soldier.” But when I saw how genuinely they all
 pitied, and how tenderly they nursed me, even walking lightly about
 the house not to jar my swollen and fevered limbs, in spite of my
 disobedience and detestable deception (and persevered in at that), my
 Sabbath-breaking and unbecoming conduct, and all the trouble I had
 caused, conscience revived, and my mental suffering far exceeded my
 physical. The Arabian Nights were none too powerful a soporific to
 hold me in reasonable bounds. I despised myself, and failed to sleep
 or eat.

 My mother, perceiving my remorseful condition, came to the rescue,
 telling me soothingly, that she did not think it the worst thing that
 could have been done, that other little girls had probably done as
 badly, and strengthened her conclusions by telling me how she once
 persisted in riding a high-mettled, unbroken horse in opposition to
 her father’s commands, and was thrown. My supposition is that she had
 been a worthy mother of her equestrian son.

 The lesson was not lost on any of the group. It is very certain
 that none of us, boys or girls, indulged in further smart tricks.
 Twenty-five years later, when on a visit to the old home, long left,
 I saw my father, then a gray-haired grandsire, out on the same little
 pond, fitting the skates carefully to the feet of his little twin
 granddaughters, holding them up to make their first start in safety,
 I remembered my wounded knees, and blessed the great Father that
 progress and change were among the possibilities of His people.

 I never learned to skate. When it became fashionable I had neither
 time nor opportunity.

Another disappointment of her childhood remained with her. She wanted
to learn to dance, and was not permitted to do so. It was not because
her parents were wholly opposed to dancing, but chiefly because the
dancing-school was organized while a revival of religion was in
progress in the village, and her parents felt that her attendance at
dancing-school at such a time would be unseemly. Of this she wrote:

 I recall another disappointment which, though not vital, was still
 indicative of the times. During the following winter a dancing-school
 was opened in the hall of the one hotel on Oxford Plain, some three
 miles from us. It was taught by a personal friend of my father, a
 polished gentleman, resident of a neighboring town, and teacher of
 English schools. By some chance I got a glimpse of the dancing-school
 at the opening, and was seized with a most intense desire to go and
 learn to dance. With my peculiar characteristics it was necessary for
 me to want a thing very much before mentioning it; but this overcame
 me, especially as the cordial teacher took tea with us one evening
 before going to his school, and spoke very interestingly of his
 classes. I even went so far as to beg permission to go. The dance was
 in my very feet. The violin haunted me. “Ladies change” and “All hands
 round” sounded in my ears and woke me from my sleep at night.

 The matter was taken up in family council. I was thought to be very
 young to be allowed to go to a dancing-school in a hotel. Dancing at
 that time was at a very low ebb in good New England society, and,
 besides, there was an active revival taking place in both of the
 orthodox churches (or, rather, one a church and the other a society
 without a church), and it might not be a wise, nor even a courteous,
 thing to allow. Not that our family, with its well-known liberal
 proclivities, could have the slightest objection on that score; still,
 like Saint Paul, if meat were harmful to their brethren, they would
 not eat it, and thus it was decided that I could not go. The decision
 was perfectly conscientious, kindness itself, and probably wise; but I
 have wondered, if they could have known (as they never did) how severe
 the disappointment was, the tears it cost me in my little bed in the
 dark, the music and the master’s voice still sounding in my ears, if
 this knowledge would have weighed in the decision.

 I have listened to a great deal of music since then, interspersed
 with very positive orders, and which generally called for “All hands
 round,” but the dulcet notes of the violin and the “Ladies change”
 were missing. Neither did I ever learn to dance.

As she looked back over her childhood, she was unable to recall many
social events which could have been characterized as thrilling. By
invitation she once wrote out for a gathering of women her recollection
of a party which she attended on election day just after she was ten
years old. It is worth reading, and may well remind us that happy
childhood memories do not always gather about events which seem to be
intrinsically great:


A CHILD’S PARTY

 It is the “reminiscence of a happy moment” which my beloved friends of
 the Legion of Loyal Women ask of me--some moment or event so happy as
 to be worth the telling. That may not be an easy thing in a life like
 mine, but there are few things the “Legion” could ask of me that I
 would not at least try to do. But, dear sisters, I fear I must ask of
 you patiently to travel far back with me to the little childhood days
 which knew no care. Patiently, I say, for that was long ago.

 I lived in the country, a mile or more from the village. Olivia Bruce,
 my favorite friend, lived in the village.

 Olivia had “made a party,” and invited twelve little girls,
 schoolmates and playmates, herself making the thirteenth (we had never
 learned that there could be bad luck in numbers).

 It was May, and the party was to be held on “Old Election Day.” Care
 and thought were given to the occasion.

 Each guest was to learn a little poem to recite for the first time, as
 a surprise to the others.

 There was some effort at costume. We were all to wear aprons alike,
 from the village store--white, with a pretty vine, and cozy, little,
 brown birds in the corners. Embroidered? Oh, no! just stamped; but
 what embroidery has since ever borne comparison with that?

 Our ages must conform--no one under ten, or over twelve. How glad I
 was that I had been ten the Christmas before!

 At length arrangements were completed, and nothing to be wished for
 but a pleasant day.

 The morning came, heavy and dark. The thunder rolled, the clouds
 gathered and broke, and the lightning as if in cruel mockery darted in
 and out among them, lighting up their ragged edges, or enveloping the
 whole mass in quivering flame. The rain came down in torrents, and I
 fear there were torrents of tears as well. Who could give comfort in a
 disappointment and grief like that? Who, but old Morgan, the gardener,
 with his poetic prophecy--

 “Rain before seven, be clear before ’leven.”

 I watched the clouds, I watched the clock, but most of all I watched
 the hopeful face of old Morgan. How long and how dark the morning was!
 At length, as the clock pointed half-past ten, the clouds broke again,
 but this time with the bright, clear sun behind them, and the high
 arching rainbow resting on the tree-tops of the western woods.

 It was long to wait, even for dinner, and the proper time to go.
 Finally, all traces of tears were washed away, the toilet made even
 to the apron and hat, the mother’s kiss given upon the cheek of her
 restless child with the gentle admonition “Be a good girl!” and, as I
 sprang from the doorstep striving hard to keep at least one foot on
 the ground, who shall say that the happiness and joy of that little
 bit of humanity was not as complete as ever falls to the lot of
 humanity to be?

 The party was a success. The thirteen little girls were there; each
 wore her pretty apron and the knot of ribbon in her hair; each recited
 her little poem unknown to the others.

 We danced--played ring plays.

  “The needle’s eye that can supply
  The thread that runs so truly.”

  “For no man knows
  Where oats, peas, beans, or barley grows.”

 We “chased the squirrel,” “hunted the slipper,” trimmed our hats with
 wild flowers and stood in awe before the great waterwheel of the busy
 mill.

 At five o’clock a pretty tea was served for us, and dark-eyed Olivia
 presided with the grace and gravity of a matron; and, as the sun was
 sinking behind the western hills, we bade good-bye, and each sped away
 to the home awaiting her, I to be met by a mother’s approving kiss,
 for I had been “a good girl,” and gladly sought the little bed, and
 the long night of unbroken sleep that only a child may know.

 Long, long years ago the watchful mother went to that other world;
 one after another the guests of the little party followed her--some
 in girlhood, some in young womanhood, some in weary widowhood. One by
 one, I believe, she has met and welcomed them--welcomed each of the
 twelve, and waits

  CLARA BARTON


Another formative influence which must not be overlooked was that of
phrenology. This now discredited science had great influence in the
early part of the nineteenth century. Certain men, among whom the
Fowler brothers were most conspicuous, professed to be able to read
character and to portray mental aptitude by a tactual examination of
the head. The perceptive faculties, according to this theory, were
located in the front part of the brain, the moral faculties in the
top of it, and the faculties that governed the animal nature in the
back. They professed to be able by feeling over the “bumps” or “organs
of the brain,” to discover what vocation a person was good for and
what undesirable tendencies he ought to guard against. The mother of
Clara Barton was greatly troubled by the abnormal sensitiveness of
this little child. She asked L. W. Fowler, who was then staying at the
Barton home, what this little girl ought to do in life. Mr. Fowler
answered: “The sensitive nature will always remain. She will never
assert herself for herself; she will suffer wrong first. But for others
she will be perfectly fearless. Throw responsibility upon her.”

He advised that she should become a school-teacher. School-teaching
scarcely seemed a suitable vocation for a child of so shrinking a
nature. Clara was fifteen at the time, and still diffident. She was
lying in bed with the mumps, and overheard her mother’s question and
the answer. Her mother was impressed by it, and so was Clara. Years
afterward she looked back upon that experience as the turning-point
in her life. Long after she had ceased to have very much faith in
phrenology, she blessed the day that sent a phrenologist into her home.
When asked in later years what book had influenced her most, she wrote
the following reply:


THE BOOK WHICH HAS MOST INFLUENCED ME

 Superlatives are difficult to deal with, the comparative is always so
 near.

 That which interests most, may influence little. Most books interest
 in a greater or less degree, and possibly have a temporary influence.
 The yellow-covered literature which the boy from twelve to sixteen
 reads, surely interests him, and only too often creates an involuntary
 influence, the results of which mark his entire life. He adopts
 methods and follows courses which he otherwise would not have done,
 and reaps misfortune for a harvest.

 And so with the girl of like age who pores and weeps over some tender,
 unwholesome, love-lorn picture of impossible personages, until they
 become real to her, and, while she can never personate them, they
 stand in the way of so much which she really does need, it may well be
 said that the results influence her entire life.

 Not alone the character of what is read, but the period in life of the
 reader, may and will have much to do with the potency of results. The
 little girl who is so fortunate as to clasp her child fingers around a
 copy of “Little Women,” or “Little Men” (Bless the memory of my friend
 and co-worker Louisa M. Alcott!), is in small danger from the effects
 of the literature she may afterwards meet. Her tastes are formed for
 wholesome food.

 And the boy! Ah, well; it will require a great deal of prodding to
 curb and root the wild grass out of his nature! But what a splendid
 growth he makes, once it is done!

 All of these conditions of character, circumstances, and time may
 be said to have found place in the solution of the little problem
 now before me; viz: “What book most influenced me?” If it had read
 “interested” rather than “influenced,” I should have made a wide
 range--“The Fables of Æsop,” “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Arabian Nights,”
 “The Ballads of Scott,” “The Benign Old Vicar,” “The Citizens of the
 World,” and mainly the mass of choice old English classics--for who
 can select?--The glorious “Idylls of the King.” In fancy I should have
 sat at the round table with Arthur’s knights, searched for the Holy
 Grail with Sir Galahad, roamed Africa with Livingstone and Stanley,
 breakfasted with the Autocrat, and dropped the gathering tear for the
 loved Quaker poet, so dear to us all.

 How grateful I am for all this; and to these writers immortal! How
 they have sweetened life! But they really changed no course, formed no
 character, opened no doors, “influenced” nothing.

 In a little children’s booklet I have explained my own nature--timid,
 sensitive, bashful to awkwardness--and that at this period of a dozen
 years or so I chanced to make the acquaintance of L. W. Fowler, of
 the “Fowler Brothers,” the earliest, and then only, exponents of
 Phrenology in the country.

 I had at that time read much of the literatures above cited which then
 existed. Mr. Fowler placed in my hands their well-written book and
 brochures on Phrenology, “The Science of the Mind.” This carried me
 to another class of writers, Spurzheim, and Combe--“The Constitution
 of Man.” These became my exemplars and “Know thyself” became my text
 and my study. A long life has passed, and so have they, but their
 influence has remained. In every walk of life it has gone with me.
 It has enabled me to better comprehend the seeming mysteries about
 me; the course of those with whom I had to deal, or come in contact;
 not by the studying of their thoughts, or intentions, for I abhor the
 practice of reading one’s friends; but to enable me to excuse, without
 offense, many acts which I could in no other way have accounted
 for. It has enabled me to see, not only that, but why it was their
 nature, and could not be changed. They “could no other, so help them
 God.” It has enriched my field of charitable judgment; enlarged my
 powers of forgiveness, made those things plain that would have been
 obscure to me, easy, that would have been hard, and sometimes made
 possible to endure, without complaint, that which might otherwise
 have proved unendurable. “Know thyself” has taught me in any great
 crisis to put myself under my own feet; bury enmity, cast ambition to
 the winds, ignore complaint, despise retaliation, and stand erect in
 the consciousness of those higher qualities that made for the good of
 human kind, even though we may not clearly see the way.

  “I know not where His Islands lift
    Their fronded palms in air;
  I only know I cannot drift
    Beyond His love and care.”


Even though phrenology be now regarded as a scientific error, it must
not be supposed that all the men who practiced it were conscious
charlatans, or that all who believed in it were ignorant dupes. It
was in its day what popularized psychology has become in the present
day. Apart from the exploded idea that the brain contains separate
“organs” which act more or less independently in the development and
manifestation of character, it dealt with the study of the human mind
in more nearly practical fashion than anything which up to that time
had become popularly available. The phrenologist would now be called
a psychologist, and would make no pretense of reading character by
manipulating the skull. But some of those men taught people to consider
their own mental possibilities, and to determine to realize all that
was potentially best within them. This was the effect of phrenology
upon Clara Barton.




CHAPTER VII

HER FIRST EXPERIENCE AS A TEACHER


The avenues which open into life are many now, and the feet of young
people who leave home or school are set at the intersection of many
highways. But it was not so in the early part of the nineteenth
century. For those who had aspirations for something else than the farm
or shop, the most common and convenient path to larger knowledge and a
professional career lay through the teaching of the district school.
When Mr. Fowler advised that responsibility be laid upon Clara to
develop her self-reliance and overcome her shyness, there were not many
kinds of work which could easily have been recommended. School-teaching
followed almost inevitably, and as something foreordained. She belonged
to a generation of teachers, and to a family which was quite at
home in the schoolroom. Her elder sister Dorothy developed symptoms
of invalidism, never married, and in time had to give up teaching,
and her younger sister Sally married and became Mrs. Vassall. Her
brother Stephen had graduated from the work of teaching, and he and
David were associated in farm, gristmill, sawmill, cloth-mill, and
other enterprises. There was no difficulty in securing for Clara
the opportunity to teach in the district where her married sister
lived. Bearing in mind the advice of Mr. Fowler, she did up her hair,
lengthened her skirts, and prepared for her first work as a teacher.

[Illustration: STONE SCHOOLHOUSE WHERE SHE FIRST TAUGHT]

 At the close of the second term of school, the advice was acted
 upon, and it was arranged that I teach the school in District No.
 9. My sister resided within the district. How well I remember the
 preparations--the efforts to look larger and older, the examination by
 the learned committee of one clergyman, one lawyer, and one justice
 of the peace; the certificate with “excellent” added at the close;
 the bright May morning over the dewy, grassy road to the schoolhouse,
 neither large nor new, and not a pupil in sight.

 On entering, I found my little school of forty pupils all seated
 according to their own selection, quietly waiting with folded hands.
 Bright, rosy-cheeked boys and girls from four to thirteen, with the
 exception of four lads, as tall and nearly as old as myself. These
 four boys naturally looked a little curiously at me, as if forming
 an opinion of how best to dispose of me, as rumor had it that on the
 preceding summer, not being _en rapport_ with the young lady
 teacher, they had excluded her from the building and taken possession
 themselves. All arose as I entered, and remained standing until
 requested to sit. Never having observed how schools were opened, I was
 compelled, as one would say, to “blaze my own way.” I was too timid
 to address them, but holding my Bible, I said they might take their
 Testaments and turn to the Sermon on the Mount. All who could read,
 read a verse each, I reading with them in turn. This opened the way
 for remarks upon the meaning of what they had read. I found them more
 ready to express themselves than I had expected, which was helpful
 to me as well. I asked them what they supposed the Saviour meant by
 saying that they must love their enemies and do good to them that
 hated and misused them? This was a hard question, and they hesitated,
 until at length a little bright-eyed girl with great earnestness
 replied: “I think He meant that you must be good to everybody, and
 mustn’t quarrel or make nobody feel bad, and I’m going to try.” An
 ominous smile crept over the rather hard faces of my four lads,
 but my response was so prompt, and my approval so hearty, that it
 disappeared and they listened attentively, but ventured no remarks.
 With this moderate beginning the day progressed, and night found us
 social, friendly, and classed for a school. Country schools did not
 admit of home dinners. I also remained. On the second or third day an
 accident on their outside field of rough play called me to them. They
 had been playing unfairly and dangerously and needed teaching, even
 to play well. I must have thought they required object lessons, for
 almost imperceptibly, either to them or to myself, I joined in the
 game and was playing with them.

 My four lads soon perceived that I was no stranger to their sports or
 their tricks; that my early education had not been neglected, and that
 they were not the first boys I had seen. When they found that I was
 as agile and as strong as themselves, that my throw was as sure and
 as straight as theirs, and that if they won a game it was because I
 permitted it, their respect knew no bounds. No courtesy within their
 knowledge was neglected. Their example was sufficient for the entire
 school. I have seen no finer type of boys. They were faithful to me in
 their boyhood, and in their manhood faithful to their country. Their
 blood crimsoned its hardest fields, and the little bright-eyed girl
 with the good resolve has made her whole life a blessing to others,
 and still lives to follow the teaching given her. Little Emily has
 “made nobody feel bad.”

 My school was continued beyond the customary length of time, and its
 only hard feature was our parting. In memory I see that pitiful group
 of children sobbing their way down the hill after the last good-bye
 was said, and I was little better. We had all been children together,
 and when, in accordance with the then custom at town meetings, the
 grades of the schools were named and No. 9 stood first for discipline,
 I thought it the greatest injustice, and remonstrated, affirming that
 there had been no discipline, that not one scholar had ever been
 disciplined. Child that I was, I did not know that the surest test
 of discipline is its absence.

Clara Barton was now embarked upon what seemed likely to be a life
vocation. Her success in teaching was marked, and her reputation
increased year by year. For twenty years the schoolroom was her home.
She taught in district schools near Oxford, and established a school of
her own, which she conducted for ten years. Then she stopped teaching
for a time, in order to complete her own education, as completion then
was accepted and understood. She did a memorable piece of school work
in Bordentown, New Jersey, and, but for the failure of her voice, might
have continued a teacher to the end of her life.

Her experiences during the years when she was teaching and pursuing
further studies were recorded by her in 1908, in a manuscript which
has never been published. She had already written and printed a little
book entitled “The Story of my Childhood,” which was well received and
brought her many expressions of pleasure from its readers. She thought
of continuing her autobiography in sections, and publishing these
separately. She hoped then to revise and unify them, supplement them
with adequate references to her record, and make a complete biography.
But she got no farther than the second installment, which must appear
as a chapter in this present work.

Before turning to this narrative which marks the beginning of her life
away from the parental roof, we may listen to the story of her first
journey away from home. It occurred at the end of her first term of
school, when her brother David set out on a journey to the State of
Maine to bring home his bride, and asked her to accompany him.

 One day, early in September, my brother David, now one of the active,
 popular business men of the town, nearly took my breath away by
 inviting me to accompany him on a journey to the State of Maine, to
 be present at his wedding and with him bring back the wife who was to
 grace his home and share his future life.

 There was now more lengthening of skirts, and a rush of dressmaking
 such as I had never known before; and when, two weeks later, I found
 myself with my brother and a rather gay party of ladies and gentlemen,
 friends of his, at one of the most elegant hotels in Boston (where I
 had never been), waiting the arrival of a delayed steamer, I was so
 overcome by the dread of committing some impropriety or indiscretion
 which might embarrass my brother that I begged him to permit me to
 go back home. I was not distressed about what might be thought of
 _me_. I did not seem to care much about that; but how it might
 reflect upon my brother, and the mortification that my awkwardness
 could not fail to inflict on him.

 I had never set foot on a vessel or seagoing craft of any kind,
 and when, in the glitter of that finely equipped steamer, I really
 crossed over a corner of the great Atlantic Ocean, the very waves
 of which touched other continents as well, I felt that my world was
 miraculously widening.

 It was another merry party, and magnificent spans of horses that met
 and galloped away with us over the country to our destination.

 But the crowning astonishment came when I was informed that it was the
 desire and decision of all parties, that I act as bridesmaid; that I
 assist in introducing the younger of the guests, and stand beside the
 tall, handsome young bride who was to be my sister, while she pledged
 her troth to the brother dearer to me than my own life.

 This responsibility seemed to throw the whole world wide open to me.
 How well I remember the tearful resolution with which I pledged myself
 to try to overcome my troublesome propensities and to strive only for
 the courage of the right, and for the fearlessness of true womanhood
 so much needed and earnestly desired, and so painfully lacking.

 November found us home again. Under the circumstances, there must
 naturally be a share of social gayeties during the winter, and some
 preparations for my new school duties; and I waited with more or less
 apprehension for what would be my first life among strangers, and the
 coming of my anticipated “First of May.” With slight variation I could
 have joined truthfully in the dear old child refrain:

  “Then wake and call me early,
    Call me early, mother dear,”
  For that will be the veriest day
    “Of all the glad New Year.”




CHAPTER VIII

LEAVES FROM HER UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY


When Clara Barton began to teach school, she was only a little girl.
To her family, she seemed even younger and more tiny than she was. But
she had taken the words of Dr. Fowler to heart, and she determined to
teach and to teach successfully. Mrs. Stafford, formerly Mamie Barton,
remembers hearing her mother tell how seriously Clara took the edict of
the phrenologist. To her it was nothing less than predestination and
prophecy. In her own mind she was already a teacher, but she realized
that in the mind of her household she was still a child. She stood
beside the large stone fireplace, looking very slender and very small,
and with dignity asked, “But what am I to do with only two little old
waifish dresses?”

[Illustration: CLARA BARTON AT EIGHTEEN]

Julia, David Barton’s young bride, was first to discern the pertinence
of the question. If Clara was to teach school, she must have apparel
suitable for her vocation. The “two little old waifish dresses,” which
had been deemed adequate for her home and school life, were replaced by
new frocks that fell below her shoe-tops, and Clara Barton began her
work.

She was a quick-tempered little teacher, dignified and self-possessed.
Little and young though she was, she was not to be trifled with. She
flogged, and on occasion expelled, but she won respect at the outset
and very soon affection. Then floggings ceased almost altogether.

At first she was teacher only of the spring and autumn school nearest
her home; then she taught in districts in Oxford farther away; then
came the incontrovertible certificate of success in her invitation to
teach the winter school, which according to precedent must be managed
by a man capable of whipping the entire group of big boys. And in all
this experience of teaching she succeeded.

In 1908 she wrote the second installment of her autobiography, and in
that she related how she finished her teaching in Oxford and went for
further education to Clinton Institute:

 Hard, tiresome years were these, with no advancement for me. Some, I
 hoped, for others. Little children grew to be large, and mainly “well
 behaved.” Boys grew to manhood, and continued faithfully in their
 work, or went out and entered into business, seeking other vocations.
 A few girls became teachers, but more continued at their looms or set
 up housekeeping for themselves, but whatever sphere opened to them,
 they were all mine, second only to the claims and interests of the
 real mother. And so they have remained. Scattered over the world,
 some near, some far, I have been their confidant, standing at their
 nuptials if possible, lent my name to their babies, followed their
 fortunes to war’s gory fields, staunched their blood, dressed their
 wounds, and closed their Northern eyes on the hard-fought fields of
 the Southland; and yet, all this I count as little in comparison with
 the faithful, grateful love I hold to-day of the few survivors of my
 Oxford schools.

 I shall have neglected a great, I could almost say a holy, duty,
 if I fail to mention the name, and connect the presence, of the
 Reverend Horatio Bardwell with this school. Reverend Dr. Bardwell,
 an early India missionary, and for over twenty years pastor of the
 Congregational Church of Oxford, where his memory lovingly lingers
 to-day, as if he had passed from them but yesterday, or indeed had not
 passed at all.

 Dr. Bardwell was continuously on the School Board of the town, and his
 custom was to drop in upon a school, familiarly, at a most unexpected
 moment. I recall the amusing scenes, when, by some unusual sound
 behind me, my attention would be called from the class I had before
 me, to see my entire school, which had risen unbidden, standing with
 hands resting on the desk before them, heads reverently bent, and Dr.
 Bardwell midway of the open door, with hands upraised in mute wonder
 and admiration. At length he would find voice, with, “What a sight,
 what a multitude!” The school reseated itself when bidden and prepared
 for the visit of a half-hour of pleasant conversation, anecdotes, and
 advice that even the smallest would not willingly have missed. It
 was the self-reliant, self-possessed, and unbidden courtesy of these
 promiscuous children that won the Doctor’s admiration. He saw in these
 something for a future to build upon.

 It is to be remembered that I am not writing romance, nor yet ancient
 history, where I can create or vary my models to suit myself. It is,
 in fact, semi-present history, with most notable characters still
 existing, who can, at any moment, rise up and call me to order. To
 avoid such a contingency, I may sometimes be more explicit than I
 otherwise would be at the risk of prolixity. This possibility leads me
 to state that a few times in the years I was borrowed, for a part of
 a winter term, by some neighboring town, where it would be said there
 was trouble, and some school was “not getting on well.” I usually
 found that report to have been largely illusive, for they got on very
 well with me. Probably it was the old adage of a “new broom,” for
 I did nothing but teach them. I recall one of these experiences as
 transpiring in Millbury, the grand old town where the lamented and
 honored mother of our President-elect Judge Taft has just passed to
 a better land. That early and undeserved reputation for “discipline”
 always clung to me.

 Most of this transpired during years in which I should have been in
 school myself, using time and opportunities for my own advancement
 which could not be replaced. This thought grew irresistibly upon me,
 until I decided that I must withdraw and find a school, the object
 of which should be to teach _me_ something. The number of
 educational institutions for women was one to a thousand as compared
 with to-day. I knew I must place myself so far away that a “run of bad
 luck” in the home school could not persuade me to return--it would be
 sure to have one.

 Religiously, I had been educated in the liberal thought of my family,
 and preferring to remain in that atmosphere, I decided upon the
 “Liberal Institute,” of Clinton, New York.

 I recall with pain even now the regret with which my family,
 especially my brothers, heard my announcement. I had become literally
 a part, if not a partner, of them in school and office. My brother
 Stephen was school superintendent, thus there was no necessity for
 making my intentions public, and I would spare both my school and
 myself the pain of parting. I closed my autumn term, as usual, on
 Friday night. On Monday night the jingling cutter of my brothers (for
 it was early sleighing), took me to the station for New York. This was
 in reality going away from home. I had left the smothered sighs, the
 blessings, and the memories of a little life behind me. My journey
 was made in silence and safety, and the third day found me installed
 as a guest in the “Clinton House” of Clinton, Oneida County, New
 York--a typical old-time tavern. My hosts were Mr. and Mrs. Samuel
 Bertram--and again the hand rests, and memory pauses, to pay its
 tribute of grateful, loving respect to such as I shall never know
 again this side the Gates Eternal.

 It was holiday season. The Institute was undergoing a transfer from
 old to new buildings. These changes caused a delay of some weeks,
 while I became a part and parcel of the family I had so incidentally
 and fortunately fallen among.

 Clinton was also the seat of Hamilton College. The sisters and
 relatives of the students of Hamilton contributed largely to the
 personnel of the Institute. Reverend Dr. Sawyer presided over
 Hamilton, and Miss Louise Barker with a competent corps of assistants
 presided over the Institute.

 It was a cold, blustering winter day that assembled us in the almost
 as cold schoolrooms of the newly finished and sparsely furnished
 building. Even its clean new brick walls on its stately eminence
 looked cold, and the two-plank walk with a two-foot space between,
 leading up from town, was not suggestive of the warmest degree
 of sociability, to say the least of it. My introduction to our
 Preceptress, or President, Miss Barker, was both a pleasure and a
 surprise to me. I found an unlooked-for activity, a cordiality, and an
 irresistible charm of manner that none could have foreseen--a winning,
 indescribable grace which I have met in only a few persons in a whole
 lifetime. Those who remember the eminent Dr. Lucy Hall Brown, of
 Brooklyn, who only a year ago passed out through California’s “Golden
 Gate,” will be able to catch something of what I mean, but cannot
 describe. Neither could they. To no one had I mentioned anything of
 myself, or my past. No “certificate of character” had been mentioned,
 and no recommendation from my “last place” been required of me. There
 was no reason why I should volunteer my history, or step in among that
 crowd of eager pupils as a “school-marm,” expected to know everything.

 The easiest way for me was to keep silent, as I did, and so well kept
 that I left that Institute at the close without a mistrust on the part
 of any one that I had ever taught school a day.

 The difficulty to be met lay mainly in the assignment of studies. The
 prescribed number was a cruel limit. I was there for study. I required
 no rudiments, and wanted no allowance for waste time; I would use
 it all; and diffidently I made this fact known at the head, asking
 one more and one more study until the limit was stretched out of all
 reasonable proportions. I recall, with amusement, the last evening
 when I entered with my request. The teachers were assembled in the
 parlor and, divining my errand, as I had never any other, Miss Barker
 broke into a merry laugh--with “Miss Barton, we have a few studies
 left; you had better take what there are, and we will say nothing
 about it.” This broke the ice, and the line. I could only join in the
 laugh, and after this studied what I would, and “nothing was said.”

 I would by no means be understood as crediting myself with superior
 scholarship. There were doubtless far more advanced scholars there
 than I, but I had a drilled rudimentary knowledge which they had never
 had, and I had the habit of study, with a burning anxiety to make the
 most of lost time. So true it is that we value our privileges only
 when we have lost them.

Miss Barton spent her vacations at the Institute. A few teachers were
there, and a small group of students; and she pursued her studies and
gave her reading wider range. She wanted to go home, but the distance
seemed great, and she was there to learn.

Her mother died while she was at Clinton. Her death occurred in July,
but before the term had ended. Clara could not reach home in time for
the funeral and her family knew it and sent her word not to undertake
the journey.

She finished her school year and her course, made a visit to her home,
and then journeyed to Bordentown, New Jersey, to visit her friends,
the Norton family. There the opportunity came to her of teaching the
winter term of the Bordentown school.

“Public schools of that day,” she wrote, “ceased with the southern
boundary of New England and New York. Each pupil was assessed a certain
fee, the aggregate of which formed the teacher’s salary.”

[Illustration: THE SCHOOLHOUSE AT BORDENTOWN]

She undertook the school on the fee basis, but in a short time changed
it to a public school, open to all the children of school age in
Bordentown. It was that town’s first free school. The School Board
agreed to give her the opportunity to try the experiment. She tells
how it came about. She looked over the little group who attended her
subscription school, and then saw the much larger number outside, and
she was not happy:

 But the boys! I found them on all sides of me. Every street corner
 had little knots of them idle, listless, as if to say, what shall
 one do, when one has nothing to do? I sought every inconspicuous
 occasion to stop and talk with them. I saw nothing unusual in them.
 Much like other boys I had known, unusually courteous, showing special
 instruction in that line, and frequently of unusual intelligence.
 They spoke of their banishment or absence from school with far less
 of bravado or boasting than would have been expected, under the
 circumstances, and often with regret. “Lady, there is no school for
 us,” answered a bright-faced lad of fourteen, as he rested his foot on
 the edge of a little park fountain where I had accosted him. “We would
 be glad to go if there was one.” I had listened to such as this long
 enough, and, without returning to my hotel, I sought Mr. Suydam, as
 chairman of the School Committee, and asked for an interview.

 By this time, in his capacity of postmaster, we had formed a tolerable
 acquaintance. Now, for the first time, I made known my desire to open
 a public school in Bordentown, teaching it myself.

 Surprise, discouragement, resistance, and sympathy were all pictured
 on his manly face. He was troubled for terms in which to express the
 mental conflict, but in snatches something like this.

 These boys were renegades, many of them more fit for the penitentiary
 than school--a woman could do nothing with them. They wouldn’t go to
 school if they had the chance, and the parents would never send them
 to a “pauper school.” I would have the respectable sentiment of the
 entire community against me; I could never endure the obloquy, not to
 call it disgrace that I should meet; and to crown all, I should have
 the bitter opposition of all the present teachers, many of whom were
 ladies of influence in society and would contend vigorously for their
 rights. A strong man would quail and give way under what he would
 be compelled to meet, and what could a woman--a young woman, and a
 stranger--do?

 He spoke very kindly and appreciatingly of the intention,
 acknowledging the necessity, and commending the nature of the
 effort, but it was ill-timed, and had best be at once abandoned as
 impracticable.

 With this honest effort, and, wiping the perspiration from his
 forehead, he rested. After a moment’s quiet and seeing that he did not
 resume, I said with a respect, which I most sincerely felt, “Thank
 you, Mr. Suydam, shall I speak?” “Certainly, Miss Barton,” and with a
 little appreciative laugh, “I will try to be as good a listener as you
 have been.”

 I thanked him again for the evident sincerity of his objections,
 assuring him that I believed them drawn entirely in my interest, and
 his earnest desire to save me from what seemed to him an impossible
 undertaking, with only failure and humiliation as sure and logical
 results. A few of these I would like to answer, and throwing off
 the mask I had worn since Clinton, told him plainly that I was, and
 had been for years, a teacher of the public schools of New England.
 That was my profession, and that, if entered in the long and honored
 competitive list of such, I did not suppose that in either capacity,
 experience, or success I should stand at the foot. I had studied the
 character of these boys, and had intense pity for, but no fear of,
 them. As for exclusion from society, I had not sought society, and
 could easily dispense with it, if they so willed; I was not here for
 that. As for reputation, I had brought with me all I needed, and that
 of a character that a bit of village gossip could not affect. With all
 respect for the prejudices of the people, I should try not to increase
 them. My only desire was to open and teach a school in Bordentown,
 to which its outcast children could go and be taught; and I would
 emphasize that desire by adding that I wished no salary. I would open
 and teach such a school without remuneration, but my effort must have
 the majesty of the law, and the power vested in its offices behind it
 or it could not stand. If I secured a building and proceeded to open
 a school, it would be only one more private school like the score
 they already had; that the School Board, as officers of the law, with
 accepted rights and duties, must so far connect themselves with the
 effort as to provide quarters, the necessary furnishings, and to give
 due and respectable notice of the same among the people. In fact, it
 must stand as by their order, leaving the work and results to me.

 I was not there for necessity. Fortunately I needed nothing of
 them--neither as an adventuress. I had no personal ambitions to
 serve, but as an observer of unwelcome conditions, and, as I thought,
 harmful as well, to try, so far as possible, the power of a good,
 wise, beneficent, and established state law, as against the force of
 ignorance, blind prejudice, and the tyranny of an obsolete, outlived
 public opinion. I desired to see them both fairly placed upon their
 merits before an intelligent community, leaving the results to the
 winner. If the law, after trial, were not acceptable, or of use to the
 people serving their best interest, abolish or change it--if it were,
 enforce and sustain it.

 My reply was much longer than the remarks that had called for it, but
 the pledge of good listening was faithfully kept.

 When he spoke again, it was to ask if I desired my proposition to
 be laid before the School Board? I surely did. He would speak with
 the gentlemen this evening, and call a meeting for to-morrow. Our
 interview had consumed two hours, and we parted better friends than we
 commenced.

 The following afternoon, to my surprise, I was most courteously
 invited to sit with the School Board in its deliberations, and I made
 the acquaintance of two more, plain, honest-minded gentlemen. The
 subject was fairly discussed, but with great misgivings, a kind of
 tender sympathy running through it all. At length Mr. Suydam arose,
 and, addressing his colleagues, said, “Gentlemen, we feel alike, I
 am sure, regarding the hazardous nature of this experiment and its
 probable results, but situated as we are, officers of a law which we
 are sworn to obey and enforce, can we legally decline to accede to
 this proposition, which is in every respect within the law. From your
 expressed opinions of last evening I believe we agree on this point,
 and I put the vote.”

 It was a unanimous yea, with the decision that the old closed
 schoolhouse be refitted, and a school commenced.

The school speedily outgrew its quarters, and Clara sent word to Oxford
that she must have an assistant. Her brother Stephen secured the
services of Miss Frances Childs, who subsequently became Mrs. Bernard
Barton Vassall. Frances had just finished her first term as teacher of
a school in Oxford, and she proved a very capable assistant. Letters
from, and personal interviews with, her have brought vividly before me
the conditions of Clara’s work in Bordentown.

[Illustration:

  MISS FANNIE CHILDS
  (MRS. BERNARD VASSALL)

  At the time she taught school
  with Miss Barton at Bordentown, N.J.
]


She thus writes me of her happy memories:

 When Clara’s school in Bordentown had become so pronounced a success
 that she could not manage it alone, she sent for me. I had a separate
 schoolroom, the upstairs room over a tailor shop. I had about sixty
 pupils. Clara and I boarded and roomed together. The editor of the
 Bordentown “Gazette” roomed at the same place. He frequently commented
 on the fact that when Clara and I were in our room together, we were
 always talking and laughing. It was a constant wonder to him. He could
 not understand how we found so much to laugh at.

 Clara was so sensitive, she felt it keenly when any pupil had to be
 punished, or any parent was disappointed, but she did not indulge very
 long in mourning or self-reproach, she knew she had done her best and
 she laughed and made the best of it. Clara had an unfailing sense of
 humor. She said to me once that of all the qualities she possessed,
 that for which she felt most thankful was her sense of humor. She said
 it helped her over many hard places.

 Clara had quick wit, and was very ready with repartee and apt reply.
 I remember an evening when she brought to a close a rather lengthy
 discussion by a quick reply that set us all to laughing. We spent
 an evening at the home of the Episcopalian minister, who was one of
 the School Committee. The discussion turned to phrenology. Clara
 had great faith in it. The minister did not believe in it at all.
 They had quite an argument about it. He told Clara of a man who had
 suffered an injury to the brain which had resulted in the removal of
 a considerable part of it. He argued that if there was anything in
 phrenology, that man would have been deprived of a certain group of
 mental capabilities, but that he got on very well with only a part of
 a brain. Clara replied quickly, “Then there’s hope for me.” So the
 discussion ended in a hearty laugh.

As a school-teacher, Clara Barton was a pronounced success. We are not
dependent wholly upon her own account of her years as a teacher. From
many and distant places her pupils rose up and called her blessed.
Nothing pleased her more than the letters which she received from time
to time, in after years, from men and women who had been pupils of hers
and who wrote to tell her with what satisfaction and gratitude they
remembered her instruction. Some of these letters were received by
her as early as 1851, when she was at Clinton Institute. Her answers
were long, appreciative, and painstaking. In those days Clara Barton
was something of an artist, and had taught drawing and painting. One
or two of her letters of this period have ornamented letterheads with
birds and other scroll work. Her letters always abounded in good cheer,
and often contained wholesome advice, though she did not preach to her
pupils. Some of these letters from former pupils continued to reach
her after she had become well known. Men in business and in political
life wrote reminding her that they had been bad boys in her school, and
telling of her patience, her tact, and the inspiration of her ideals.

Her home letters in the years before the war are the letters of a
dutiful daughter and affectionate sister. She wrote to her father, her
brothers, and especially to Julia, the wife of David Barton, who was
perhaps the best correspondent in the family. She bore on her heart
all the family anxieties. If any member of the family was sick, the
matter was constantly on her mind. She wanted to know every detail,
in what room were they keeping him? Was the parlor chimney drawing
well? And was every possible provision made for comfort? She made many
suggestions as to simple remedies, and more as to nursing, hygiene,
and general comfort. Always when there was sickness she wished that
she were there. She wanted to assist in the nursing. She sent frequent
messages to her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. The messages
were always considerate, affectionate, and unselfish. She was not often
homesick; in general she made the best of her absences from home, and
busied herself with the day’s task. But whenever there was anything
at home which suggested an occasion for anxiety or an opportunity for
service, then she wished herself home. She visualized the home at such
times, and carried a mental picture of the house, the room, the bedside
of the patient. One of these letters, written from Washington to Julia
Barton, when her father was dangerously ill, may here be inserted as an
illustration of her devotion to her parents and to all members of her
family:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., 29th Dec., 1860

  DEAR SISTER:

 I don’t know what to say or how to write you, I am so uncertain of the
 scenes you may be passing through. In thought and spirit I am in the
 room with you every moment--that it is sad and _painful_, or sad
 and _desolate_ I know. I can _almost_ see, and _almost_
 hear, and _almost_ know, how it all is--between us seems to be
 only the “veil so thin so strong,” there are moments when I think I
 can brush it away with my hand and look upon that dear treasured
 form and face, the earliest loved and latest mourned of all my life.
 Sometimes I am certain I hear the patient’s feeble moan, and at others
 above me the _clouds_ seem to divide, and, in the opening up
 among the blue and golden, that loved face, smiling and pleasant,
 looks calmly down upon me; then I think it is all past, and my poor
 father is at rest. Aye! more that he has learned the password to the
 Mystic Lodge of God and entered in: that the Providences and mysteries
 he has loved so much to contemplate are being made plain to him; that
 the inquiries of his intelligent soul are to be satisfied and that the
 God he has always worshiped he may now adore.

 And in spite of all the grief, the agony of parting, there is pleasure
 in these reflections, and consolation in the thought that while we may
 have one the less tie upon earth, we shall have one more treasure in
 Heaven.

 And yet again, when I look into my own heart, there is underlying the
 whole a little of the old-time hope--hope that he may yet be spared to
 us a little longer; that a few more months or years may be given us in
 which to prove the love and devotion of our hearts; that we may again
 listen to his wise counsels and kind admonitions, and hourly I pray
 Heaven that, if it be consistent with Divine arrangement, the cup may
 pass from him. But God’s will, not mine, be done.

 If my father still lives and realizes, will you tell him how much I
 love him and regret his sufferings, and how _much_ rather I would
 endure them myself if _he_ could be saved from them?

 With love and sympathy to all,

  I am, your affectionate sister

  CLARA


Her letters to members of her family are seldom of great importance.
They concern themselves with the trivial details of her and their daily
life; thoughtful answers to all their inquiries, and expressions of
affection and interest in all their concerns. In some respects the
letters are more interesting which she wrote when she was temporarily
in Oxford. One of these was addressed to her brother David, who had
gone South to visit Stephen, then a resident of North Carolina. It was
written at the time when she had been removed from her position in the
Patent Office, and for a while was at home. David had written Julia
in some concern lest he should not have provided in advance for her
every possible want before his leaving her to go South. Clara replied
to this letter, making merry over the “destitute” condition in which
David had left his wife, and giving details about business affairs and
home life. It is a thoroughly characteristic letter, full of fun and
detail and neighborhood gossip and sisterly good-will. If her brothers
were to stay in the South in hot weather, she wanted to be with them.
She had already proposed to Stephen that he let her go South and look
after him, and Stephen had sought to dissuade her, telling her that the
conditions of life were uncomfortable, and that she would be shocked by
seeing the almost nude condition of the negro laborers. None of these
things frightened her. The only things she was afraid of were things
about which she had told David, and we cannot help wishing we knew what
they were. It is good to know that by this time the objects of her
fear made rather a short list, for she was by nature timid and easily
terrified, but had become self-reliant and strong.

  NORTH OXFORD, June 17th, 1858

  DEAR BROTHER:

 This is an excessively warm day, and Julia scarcely thinks she can get
 her courage up to the sticking point to sit down to letter-writing,
 but I will try it, for the weather is all alike to me, only just
 comfortably warm, and I can as well scribble letters as anything.
 We are rejoiced to hear such good reports from Stephen. It cannot
 be, however, that he was ready to return with you? For his sake I
 hope he could, but should be frightened if I knew he attempted it.
 We are all well; received your short letter in due time. Julia has
 discoursed considerably upon the propriety of that word “destitute”
 which you made use of. She says you left her with a barrel and a half
 of flour, a barrel and a half of crackers, a good new milch cow,
 fish, ham, dried beef, a barrel of pork, four good hogs in the pen,
 a field of early potatoes just coming on, a good garden, plenty of
 fowls, a good grain crop in and a man to take care of them, a good
 team, thirty cords of wood at the door and a horse and chaise to ride
 where she pleased. This she thinks is one of the last specimens of
 destitution. Can scarcely sleep at night through fear of immediate
 want--and beside we have not mentioned the crab apples. I shouldn’t
 wonder if we have fifty bushels of them; this only depends upon the
 size they attain, there are certainly enough in number. The hoeing is
 all done once, and the piece out by Mr. Baker’s gone over the second
 time. Uncle Joe helped. The taxes are paid, yours, Colonel Davis’s,
 and Brine’s. The two latter I have charged to them and pasted the
 receipts in the books. I have put down Brine’s[1] time for last week
 and made out a new time page for July. Brine has gone to Worcester
 with old Eb to-day, and I have put that down and carried his account
 to a new page. Whitlock has not paid yet, but the 2´-40´´ man on
 the hill has paid .75. Old Mrs. Collier is going to pay before she
 gets herself a new pair of shoes, and Sam avers that she is not
 only in need of shoes, but stockings, to which fact he is a living
 eye-witness. Johnson “hasn’t a cent--will pay next week--” This, I
 believe, finishes up the schedule of money matters until we report
 next time. Mr. Samuel Smith is dead. Was buried Thursday, I think. I
 have just written to the Colonel at Boston and to Cousin Ira[2] the
 intelligence from Stephen when we first learned that he was really
 better, and had hardly sent the letters away before the Judge came in.
 He was anxious to hear from us and also to attend the funeral, so took
 the morning train and came out, took dinner, and then he and father
 took Dick and the chaise and went to the funeral, came back, stayed
 to supper, and I went and carried him to the depot. We had a most
 delightful visit from him. Every time I see Cousin Ira, I think he is
 a better and better cousin. It is hardly possible for us to esteem him
 enough. I forgot to tell you about the garden. Julia has hoed it all
 over, set out the cabbage plants, waters them almost every day; they
 are looking finely. She has weeded all the beds, and Sam says he will
 help her some about the garden. Brine doesn’t seem to take an interest
 in the fine arts. Julia says she hopes you will not take a moment’s
 trouble about us, for we are getting on finely and shall do so, but
 you must take care of yourself. We--i.e. Julia and I--shall ride down
 to the Colonel’s this evening after sundown. I should like to see him
 and know he would like to hear from you again. I have not heard where
 Stephen is or how since you wrote, but trust he is no worse, and I
 also hope you may be able to favor and counsel him so as to keep him
 up when he gets back. I feel as much solicitude on your account as
 his, for I know how liable you are to get out of fix. I wish every
 day that I was there to see that both of you had what you needed to
 take and to be done for you. I was earnest in what I wished you to say
 to Stephen, that I was ready to go to Carolina or anywhere else if I
 could serve him; not that I want a job, as I should insist on putting
 my labor against my board, but earnestly if you are both going to try
 to summer there and Stephen so feeble as he is, I shall be glad to be
 with you. Still, if not proper or acceptable, I, of course, shall not
 urge myself or feel slighted, but I feel afraid to have you both there
 by yourselves; while you go away on business, he will be obliged to do
 something at home to get sick, and maybe I could do it for him if I
 were there, or at least take care of him in time. I am not afraid of
 naked negroes or rough houses, and you know the only things in all the
 world I should fear, for I told you--nothing else aside from these. I
 have no precaution or care for anything there could be there, but I
 have said enough and too much. Stephen may think I am willing to make
 myself more plenty than welcome, but I have obeyed the dictates of my
 feelings and judgment and can do no more, and I could not have done
 it and done less, so I leave it. If I can serve you, tell me. I have
 seen neither of the Washington tourists yet, and I went to the depot
 this morning to meet Irving[3] if he was there, but he did not come.
 Please tell me if Mr. Vassall talks of going to Carolina this summer,
 or will he come North? I have offered Julia this space to fill up,
 but she says I have told all the news and declines, and it is almost
 time to get ready to ride; so good-bye, and write a word or two often.
 Don’t trouble to send long letters, it is hot work to write. Sleep all
 you can, don’t drink ice water, be careful about grease, don’t expose
 yourself to damp evenings or mornings if too misty, or you will get
 the chills. Love to Stephen. Will he ever write me, I wonder?

  From your affectionate sister
  CLARA


Great as was Clara Barton’s success in Bordentown, she did not move
forward without opposition. Although she had built up the public
school to a degree of efficiency which it had not before known, she
met the resolute opposition of those who objected to a woman’s
control of a school as important as this had now grown to be. It was
rather pathetic that her very success should have been used as an
occasion of opposition. The school was alleged to be too large for a
woman to manage. A woman had made it large and had managed it while
it was in process of becoming large, and was continuing to manage it
very well. However, the demand for a male principal grew very strong,
and, against the wishes of a large majority of the pupils, a male
principal was chosen. Clara Barton would not remain and occupy a
second place. Moreover, it was time for her to leave the schoolroom.
For almost twenty years she had been constantly teaching, and her work
at Bordentown, never easy, had ended in a record of success which
brought its own reaction and disappointment. Suddenly she realized
that her energy was exhausted. Her voice completely failed. A nervous
collapse, such as came to her a number of times later in life, laid her
prostrate. She left her great work at Bordentown and went to Washington
to recuperate. She did not know it, but she was leaving the schoolroom
behind her forever.

In those days Clara Barton was much given to writing verse. She
never entirely gave it up. The most of her poetical writing during
this period is of no especial interest, but consists of verses for
autograph albums, and other ephemeral writing. Once, while she was at
Bordentown, she tried a rhymed advertisement. At least twice while she
was teaching in that village, she made a round trip to Philadelphia on
the steamboat John Stevens. On the second occasion the steamboat had
been redecorated, and she scribbled a jingle concerning its attractions
in the back of her diary. She may have had some idea that her Pegasus
could be profitably harnessed to the chariot of commerce, and it is
possible that she offered this little jingle to the proprietors of the
boat or to the editor of the Bordentown “Gazette,” who roomed at the
house where she boarded. The files of that enterprising publication
have not been searched, but they probably would show that now and then
Clara Barton handed to the editor some poetical comment on passing
events. So far as is known, however, these lines about the beauty of
the rejuvenated John Stevens have not appeared in print before, and
it is now too late for them to be of value in increasing the business
of her owners. It is pleasant, however, to have this reminder of her
occasional outings while she was teaching school, and to know that she
enjoyed them as she did her river journey to Philadelphia and back:


ADVERTISEMENT

_Written on board the John Stevens between Bordentown and
Philadelphia March 12, 1853_

  You’ve not seen the John Stevens since her new dress she donned?
  Why, you’d think she’d been touched by a fairy’s wand!
  Such carpets, such curtains, just sprang into light,
  Such mirrors bewildering the overcharged sight.
  Such velvets, such cushions, such sofas and all,
  Then the polish that gleams on her glittering wall.
  Now if it be true that you’ve not seen her yet,
  We ask you, nay! _urge_ you, implore and beset,
  That you will no longer your interests forget,
  But at once _take a ticket_ as we have to-day,
  And our word as a warrant--
            You’ll find it will pay.

[1] Brine Murphy, a faithful hired man.

[2] Judge Ira M. Barton of Worcester.

[3] Irving S. Vassall, her nephew.




CHAPTER IX

THE HEART OF CLARA BARTON


When Clara Barton left the schoolroom for the life of a clerk in
Washington, she was well past thirty years of age. When the war
broke out, and she left the Patent Office for the battle-field, she
was forty. Why was not she already married? Her mother married at
seventeen; her sister married early: why was she single and teaching
school at thirty, or available for hospital service at forty? And why
did she not marry some soldier whom she tended? Did any romance lie
behind her devotion to what became her life-work? Had she suffered any
disappointment in love before she entered upon her career?

The question whether Clara Barton was ever in love has been asked
by every one who has attempted anything approaching a sketch of her
career. Mr. Epler’s biography contained a chapter on this subject, but
later it was found so incomplete and unsatisfactory it was thought
best to omit it and to await the opening of her personal and official
papers. These now are available, as well as the personal recollections
of those of her relatives whose knowledge of her life includes any
possibility of affairs of the heart.

On the subject of her personal affections, Clara Barton was very
reticent. To the present writer she said that she chose, somewhat early
in life, the course which seemed to her more fruitful of good for her
than matrimony. In her girlhood she was shy, and, when she found her
life vocation, as she then esteemed it, as a teacher, she was so much
interested in her school that she gave little thought to matrimony,
and was satisfied that on the whole it would be better in her case if
she lived unmarried. She had little patience, however, with women who
affect to despise men. Always loyal to her own sex, and proud of every
woman who accomplished anything notable, she was no man-hater, but, on
the contrary, enjoyed the society of men, trusted their judgment, and
liked their companionship.

Her nephew, Stephen E. Barton, furnishes me this paragraph:

 My aunt said to me at one time that I must not think she had never
 known any experience of love. She said that she had had her romances
 and love affairs like other girls; but that in her young womanhood,
 though she thought of different men as possible lovers, no one of them
 measured up to her ideal of a husband. She said to me that she could
 think of herself with satisfaction as a wife and mother, but that on
 the whole she felt that she had been more useful to the world by being
 free from matrimonial ties.

So far as her diaries and letters show, she remained heart-whole
through the entire period of her girlhood in Oxford. There was,
however, a young man of about her own age, born in Oxford, and a very
distant relative between whom and herself there existed something
approaching affection. The families were long-time friends, and the
young people had interests in common. A lady who remembers him well
says: “She was fond of him and he of her. He was a handsome young
fellow, and Clara once said to me that she should not want the man to
have all the good looks in the family.”

This friendship continued for many years, and developed on the part
of the young man a very deep affection, and on Clara’s part sincere
respect. He visited her when she was a student in Clinton Institute,
and was of real service to her there, making fine proof of his faithful
friendship, but she could not be sure that she loved him.

She had another ardent admirer in Oxford, who followed her to
Bordentown and there pressed his suit. Clara had long corresponded
with him, and for a time was uncertain how much she cared for him.
This young man had come to know her while she was a teacher in Oxford
and she was boarding in the family where he lived. In 1849 he went to
California in search of gold, and on his return was eager to take her
out of the schoolroom and establish her in a home. For this purpose he
visited her in Bordentown. She welcomed him, and sincerely wished that
she could love him, but, while she held him in thorough respect, she
did not see in him the possibilities of a husband, such as she would
have chosen. He pressed his suit, and she sorrowfully declined. They
remained firm friends as long as he lived.

A third young man is known to have made love to her while she was at
Clinton Institute. He was the brother of one of the young women in the
school whom she cherished as a dear friend. He was a young man of fine
character, but her heart did not respond to him.

Two or more of these affairs lay heavy on her heart and conscience
about the time of her leaving Clinton Institute and of her teaching in
Bordentown. She was then in correspondence with three young men who
loved her, and in a state of some mental uncertainty. If letters were
delayed she missed them, and recorded in her diary:

 Rather melancholy. Don’t know why, I received no intelligence from
 certain quarters.

In the spring of 1852 she had a brief period of depression, growing,
in part at least, out of her uncertainty in these matters. On Tuesday,
March 2, 1852, she wrote in her diary:

 Morning cold and icy. Walked to school. Dull day and unpleasant,
 cheerless indoors and out. Cannot see much in these days worth living
 for; cannot but think it will be a quiet resting-place when all these
 cares and vexations and anxieties are over, and I no longer give or
 take offense. I am badly organized to live in the world, or among
 society; I have participated in too many of its unpleasant scenes;
 have always looked on its most unhappy features and have grown weary
 of life at an age when other people are enjoying it most.

On Thursday, March 13, she wrote:

 I have found it extremely hard to restrain the tears to-day, and would
 have given almost anything to have been alone and undisturbed. I have
 seldom felt more friendless, and I believe I ever feel enough so. I
 see less and less in the world to live for, and in spite of all my
 resolution and reason and moral courage and every thing else, I grow
 weary and impatient. I know it is wicked and perhaps foolish, but I
 cannot help it. There is not a living thing but would be just as well
 off without me. I contribute to the happiness of not a single object;
 and often to the unhappiness of many and always of my own, for I am
 never happy. True, I laugh and joke, but could weep that very moment,
 and be the happier for it.

  “There’s many a grief lies hid, not lost,
  And smiles the least befit who wear them most.”

 How long I can endure such a life I do not know, but often wish that
 more of its future path lay on the other side of the present. I am
 grateful when so many of the days pass away. But this repining is of
 no use, and I would not say or write it for any ear or eye but my own.
 I cannot help thinking it, and it is a relief to say it to myself; but
 I will indulge in such useless complaints no more, but commence once
 more my allotted task.

The mood did not last long. Its immediate occasion had been a not
very cheerful letter from friends in Oxford, and a discussion with
the mother of a dull pupil who was troubled because her daughter was
not learning faster. Three days later she was seeking to account for
her depression by some possible telepathic influence from home; for
she had word of the burning of Stephen’s factory. Far from being the
more depressed by this really bad news, she was much relieved to know
that he had not rushed into the burning building, as would have been
just like him, and have been killed or injured in trying to save the
property or to help some one else.

On Friday night she had finished a reasonably good week, and had a
longer letter than usual from the lover whom she had known longest. It
“of course pleased me in proportion to its length.” She adds, “I am
puzzled to know how I can manage one affair, and fear I cannot do it
properly.”

The reader of these yellow pages, after seventy years and more, knows
better than she knew then what was troubling her most, and can smile at
what caused her so much concern.

By the following Tuesday she resolved to “begin to think earnestly of
_immediate_ future. Have not made any definite plans.”

This necessity of planning for the immediate future brought back her
bad feelings. She wrote on Wednesday, March 24:

 Think I shall not write as much in future. Grow dull and I fear
 selfish in my feelings and care less what is going on. Not that I
 think less of others, but less of myself, and am more and more certain
 every day that there is no such thing as true friendship, at least
 for me; and I will not dupe and fool myself with the idle, vain hobby
 any longer. It is all false; in fact, the whole world is false. This
 brings me to my old inquiry again, what is the use of living in it?
 I can see no possible satisfaction or benefit arising from my life;
 others may from theirs.

A week later she wrote that she had no letters, but had “grown
indifferent and did not care either to write or to receive letters.”

She had resolved not to write so much, but she went on:

 I am thinking to-night of the future, and what my next move must be.
 Wish I had some one to advise me, or that I could speak to some one
 of it. Had ever one poor girl so many strange, wild thoughts, and no
 one to listen or share one of them, or even to realize that my head
 contains one idea beyond the present foolish moment?

But she resolves to stop this vain and moody introspection:

 I will not allow myself any more such grumbling! I know it is wicked.
 But how can I make myself happy and contented under such circumstances
 as I am ever placed in?

Her diary then grew irregular, with no entries between April 20 and May
25. Within that time she solved a part of her love-problem:

 Have kept no journal for a month or more. Had nothing to note, but
 some things are registered where they will never be effaced in my
 lifetime.

But she finished her school successfully; went to Trenton and bought
a silk dress. She filled the back of this book with a list of the
English poets with the dates of their birth and death, and a sentence
or two descriptive of each of the more prominent. She had this habit
of writing, in the back of her journal, things that belonged to no
one day. The volume previous contained a sentimental poem of a tragic
parting of lovers, and a lachrymose effusion entitled “A Prayer for
Death.”

These entries and incidents are cited because they are wholly
exceptional. While she was ever morbidly sensitive, to the day of her
death, and under strain of criticism or lack of appreciation given to
great and wholly disproportionate depression of spirits, these entries,
made when she had no less than three possible matrimonial entanglements
in prospect, and was not sure whether she wanted any, must be the
sole documentary evidence of a strain from which both she and the men
concerned wholly recovered. All of the men are known by name, and
they married and left families, and were little if any the worse, and
quite possibly were the better, for having loved Clara Barton. Nor,
though the perplexities of having too many lovers, mingled as these
perplexities were with the daily problems of the schoolroom and a long
absence from home, during which her home letters made her homesick, did
the experience do her any permanent harm. Not long did she wish to die.

Indeed, her mood was soon a very different one. The entries that have
been cited were made at Hightstown. Next year she was at Bordentown,
and there she throve so well she had to send back to her home town for
an assistant. She still had one love affair, already referred to, but
it had ceased to depress her seriously.

A young woman of thirty is not to be blamed for stopping to consider
that she may not always be bothered by three simultaneous offers of
marriage. On the other hand, while all of these were worthy men, there
was not one of them so manifestly stronger than she that she felt she
was safe in giving her heart to him. The vexations of the schoolroom
suggested the quiet of a home as a pleasant contrast, but which should
she choose, and were there any of the men to whom she could forever
look up with affection and sustained regard?

For each one of these three young men she appears to have had a genuine
regard. She liked them, all of them, and it was not easy for her to see
them go out of her life. The time came when each of them demanded to
know where he stood in her affections; and each time this occurred she
had a period of heart-searching, and thought herself the most miserable
young woman alive. In each case, however, she came to the sane and
commendable decision, not to bestow her hand where her heart could not
go utterly.

From one who knew her intimately in those days I have this statement:

 Clara Barton had many admirers, and they were all men whom she admired
 and some whom she almost loved. More men were interested in her than
 she was ever interested in; some of them certainly interested her, yet
 not profoundly. I do not think she ever had a love affair that stirred
 the depths of her being. The truth is, Clara Barton was herself so
 much stronger a character than any of the men who made love to her
 that I do not think she was ever seriously tempted to marry any of
 them. She was so pronounced in her opinions that a man who wanted a
 submissive wife would have stood somewhat in awe of her. However good
 a wife she might have made to a man whom she knew to be her equal, and
 for whom she felt real admiration, she would not have been an ideal
 wife for a man to whom she could not look up, not only in regard to
 moral character, which in every case was above reproach, but also as
 to intellect, education, and ambition.

Clara Barton’s diaries did not ordinarily indulge in self-analysis.
She recorded the events of the day briefly, methodically, and without
much comment. She indicated by initials the young men to whom she wrote
and from whom she received letters, relatives being spoken of by their
first names. The passages quoted from her diaries are exceptional.
While she was highly sensitive, and morbidly conscientious, her usual
moods were those of quiet and sensible performance of her day’s work.

For ten years after she began to teach, she was shut out from any real
opportunity for love. Her elevation to the teacher’s platform, while
still a child, shut out her normal opportunity for innocent flirtation.
Love hardly peeped in at her during her teens, or in her early
twenties. By the time it came to her, other interests had gained a long
start. She was ambitious, she was determined to find out what she was
good for, and to do something worth while in life. Had some young man
come into her life as worthy as those who made love to her, and who was
her equal or superior in ability and education, she might have learned
to love him. As it was, she decided wisely both for herself and for
the men who sought her hand.

Having thus chosen, she did not mourn her fate. She enjoyed her
friendships with men and with women, and lived her busy, successful,
and happy life. She did not talk of these affairs, nor did she write of
them. She retained the personal friendship of the men whom she refused;
and two of them, who lived not far from her in New England, made their
friendship manifest in later years. Few people knew that they had ever
been rejected lovers of hers; they were esteemed and lifelong friends.

There were times when her heart cried out for something more than this.
From the day of her birth she was too isolated. Her public career
began before her shy childhood had ended. She was too solitary; she
had “strange, wild thoughts,” and no one to whom to confide them. She
could have welcomed the love of a strong, true man. She was always
over-sensitive. She was cut to the very heart by experiences which
she ought to have treated as almost negligible. She met opposition,
criticism, injustice with calm demeanor, but she bled within her armor,
and covered herself with undeserved reproaches and unhappy reflections
that she seemed doomed to give and to suffer pain. In some respects she
was peculiarly unfitted to meet the world alone. But she met it and
conquered it. She turned her loneliness into a rich companionship of
friendships; she forgot her solitude in unselfish ministry. Spite of
her shrinking nature, her natural timidity, her over-sensitiveness, she
lived a full and happy life. Those who knew her remember few laments
and fewer tears, but many a constant smile, a quick and unfailing
sense of humor, a healthy and hearty laugh, a ready sympathy and a
generous spirit. The love which she was forbidden to bestow upon any
one man, she gave to the world at large, and the world loved her in
return.

The most direct reference to affairs of the heart which Clara Barton
appears to have made in her letters is in a letter written by her to
her cousin, Judge Robert Hale, on August 16, 1876.

When Clara Barton went abroad in search of health in 1869, she hardly
expected to return. She took two thousand dollars’ worth of bonds which
belonged to her and deposited them with a friend, with instructions
that if she died, the money was to be used for the improvement of the
Barton lot in the Oxford cemetery. It was a large lot on the brow of a
hill, and had been heavily washed by the rains. She wished it properly
graded and cared for, and this was likely to be, and proved to be, an
expensive undertaking.

This friend did not keep the bonds separate from his own property, and
in time of financial stress he sold them and applied the money to his
own needs. When she returned and learned of this, she was displeased.
To her it seemed hardly less than a criminal action. She had no purpose
of prosecuting him, but, on the other hand, she wished him to realize
that this was something more than an ordinary debt. She put the matter
in the hands of her cousin, Judge Hale, who accepted a note in lieu of
the bonds. This did not please her, and she wrote her cousin a letter
which caused him to chide her as being a rather importunate creditor.

She replied that this was not true, but that she herself had kept all
her money for French relief separate from her own money, and she always
kept trust funds separate from her own money, and she expected people
dealing with her to do the same. She said:

 I am not, as I seem to you, a “relentless creditor.” On the contrary,
 I would give him that debt rather than break him down in his business,
 or if the gift would keep him from going down. I am less grieved about
 the loss than I am about the manner of his treating my trust. I was
 his teacher and he was one of my boys. I have always dealt straight
 and plain with my boys. I am not a lawyeress, nor a diplomat, only
 a woman artless to simplicity; but I am as square as a brick, and I
 expect my boys to be square.

In some way Judge Hale had gotten the idea that this former pupil of
hers had been a youthful lover, and that that fact had influenced her
in the loan of the money. It is in reply to this suggestion that she
said:

 It seems very ludicrous to me, the idea which has fastened itself upon
 you, relative to my supposed love affair. I, poor I, who never had
 a love affair in all my born days, and really don’t much expect one
 after this date! My dear cousin, I trust this letter will show you
 clearly that my pecuniary affairs and my heart affairs are not at all
 mixed; and I beg you to believe that, if in the future I should be
 stricken by the tender malady, I shall never attempt to facilitate or
 perpetuate the matter by the loaning of money. My observation has not
 been favorable to such a course of procedure.

Whether she ultimately recovered the two thousand dollars or not, her
biographer does not know, but she lived to put the cemetery lot in good
order, and in her will she left a fund of sixteen hundred dollars for
its perpetual maintenance. She also kept her financial transactions
free from any heart complications. Her letter is a pretty certain
indication that no love affair had ever taken very strong hold of her
in the first fifty years of her life.

The war might easily have brought to Clara Barton a husband if she had
inclined toward one, but she found other interests, and was happy in
them. Later in life she had on more than one occasion to consider the
possibility of a home; and we shall have occasion to make brief mention
of one or two of these incidents. What is essential now is to know that
Clara Barton did not enter upon her life-work by reason of a broken
heart. Her relations with men were wholesome and enjoyable, but none
of them brought her such complete assurance of a happy home as to win
her from what she came to feel was her life-work. Some possibilities
of matrimony gave her deep concern at the time; but she was able to
tell Judge Hale in 1876, when she was fifty-five years of age, that
she had never had a love affair, and did not expect to have one; but
that if she had, she would keep it wholly separate from her financial
interests; which was a very sensible resolution, and one to which she
lived up faithfully.




CHAPTER X

FROM SCHOOLROOM TO PATENT OFFICE


Clara Barton’s work in Bordentown was a marked success. But it involved
strenuous labor and not a little mental strain. When it was over, she
found her reserve force exhausted. In the latter part of 1854 her voice
gave out, and she gave up teaching, for a time as she supposed, and
went to Washington.

She did not know it, but she was leaving the schoolroom forever. Yet
she continued to think of herself as a teacher, and to consider her
other work as of a more or less temporary character. Twenty years
later, she still reminded herself and others that “fully one fifth of
my life has been passed as a teacher of schools.” The schoolroom had
become temporarily impracticable, and she wanted to see Washington and
to spend time enough in the capital of the Nation to know something
about it. Washington became her home and the center of her life plans
for the next sixty years.

Clara Barton did not long remain idle in Washington. At the request of
Colonel Alexander De Witt, the representative in Congress from her home
district, she received an appointment as clerk in the Patent Office
at a salary of $1400 a year. She was one of the first, and believed
herself to have been the very first, of women appointed to a regular
position in one of the departments, with work and wages equal to that
of a man. Her appointment was made under President Pierce, in 1854.
The records when searched in later years were found to be imperfect,
but the following letter from the Honorable Alexander DeWitt to the
Honorable Robert McClelland, Secretary of the Interior, shows clearly
her status at the time of its date, September 22, 1855:

 Having understood the Department had decided to remove the ladies in
 the Patent Office on the first of October, I have taken the liberty to
 address a line on behalf of Miss Clara Barton, a native of my town and
 district, who has been employed in the past year in the Patent Office,
 and I trust to the entire satisfaction of the Commissioner.

She had, indeed, performed her work to the entire satisfaction of the
Commissioner. There had been serious leaks in the Patent Office, some
dishonest clerks selling secrets to their own financial advantage and
to the scandal of the department and injury of owners of patents. She
became confidential clerk to the Honorable Charles Mason,--“Judge
Mason” he was called,--the Superintendent of Patents. That official
himself had a hard time under the Secretary of the Interior, Robert
McClelland.

At different periods in her life, Clara Barton had several different
styles of handwriting. There is a marked contrast between the clear,
strong penmanship which she used when she left the schoolroom and
the badly deteriorated form which she employed after her more
serious nervous breakdowns. When she was lecturing, she wrote a very
large hand, easy to read from manuscript, and that affected her
correspondence. Some of her lectures are written in characters nearly a
half-inch in height. Then she reverted to the “copper-plate” style of
her young womanhood, and in that clear, fine, strong penmanship she
wrote till the end of her life.

Handwriting such as hers was a joy to the head of the Patent
Department. It was clear, regular, easily read, and accurate. The
characters were well formed, and the page, when she had done with it,
was clean and clear as that of an old missal.

She was not long in rousing the jealousy of men in the department who
loafed and smoked and drew their pay. Some of them were anything but
polite to her. They blew smoke in her face, and otherwise affronted
her. But she attended strictly to her business. She was removed,
but Judge Mason gave her a “temporary appointment,” and she worked,
sometimes in the office, and sometimes, when political affairs were
such that her presence there gave rise to criticism, at home. She waded
through great volumes and filled other great volumes. A letter to her
brother Stephen in the autumn of 1856 gives some idea of what was
happening in Washington:

  Monday Morning, Sept. 28, 1856

  DEAR BROTHER:

 I don’t know why I have not written you before, only I suppose
 I thought you had enough to occupy your attention without my
 uninteresting scrawls. I have been hearing of late that you were
 better than when you first came home, but I have not heard a word when
 you expect to return.

 We are having a remarkably fine fall, cool and clean, and I have not
 seen more than a dozen mosquitoes this summer.

 The city has just been somewhat disturbed, i.e., the official
 portions of it (and this is the greater portion at this particular
 time), in consequence of the resignation of Judge Mason, which was
 tendered to the President some eight days ago, and no notice whatever
 taken of it until day before yesterday morning, the Judge in the
 meantime drawing his business to a close, packing his library, and
 Mrs. Mason packing their wardrobes, and on Friday evening, when I
 called on them, they were all ready to leave for Iowa next Tuesday
 at three o’clock. They both explained particularly the nature of the
 circumstances which induced them to leave. You have known before that
 Congress guaranteed to the Commissioner of Patents the exclusive right
 of making all temporary appointments in his department, and that
 Secretary McClelland had previously interfered in and claimed the
 same. He commenced upon the most vulnerable points, something like a
 year ago, when he removed us ladies, and, partially succeeding in his
 attempts, has been enlarging his grasp ever since, and a few weeks ago
 sent a note to Judge Mason forbidding him to appoint any temporary
 clerk unless subject to his decision and concurrence, giving to the
 Judge the right to _nominate_, reserving to himself the privilege
 of _appointing_. Then Congress having voted some $70,000 to be
 used by the Commissioner of Patents in procuring sugar-cane slips
 (if so they might be termed) from South America for the purpose of
 restoring the tone of the sugar growth in the South, which is becoming
 exhausted, and the Commissioner having procured his agent to go for
 them, the Secretary interfered, said it was all useless to send an
 agent, the military could attend to it; he had the agent discharged,
 and delayed the matter until it was too late to obtain the cuttings
 this year, and the Commissioner, being thus deprived of the privilege
 of complying with the directions received from Congress, and thereby
 unable to acquit himself creditably, resigned, but at the last moment
 the President came to his room, and invested him with power to act as
 he pleased in all matters over which the law gave him jurisdiction,
 and he promised to remain until the Secretary should return from
 Michigan, and see how he behaved then. The Secretary is making
 himself extremely odious; he may have, and doubtless has, friends and
 admirers, but I never met with one of them.

 Fannie writes me that little Mary has burned her arm; is it badly
 burned? Does father still think of coming South this winter? Hobart
 was a slippery stick, wasn’t he, and what did he mean? How do you
 arrange with Fisher? Some way I hope that will last so that he can’t
 slip his halter and leave poor Dave to chase after him, with a
 measure of oats in one hand and a cudgel in the other, as he has all
 summer. You will come to Washington, I am _sure_, on your way to
 Carolina; it is best that you should--I want so much to see you. I
 want to talk a good long talk with you that I cannot write. I have so
 many things to say, all _very important_, of course. But write me
 soon and tell me when you will return. I must go over to the city and
 look what I can do to make ready for the comers.

 Please give my love to all inquiring friends; write and come and see
 us.

  Your affectionate sister

  CLARA

 How stand politics, and who is going to be President? The Democrats
 are looking pale in this quarter.

Buchanan was elected, and Clara Barton continued in the Patent
Office for a time unmolested. But the election lost her one of her
best friends in Washington, Colonel De Witt, a resident of Oxford,
and representative from her home district, through whom her first
appointment had come, and who had been her constant friend. Just before
the inauguration of President Buchanan, she wrote her home letter to
Julia, and sent it by the hand of the retiring representative, who
volunteered to take her letter to her home:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar. 3rd, 1857

  DEAR SISTER JULIA:

 Our good friend Colonel De Witt has kindly offered to become the
 bearer and deliverer of any despatches which I may wish to send to
 Yankee Land, and knowing from good authority that a call upon you
 might not be a hard medicine for him to take, I avail myself of the
 opportunity to tell you that we are all engaged in making a president;
 intend, if no bad luck follow, to finish him off and send him home
 to-morrow. I hope he may finally give satisfaction, for there has been
 a great deal of pains taken in fitting and making him up, but there
 are so many in the family to wear him that it is scarcely possible
 that he should be an exact fit for them all....

 We are at our same old tricks yet here in the capitol, i.e., killing
 off everybody who doesn’t just happen to suit us or our peculiar humor
 at the moment; we have indeed some shocking occurrences at times. You
 have probably seen some account of the homicide which took place in
 the Pension Office the other day; if not I think the Colonel will be
 so kind as to give you some of the first points and relieve me from
 the disagreeable task of reciting so abrupt and melancholy a matter.
 My opinion of the matter is that the man who gave the offense, and
 from whom the apology was due, remained doggedly at his office, armed,
 and shot down his adversary who came to make the very explanation
 which the offender should have sought. Colonel Lee (I think), instead
 of sitting there at his desk hugging a concealed pistol to his
 unchristian and unmanly breast, should at that very moment have been
 on his way to Alexandria to apologize to Mr. House for the previous
 night’s offense. The man may perhaps meet the sympathy of the world at
 large, but at present he has not mine.

 And last night a terrible thing occurred within the district. It
 appears that the almshouse and workhouse are, or rather were, both
 the same building, very large, new and fine. Last night, curiosity
 or something else equally powerful caused the keepers of the
 establishment all to leave the premises and come up to the city,
 a distance of three miles, I suppose, locking the building very
 securely, fastening in all the inmates, I have no idea how many, but
 the house took fire, and burned down, consuming a great portion of its
 inhabitants, old, lame, and sick men and women and helpless infants.
 Only such were saved as could force an escape through the barred
 windows--was not that _horrible_? Now it would seem to me that
 in both these cases there was room left for reflection on the part of
 some one. I think there would be for me if I were in either of their
 places.

 I would attempt to tell you something how sorry I am that the Colonel
 is going home to return to us no more, but if I wrote all night I
 should not have half expressed it. I am sorry for myself, that I shall
 have no good friend left to whom I can run with all my annoyances, and
 find always a sympathizer and benefactor, and especially am I sorry
 for our (generally) old State. I pity their folly; they have cut off
 their own hands after having blocked all their wheels; they cannot
 stir a peg after the Colonel leaves; they have not a man on the board
 they can move; and who is to blame but their own poor foolish selves?
 Well, I _am_ sorry, and if crying would do any good I would cry a
 week, steadily. I don’t know but I shall as it is....

 Remember me especially to “Grandpa,” and tell Dave I like him a leetle
 particularly since he didn’t sign that petition.

  From your affectionate sister

  CLARA


For a time after the election, political matters settled down, and
Clara continued her work unmolested. She was home for a time in the
spring of 1857, but back in Washington through the summer, and in that
time went through huge volumes of technical description and copied
the essential parts into record books for the purpose of reference and
preservation.

It would make this volume more consecutive in its connections if out
of her letters were culled only such items as related to particular
topics; but her letters must be read as she wrote them, with news,
gossip, inquiry about home matters, answers to questions, and all just
as she thought of them and wrote about them. In the early autumn of
1857 she wrote to Julia:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 6th, 1857

  DEAR SISTER JULIA:

 I dare not ask you to excuse me for neglecting you so badly, but
 still I have a kind of indefinable hope that you will do so, when you
 remember how busy I am and that this is summer with its long weary
 days and short sleepy nights; and then the “_skeeters_!” Just
 as soon as you try to write a letter in the evening to anybody, they
 must come in flocks to “stick their bills.” In vain have I placarded
 myself all over on every side of me, “Stick no bills here”--it doesn’t
 do a bit of good, and but for the gallant defense of a couple of
 well-fitted nets at my windows, I should long ere this have been
 pasted, scarred, and battered as the wooden gateway to an old theater,
 or the brick wall adjacent to an eleven-penny-bit lecture-room. I
 should, however, have written out of selfishness just to hear from
 you, only that by some means intelligence gets to us that father is
 better, and the rest of you well. My health is much better than when
 I was at home. I have been gaining ever since Miss Haskell came. She
 relieves me many ways. The yellow has almost gone off of my forehead,
 else it has grown yellow all alike; but it looks _better_, let it
 be which way it may; it isn’t so spotted. Bernard has been home and
 got cured of the chills and fever, and gone back again; expect Vest.
 home soon. I am not much better settled than ever; liable to pick up
 my traps and start any day. I am glad you found my mits, for I began
 to think I must have had a crazy fit and destroyed my things while I
 was at home. To pay for losing my parasol, I made myself carry one
 that cost _fifty-six cents_! Did you ever hear of such a thing?
 Well, it is the best I have had all summer, and I walked to church
 under it to-day; so much to pay for carelessness. I also left a large
 bottle of some kind of drugs, I guess in your parlor cupboard. Please
 give it closet room awhile, and I will come sometime between this and
 the middle of January at farthest and relieve you of it. I may spend
 Christmas with you, cannot tell yet, but I shall be home while the
 snow is on the ground if I live, and maybe before it comes, but if
 I do I shall stay until it is there, for I am determined to have a
 sleigh-ride with old Dick. Oh, I am so glad every time I think of it,
 that he beat Dr. Newton, blast his saucy picture! Will try it again
 when the snow comes.

 I have written “a heap” since my return; let me see, seven large
 volumes, the size of ledgers, I have read all through and collected
 and transferred something off of every page--3500 pages of dry lawyer
 writing is something to wade through in three months; and out of them
 I have filled a _great_ volume almost as heavy as I can lift.
 My arm is tired, and my poor thumb is all calloused holding my pen.
 I begin to feel that my Washington life is drawing to a close, and I
 think of it without regret, not that I have not prized it, not that it
 has not on the whole been a great blessing to me. I realize all this,
 but if I could tell you in detail all I have gone through along with
 it, you would agree with me that it had not been _all_ sunshine.
 I look back upon it as a weary pilgrimage which it was necessary for
 me to accomplish. I have nearly done, so it has been a sturdy battle,
 hard-fought, and I trust well won.

 But how do you all do? How are Grandfather and Dave, and the little
 ones? How I do want to see you all! Has father’s leg got so he can use
 it well again? Does it pain him? Do the children go to school? How are
 Mary’s[4] congress gaiters?--a perfect fit, I hope. Tell her to be a
 good girl and learn to read, for I shall want to hear her when I come
 home. Wash Bubby’s[5] eyes in _bluing_ water; it may improve the
 color. Please give my love to Cousin Vira, Mrs. Aborn, and after this
 according to discretion. Is Martha in New Worcester? I should like to
 see her. We have had a fine summer thus far--very few hot days.

 Please tell father that I was not silent so long because I had
 forgotten him, but I had scarce time to write, and I get so tired of
 writing. Please write me soon and tell me all the news. I will bring
 your jewelry when I come. I feel guilty to have taken it away.

  Your sister, most affectionately &c &c &c

  CLARA


The Democrats had some reason to look pale, for no one could predict
just how well John C. Fremont would run. But he was not elected. The
Democrats returned to power, with James Buchanan as their successful
candidate. As the election approached, it became evident that this was
to be the result, and the Democratic chief clerk of the Pension Office,
certain that he was to succeed Judge Mason, desired Clara Barton to
be as good a Democrat as possible that she might not fail to be his
confidential clerk: but she was already a “Black Republican.” Her
father had been an old-time Jackson Democrat, and the administration
under which she was appointed was Democratic; but she heard Charles
Sumner’s great speech on the “Crime Against Kansas” and she was
convinced. “Freedom is national; slavery is sectional,” he said, and
she believed him.

She was not yet sure that slavery ought to be interfered with where it
was, but she was with the party that opposed its further extension, and
this imperiled her future as a clerk if James Buchanan was elected.
Just before the November election, she wrote to Julia, David’s wife:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 2nd, 1856
  Sunday Evening

  DEAR SISTER JULIA:

 Your looked-for letter came safe to hand; you may well suppose we
 were anxious to hear from you considering the alarming nature of the
 one which had preceded it. Stephen must have had a very distressing
 time, but I am so glad to know that he is relieved and has decided to
 let some one else be his judge in reference to getting out. I hope he
 will continue firm in the faith and venture _nothing_; it is of
 no use to strive against nature; he must have time to recruit and he
 has no idea of the time and care it will require to rid his system of
 the troublesome disease which has fastened upon him. I am glad you
 have found a physician there who knew how to name his disease. I have
 known all the time, since the first time he wrote me of his illness
 in Carolina, what the trouble was, and said when I was at home that
 he had the dumb chills, but no one would believe an ignoramus like
 me. I have no doubt but he had had his ague fits regularly since his
 first attack without ever once mistrusting the real cause of his bad
 feelings. People say there are two classes of community that the
 shaking ague never attacks, viz., those who are too lazy to shake
 and those who will not stop. Stephen belongs to the latter and I to
 the former, so we must have dumb ague if any. I am glad that father
 is better, and hope I shall not hear of David’s getting down again
 this winter; he must keep well enough to come out and see us. We are
 all very well, only that I have a slight cold, which will wear off,
 I guess. The weather is delightful, but getting quite cool. We saw a
 few flakes of snow last Friday, but one would never mistrust it by the
 Indian summer haze which is spread over the city this evening.

 We are all dreading the confusion of day after to-morrow night, when
 the election returns are made. There will be such an excitement, but
 the Democrats are the most certain set of men that I ever saw; their
 confidence of success in the approaching contest is unbounded. Judge
 Mason has gone to Iowa to vote, and Mr. Stugert (our chief clerk)
 will leave the city to-morrow night in order to reach Pennsylvania in
 time the next day. He is one of Mr. Buchanan’s most intimate friends.
 He called to take me to Georgetown one evening last week, and during
 the evening he conversed respecting the approaching election. His
 spirits were unbounded, and his confidence in the right results of the
 election as unbounded. He wished me to say I would be commissioner
 and chief clerk for him until his return, but I declined the honor,
 declaring myself a _Freemonter_. This he would not hear a word
 of and walked all around the parlors in company with the Reverend
 Mr. Halmead assuring all the company that I was an “old school
 Loco,” “dyed in the wool,” and my father before me was the same, and
 requested them to place no confidence in anything I might say on the
 present occasion, as the _coffee_ was exceedingly strong and he
 passed my cup up _five_ times. I thought this latter three fifths
 of a mistake, but could not quite tell.

 Lo, Bubby [Stephen, her nephew] says he will come to Washington.
 Well, he must go and ask Colonel De Witt to make him a page, and if
 the Colonel can do it, Bub can come and stay; he is large enough to
 carry letters and papers about the House, and do little errands for
 the Members. I guess he had best ask the Colonel and see what he
 says about it. Irving is getting ready to take our mail to the office
 and I must hasten to close my scrawl for the present. I had intended
 to write to Stephen to-day, but it is rather late; I may get time
 the first of the week, although I have a heavy week’s business in
 contemplation. How I wish I could drop in and see you all to-night,
 but that cannot be just yet. Please give my love to “Grandpa” [her
 father] and then all the others in succession as they come along, down
 to _Dick_ [the horse]; is he as nice as ever? I want to see him
 too. Please remember me to Elvira and Mrs. Aborn, and write me soon
 again.

 Tell Stephen he is a nice fellow to mind so well, and he must keep
 doing so. Irving is ready.

 So good-bye.

  Your affectionate sister

  CLARA


The country was steadily drifting toward war, and Clara Barton felt
the danger of it. Although she was convinced that slavery ought not
to be extended further, she was not yet an abolitionist, and she felt
that violent agitators were taking upon themselves a serious risk
in bringing the Nation to the very brink of bloodshed. She did not
approve of the John Brown raid, and she was greatly concerned about the
meetings that were held that seemed to her calculated to induce riot.
She had her convictions, and was never afraid to speak them boldly, but
she said, “It will be a strange pass when the Bartons get fanatical,
and cannot abide by and support the laws they live under.” A neighbor
who had been with Stephen in Carolina was driven away on account of
utterances that followed the John Brown raid. She wrote to her brother
Stephen at this time--the letter is not dated--and gave the fullest
account of her own feelings and convictions concerning the issues then
before the country, having in special mind the duty of Northern people
resident in the South to be considerate of the conditions under which
Southern people had to live. It is a very interesting letter, and the
author of this volume could wish that it had been in his possession
while Clara Barton was living, that he might have asked her to what
extent her views changed in the years that followed:

 I have not seen Mr. Seaver since his return, and regret exceedingly
 that there should have been any necessity for such a termination
 to his residence in the South. I should not have supposed that
 he would have felt it his _duty_ to uphold such a cause as
 “Harper’s Ferry,” and if he _did_ not, it is a pity he had the
 misfortune to make it appear so. Of course I could not for a moment
 believe him a dangerous man, hostile to either human life, rights, or
 interests, or antagonistic to the community among whom he resided,
 but if _they_ felt him to be so, I do not by any means blame
 them for the course they took. Situated as they are, they have a
 _right_ to be cautious, and adopt any measures for safety and
 quiet which their own judgment may suggest. They have a right even to
 be _afraid_, and it is not for the North, who in no way share in
 the danger, to brand them as cowards; they are the same that people
 the world over are and would be under the circumstances. Unorganized
 men _everywhere_ are timid, easy and quick to take alarm. It is
 only when bodies of men are organized and disciplined, and prepared
 to defend themselves against _expected_ dangers, that they
 stand firm and unshrinking, and face death unmoved. Occasionally we
 hear that _you_ have been or will be requested to leave--this
 _amuses me_. It would be singular, indeed, if in all this time
 your Southern friends had not learned _you_ well enough to
 tolerate you. It will be a strange pass when the _Bartons_ get
 fanatical, and cannot abide by and support the laws they live under,
 and mind their own business closely enough to remain anywhere they
 may chance to be. I am grieved and ashamed of the course which our
 Northern people have taken relative to the John Brown affair. Of their
 relief societies, and mass meetings and sympathetic gatherings, I can
 say nothing, for I have never witnessed one, and never shall. From
 the first they seemed to me to be wrong and ill-advised, and had a
 strained and forced appearance; and the longer they are persisted in,
 and the greater extent to which they are carried, the more ridiculous
 they become in my sight. If they represented the true sentiments
 and feeling of the majority of candid thinking men at the North, it
 would savor more of justice, but this I believe to be very far from
 the facts. Their gatherings and speechifyings serve the purpose of
 a few loud-mouthed, foaming, eloquent fanatics, who would be just
 as ready in any other cause as this. They preach for notoriety and
 oratorical praise, fearlessly and injudiciously, with characters long
 stamped and nothing to lose. It matters little to them that every
 rounded sentence which falls from their chiseled lips, every burst of
 eloquence which “brings down the house,” drives home one more rivet in
 slavery’s chain; if slavery be an evil, they are but helping it on; it
 is only human nature that it should be so, and so plain a fact “that
 the wayfaring man cannot err therein.” Nature, and cause and effect,
 are, I suppose, much the same the world over, and if our Southern
 neighbors clasp their rights all the firmer, when assailed, and plant
 the foot of resistance toe to toe with the foot of aggression, it
 is not for _us_ to complain of it; what differently should we
 ourselves do? That slavery be an evil I am neither going to affirm nor
 deny; let those pass judgment whom greater experience and observation
 have made capable of judging; but allowing the affirmative in its
 most exaggerated form, could it _possibly_ be equal to the
 pitiful scene of confusion, distrust, and national paralysis before
 and around us at the present hour, with the prospect of all the
 impending danger threatening our vast Republic? Men talk flippantly of
 dissolving the Union. This may happen, but in my humble opinion never
 till our very horses gallop in human blood.

 But I must hold or I shall get to writing politics to you, and you
 might tell me, as old Mr. Perry of New Jersey did Elder Lampson when
 he advised him to leave off drinking whiskey and join the Temperance
 Society. After listening long and patiently until the Elder had
 finished his remarks, he looked up very, very benignly with, “Well,
 Elder, your opinions are very good, and probably worth as much to
 yourself as anybody.”

Lincoln was elected and duly inaugurated. Clara heard the inauguration
address and liked it. She witnessed nothing in the ceremony of
inauguration which seemed immediately threatening. So far as she could
discover, no one present had any objection to permitting the new
President to live. There were rumors that Eli Thayer, of Worcester, who
had done more than any other man to make Kansas a free State, was to be
Commissioner of Patents. That was delightful news for her. It meant not
only an assured position, but an opportunity of service undisturbed by
needless annoyances. She had an invitation to the inauguration ball,
but had to decline that dreary function on account of a cold. On the
day following the inauguration, she wrote to Annie Childs, sister of
Frances, her account of the day’s events:

  WASHINGTON CITY, March 5th, 1861

  MY DEAR ANNIE:

 I have just a few minutes before dinner for which I have no positive
 call, and I am going to inflict them on you. Of course you will not
 expect an elaborate letter, for I by no means feel competent to the
 task to-day if I had the time.

 The 4th of March has come and gone, and we have a _live
 Republican_ President, and, what is perhaps singular, during
 the whole day we saw no one who appeared to manifest the least
 dislike to his living. We had a crowd, of course, but not so utterly
 overwhelming as had been anticipated; everywhere seemed to be just
 full, and no more, which was a very pleasant state of affairs. The
 ceremony was performed upon the East Capitol steps facing Capitol
 Hill, you remember. The inaugural address was first delivered in a
 loud, fine voice, which was audible to many, or a majority of the
 assemblage. Only a very few of the United States troops were brought
 to the Capitol at all, but were in readiness at their quarters and
 other parts of the city; they were probably not brought out, lest it
 look like menace. Great pains appeared to be taken to avoid all such
 appearances, and indeed a more orderly crowd I think I never saw and
 general satisfaction expressed at the trend and spirit of the Address.
 Of course, it will not suit your latitude quite as well, but I hope
 they may find it endurable.

 It is said that the Cabinet is formed and has been or will be
 officially announced to-day. And there is some prospect of the
 Honorable Eli Thayer being appointed Commissioner of Patents. Only
 think of it! Isn’t it nice if it is true? Mr. Suydam has been spending
 the week with us; left this morning. Mrs. Suydam is better, he says.
 Mr. Starr is here.

 We have had the most splendid spring weather you ever saw for two
 weeks past, no rain, but bright sunshine; it has been frightfully
 dusty some of the time and this day is one apparently borrowed from
 Arabia, by the clouds of sand.

 I hear from you sister sometimes, but not until I have almost lost
 trace of her each time, but I am, of course, most to blame. I hope
 your business has revived with the approach of spring, as it
 doubtless has. You will not be surprised if I tell you that I am in a
 hopeless state of semi-nudity, just clear the law and nothing more.
 Sally told me on her return that you would have come out and stayed
 with us some this winter if you had thought it could have been made to
 pay, but as usual I knew nothing of this until it was too near spring
 to think of your leaving your business. How glad I should have been to
 have had you here a month or two, and I think I could have relieved
 you of the most of expense to say the least of it, if you were not
 doing much at home, and what a comfort it would have been to me to
 _get right_ in the clothing line. Will there ever be another time
 that you would think you could leave, and come to Washington if I
 should remain?

 Where is Fannie? Is she having a vacation now? Please give my love to
 her, and all inquiring friends, reserving a large share for yourself,
 and believe me,

  As ever, your loving friend

  CLARA

 Everybody would send love if they knew I were writing. I cannot report
 the Inauguration Ball personally, as I was not present; after a
 delightful invitation could not go. I have been having a very bad cold
 for a few days and a worse cough than I ever had, but I hope to get
 over it soon. I did not attend the last Levee.

[4] Mary--Mrs. Mamie Barton Stafford, daughter of David.

[5] Bubby--Stephen E. Barton, son of David, Miss Barton’s brother.




CHAPTER XI

THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM


The unit of Massachusetts history is eighty-six years. As a
considerable part of American history relates to Massachusetts, or
traces its origin from there, the same unit measures much of the life
of the Nation itself. It begins in the year 1603 when Queen Elizabeth
died, and King James came to the throne, and the season was the spring.
It was King James who determined to make the Puritans conform or to
harry them out of his kingdom. He did not succeed in making them
conform, but he harried the Pilgrims into Holland whence they came to
Plymouth Rock. For eighty-six years Massachusetts was managed under
a colonial government, whose last days were those of a province with
a royal governor in control. It was on the 19th of April, 1689, that
this royal governor, whose name was Andros, looked out through the
port-hole of the ship on which he was a prisoner, and saw the sun rise
over Boston Harbor prior to his enforced return to England. That was
the end of provincial governors in New England, and the beginning of
the assertion of the doctrine of independence. Eighty-six years later
to a day, a little band of Massachusetts soldiers stood in a line on
the green at Lexington, and on the same day a larger company mustered
by the bridge in Concord, and the Revolutionary War began. Eighty-six
years later to a day, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, hastening
through Baltimore in response to President Lincoln’s call for troops,
was fired upon, and the first blood was shed in a long and cruel war
which did not end until it was decided that the house which was divided
against itself was no longer to be divided; that this was to be one
nation and that nation a free nation.

If one had been privileged to visit the Senate Chamber of the United
States in three days after the assault upon the Massachusetts
troops, he might have beheld an interesting sight. Behind the desk
of the President of the Senate stood a little woman reading to the
Massachusetts soldiers who were quartered there from their home paper,
the Worcester “Spy.” Washington had need of these troops. Had they
and their comrades in arms arrived a few days later, the capital
would have been in the hands of the Confederates. They came none too
soon; Washington had no place to put them, nor was the War Department
adequately equipped with tents or other supplies. The Capitol building
itself became the domicile of some of the first regiments, and the
Senate Chamber was the habitation of the boys from Worcester County. A
few of the boys Clara Barton knew personally.

Already the war had become a reality to these Yankee lads. Lincoln’s
call for men was issued on April 15, 1861. Massachusetts had four
regiments ready. The first of these reached Baltimore four days after
the President’s Proclamation. Three men were killed by a mob, and
thirty were injured as they marched through Baltimore. The regiment
fought its way to the station, regained possession of their locomotive
and train, and moved on to Washington.

Clara Barton’s first service to the soldiers was only incidentally to
the wounded. There were only thirty of them, and they were adequately
cared for. But she, in company with other women, visited the regiment
at the Capitol, and she performed her first service to the armies of
her country by reading to the homesick boys as they gathered in the
Senate Chamber, and she stood in the place that was ordinarily occupied
by the Vice-President of the United States. Her own account of this
proceeding is contained in a letter to her friend, B. W. Childs:

  WASHINGTON, April 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 Massachusetts regiment is quartered in the Capitol
 and the 7th arrived to-day at noon. Almost a week in getting from New
 York here; they looked tired and warm, but sturdy and brave. Oh! but
 you should hear them praise the Massachusetts troops who were with
 them, “Butler’s Brigade.” They say the “Massachusetts Boys” are equal
 to anything they undertake--that they have constructed a railroad,
 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;
 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 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 United States. Oh! but it was better
 attention than I have been accustomed to see there in the old time.
 “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. In my opinion this 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.

 Write us and tell our friends to write and I will answer when I can.
 Love to all.

  C. H. BARTON


Several things are of interest in this letter. One is the place where
her work for the soldiers began. It was the Government’s poverty in the
matter of tents and barracks which caused the soldiers to be quartered
in the Capitol, but it was certainly an interesting and significant
thing that her great work had its beginning there. Washington was
still expecting to be attacked; she believed that the attack would
occur shortly. It was rather a fine sentence with which her letter
closed,--“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.”

She was still signing her formal letters Clara H. Barton She was no
longer Clarissa, and before very long she dropped the middle name and
letter entirely, and, from the Civil War on, was simply Clara Barton.

This letter which deals entirely with her military experiences is the
first of many of this general character. To a large extent personal
matters from this time on dropped out of sight. It will be of interest
to go back a few weeks and quote one of her letters to her brother
David, in which there is no mention of political or military matters.
It is a letter of no great importance in itself, but shows her concern
for her father, who had partially recovered from his serious illness,
for her niece Ida, her nephew Bub, as she still called Stephen E.,
though he was now a lad of some size, and for home affairs generally.
For her father she had adopted the name given him by her nephews and
nieces, and called him “Grandpa”:

  Feb. 2nd, 1861

  DEAR BROTHER:

 I enclose in this a draft for twelve dollars, and will send you
 another for the remaining fifteen on the first of next month, i.e.,
 provided Uncle Sam is not bankrupt, which he nearly is now and his
 payments have been very irregular. I have only received a _part_
 of my salary for this month--_but all right in the end_. I have
 been very sorry that I took the money of you lest you might have
 wanted it when I might just as well have drawn upon _myself_,
 only for the trouble of getting at the Colonel. Another time I should
 do so, however, for I believe I am the poorest hand in all the
 world to owe anything. I never rest a moment until all is square.
 And now, if you have the _least_ need of the remaining fifteen
 dollars just say so to the Colonel and he will honor your draft _so
 quick_ you will never know you made it. You may want it for
 something about the house, or to make out a payment, and if so don’t
 wait, I pray you, but just call over when you get your draft changed
 and get the remainder of the Colonel, and tell him in that case he
 will hear from me very soon. Perhaps Julia or the children have wanted
 something, and if I have been keeping them out of any comfort I am
 _very sorry_.

 As it is my intention to keep a strict account with myself of all my
 expenditures and profits from this time henceforth, you may, if you
 please, sign the receipt at the top of this sheet, and hand it to
 Sally to bring to me.

 I had thought I should get a line, or some kind of word from you,
 perhaps, but I suppose you are too busy. Well, this is a very busy
 world. You will be glad to know that I am very happily situated here;
 the winter is certainly passing very pleasantly. I find all my old
 friends so numerous, and so kind, and, unless they falsify grossly, so
 glad to have me back among them again; I could not have believed that
 there was half so much kind feeling stored away for me here in this
 big city of comers and goers. The office and my business relations
 are all right, and they say I am all right too. The remainder of the
 winter will be very gay, and I must confess that I fear I am getting
 a little dissipated, not that I drink champagne and play cards,--oh,
 no,--but I do go to levees and theaters. I don’t know that I should
 own up so frankly, only that I am afraid “Mr. Grover” will show me
 up if I try to keep still and dark. Now, if he does, just tell him
 that it gets no better, but rather worse if anything, and that he
 ought to have stayed to attend Mr. Buchanan’s _big party_. It
 was splendid--General Scott and the military; in fact, we are getting
 decidedly military in this region. But we have no winter. Mr. J. S.
 Brown, of Worcester, came to us in the theater last night at eleven
 and said a dispatch from Worcester declared the snow to be six feet
 deep in Massachusetts. We decided to put it down at a foot and a half,
 and didn’t know but that was big! We couldn’t realize even that, for
 we have only now and then a little spot of snow, and this morning a
 monster fog has come and settled down on that, and in two hours we
 shall forget how snow looks, and in two days, if it doesn’t rain, the
 dust will blow; but no fears but that it will rain, though.

 But I haven’t said a word about Grandpa. I am so _glad_ to know
 that he is better and even gets _into the kitchen_; that is
 splendid, and besides he has had _company_ as well as you all.
 Ah, ha, I found it out, if none of you told me! Ben Porter came at
 last!! Please give my congratulations to Grandpa, and _you_ too
 Julia, for I am writing to you just as much as to Dave, only I don’t
 know as I said so before. I _forgot_ to tell you--and now if you
 don’t write me how Adeline and Viola are, I will do some awful thing
 to come up to you. I don’t justly know what, for if Frank wrote a week
 he never would tell me. Oh, I had a letter from him last night; said
 he was over his boots in snow, was going “down east” to Bangor, Dr.
 Porter’s, etc.

 I am afraid my trunk and other things are in your way, and I would ask
 Sally to take the trunk, only that it seems to me that I had best wait
 until I see what the 4th of March brings about, and find where I am in
 the new administration, or at least if we have one. If we are to have
 a war, I have plenty of traps and trunks in this region, and if all
 comes right and I remain, it may be that some one will be coming South
 pretty soon without much baggage who would take something for me.

 How are all the children? I must write to _somebody_ soon; I
 guess it will be Bub, but Ida isn’t forgotten. She was a faithful
 little correspondent to tell me how Grandpa was. I shall not forget
 it of Ida. Can she skate yet? Now, aren’t you going to write me and
 tell me all the news? And you must remember me to Mrs. Waddington,
 Mrs. Aborn, and family, and, Jule, you must give my regards to Silas
 and Mr. Smith, for I don’t wish to be lost sight of by my old-time
 friends, among all the new ones here. And don’t forget to give my love
 to Mrs. Kidder and tell me how she is. You had best clap your hands
 for joy that I have no more room, only to say I am

  Your affectionate sister

  CLARA

 I forgot to cut my draft loose until I had written on the back of it,
 and then I cut it loose without thinking that I had written; so much
 for doing things in a hurry, and I can’t stop to rewrite a single word
 to anybody, so patch up and read if you can.

The Sixth Massachusetts left Washington and moved farther south. She
tells of her feelings with regard to these men in a letter written May
19, 1861, to Annie Childs. The letter to which she referred as having
been written on the same day to Frances Childs, and containing war
news, has not been found:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., May 19, 1861

  MY DEAR ANNIE:

 I am very sorry that it will be in my power to write you so little and
 no more, but these are the busy days which know no rest, and there are
 at this moment thirty unanswered letters lying by my side--besides a
 perfect rush of ordinary _business_, and liable to be interrupted
 by soldier calls any moment. I wish I could tell you something of the
 appearance of our city, grand, noble, true, and brave. I wish you
 could see it just as it is, and if it were not that at this season
 of the year I had no thought that you could leave your business, I
 would say to you come,--and indeed I will say this much, hopeless as I
 deem it, aye, _know_ it to be,--but this,--if you have the least
 curiosity to witness the events of our city as they are transpiring
 or enough so that you could come, you shall be doubly welcome, have a
 quiet nook to stay in, and I will find you all you want to do while
 you will stay, longer or shorter, and pay you all you ask for your
 services. If it were winter I should _hope_ you would think well
 enough of it to come, but at this season of the year, I dare not,
 but rest assured nothing would please me as much, and Sally too. We
 often wish you would come, and I am in a most destitute condition.
 I cannot get a moment to sew in and can trust no one here. I know I
 must not urge you, but only add that I mean just what I say. If you
 care to come, you shall not lose your time, although I feel it to be
 preposterous in me to say such a thing at this time of the year, but
 I have said it at a venture and cannot retract. I saw your friend Mr.
 Parker before he left the city for the Relay House, and we had a long
 talk about you. I had never met him before, but was much pleased with
 his easy, pleasant manners and cordial ways. Allow me to congratulate
 you upon the possession of such friends.

 For war news I must refer you to a letter I have written _your
 sister_ to-day; she will show it to you.

 I was sorry when the Sixth Regiment left us, but nothing could have
 delighted them more than the thought of nearing Baltimore again, and
 how successfully they have done it. I wept for joy when I heard of
 it all, and they so richly deserved the honor which is meted out to
 them--_noble old regiment they_; every one admires, and no one
 envies; there seems to be no jealousy towards them, all yield the
 precedence without a word, and _their governor_! I have no words
 _good enough to talk about him with_. Will this little scrap be
 better than nothing from your

  Loving Coz

  CLARA

 I have not forgotten my debt, but have nothing small enough to
 enclose. I will pay it.

How deeply stirred Clara Barton was by the events, which now were
happening thick and fast, is shown by a portion of a letter in which
she describes the funeral of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth. The death of this
young man affected the Nation as that of no other who perished in the
early days of the war. When Alexandria, which was practically a suburb
of Washington, was occupied by the Federal troops, this young soldier
was in command. After the troops had taken possession of the town, the
Confederate flag was still flying from the roof of the hotel. Ellsworth
ascended the stairs, tore down the flag, and was descending with it
when he was shot by the proprietor of the hotel. Elmer Ellsworth was
a fine and lovable man, and had been an intimate friend of President
Lincoln in whose house he lived for a time. His theory of military
organization was that a small body of men thoroughly disciplined was
more effective than a large body without discipline. The Zouaves were
largely recruited from volunteer fire companies. They were soldiers
expert in climbing ladders and in performing hazardous deeds. Their
picturesque uniform and their relatively high degree of discipline, as
well as the death of their first commander, attracted great attention
to them. Just after the funeral of Colonel Ellsworth, whose death
Lincoln mourned as he would have mourned for a son, Clara Barton wrote
a letter containing this description of his funeral:

 Our sympathies are more enlisted for the poor bereaved _Zouaves_
 than aught else. They who of all men in the land most _needed_ a
 leader and _had_ the best--to lose him now in the very beginning;
 if they commit excesses upon their enemies, only their enemies are to
 blame, for they have killed the only man who ever _thought_ to
 govern them, and now, when I read of one of them breaking over and
 committing some trespass and is called to account and punished for
 it, my blood rises in an instant. I would not have them punished. I
 know I am wrong in my conclusions, and do not desire to be justified,
 but I am not accountable for my feelings. The funeral of the lamented
 Ellsworth was one of the most imposing and touching sights I ever
 witnessed or perhaps ever shall. First those broad sidewalks from the
 President’s to the Capitol, two impossible lines of living beings,
 then company after company and whole regiments of sturdy soldiers with
 arms reversed, drums muffled, banners furled and draped, following
 each other in slow, solemn procession, the four white horses and the
 gallant dead, with his Country’s flag for a pall; the six bearers
 beside the hearse, and then the little band of Zouaves (for only a
 part could be spared from duty even to bury their leader), clad in
 their plain loose uniform, entirely weaponless, heads bowed in grief,
 eyes fixed on the coffin before them, and the great tears rolling down
 their swarthy cheeks, told us only too plainly of the smothered grief
 that would one day burst into rage and wreak itself in vengeance on
 every seeming foe; the riderless horse, and the rent and blood-stained
 Secession flag brought up the rear of the little band of personal
 mourners; then followed an official “train” led by the President and
 Cabinet--all of whom looked small to us that day; they were no longer
 dignitaries, but mourners with the throng. I stood at the Treasury,
 and with my eye glanced down the Avenue to the Capitol gate, and
 not one inch of earth or space could I see, only one dense living,
 swaying, moving mass of humanity. Surely it was great love and respect
 to be meted out to the memory of one so young and from the common
 ranks of life. I thought of it long that day and wondered if he had
 not sold himself at his highest price for his Country’s good--if the
 inspiration of “_Ellsworth dead_” were not worth more to our
 cause than the life of _any_ man could be. _I_ could not
 tell, but He who knows all things and ruleth all in wisdom hath done
 all things well.

How deeply she felt the sorrow of the soldier, and the anxiety of his
loved ones at home, is shown in a letter which she wrote in June before
there had been a decisive battle, but while the boys were rallying to
the flag, “Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.” The most of her letters
of this period are descriptive of events which she witnessed, but this
one is a meditation on a Sunday afternoon while the Nation was waiting
for a great battle which every one felt was impending:

  _Washington_, June 9th, 1861
  Sunday afternoon

  MY DEAR COUSIN VIRA:

 We have one more peaceful Sabbath, one more of God’s chosen days, with
 the sun shining calmly and brightly over the green, quiet earth as it
 has always looked to us, the same green fields, and limpid waters;
 and but that the long lines of snow-white tents flashed back the
 rays I might forget, on such an hour as this, the strange confusion
 and unrest that heaves us like a mighty billow, and the broad, dark,
 sweeping wing of war hovering over our heads, whose flap and crash
 is so soon to blacken our fair land, desolate our hearths, crush our
 mothers’ sacrificing hearts, drape our sisters in black, still the
 gleesome laugh of childhood, and bring down the doting father’s gray
 hair with sorrow to the grave. For however cheerfully and bravely
 he has given up his sons and sent them out to die on the altar of
 Liberty, however nobly and martyr-like he may have responded, they are
 no longer “_mine_” when their Country calls. Still has he given
 them up in hope,--and somewhat of trust,--that one day his dim eyes
 shall again rest on that loved form, his trembling voice be raised
 and his hand rest in blessing on the head of his darling soldier boy
 returned from the wars; and when he shall have sat and waited day by
 day, and trained his time-worn ear to catch the faintest, earliest
 lisp of tidings, and strained his failing eye, and cleared away the
 mist to read over day by day “the last letter,” until its successor
 shall have been placed in his trembling hands to be read and blotted
 in its turn; and finally there shall come a long silence, and then
 another letter in a strange handwriting--then, and not till then,
 shall the old patriot know how much of the great soul strength, that
 enabled him to bear his cherished offering to the altar, was loyalty,
 patriotism, and principle, and how much of it was hope.

The battle of Bull Run was fought on Sunday, July 21, 1861. Clara
Barton witnessed the preparations for it, and saw its results. The
boys marched so bravely, so confidently, and they came back in terror
leaving 481 killed, 1011 wounded, and 1460 missing. The next night
she began a letter to her father, but stopped at the end of the first
page, and waited until near the end of the week before resuming.
Unfortunately, the latter part of this letter is lost. She undertook to
give somewhat in detail a description of the battle, and what she saw
before it and after. That part of the letter which has been preserved
is as follows:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., July 22nd, 1861
  Monday evening, 6 o’clock, P.M.

  MY DEAR FATHER:

 It becomes my painful duty to write you of the disaster of yesterday.
 Our army has been unfortunate. That the results amount to a
 _defeat_ we are not willing to admit, but we have been severely
 repulsed, and our troops returned in part to their former quarters
 in and around the city. This has been a hard day to witness, sad,
 painful, and mortifying, but whether in the aggregate it shall sum up
 a defeat, or a victory, depends (in my poor judgment) entirely upon
 circumstances; viz. the tone and spirit in which it leaves our men;
 if sad and disheartened, we are defeated, the worst and sorest of
 defeats; _if roused to madness, and revenge_, it will yet prove
 VICTORY. But _no mortal_ could look in upon this scene
 to-night and judge of effects. How gladly would I close my eyes to it
 if I could. I am not fit to write you now, I shall do you more harm
 than good.

  July 26th, Friday noon

 You will think it strange that I _commenced_ so timely a letter
 to you and stopped so suddenly. But I did so upon more mature
 reflection. You could not fail to know all that I could have told you
 so soon as I could have got letters through to you, and everything
 was _so_ unreliable, vague, uncertain, and I confidently hoped
 exaggerated, that I deemed it the part of prudence to wait, and
 even now, after all this interval of time, I cannot tell you with
 certainty and accuracy the things I would like to. It is certain that
 we have at length had the “_Forward Movement_” which has been
 so loudly clamored for, and I am a living witness of a corresponding
 _Backward_ one. I know that our troops continued to go over into
 Virginia from Wednesday until Saturday, noble, gallant, handsome
 fellows, armed to the teeth, apparently lacking nothing. Waving
 banners and plumes and bristling bayonets, gallant steeds and stately
 riders, the roll of the drum, and the notes of the bugle, the farewell
 shout and martial tread of armed men, filled our streets, and saluted
 our ears through all those days. These were all noble sights, but to
 _me_ never pleasant; where I fain would have given them a smile
 and cheer, _the bitter tears would come_; for well I knew that,
 though the proudest of victories perch upon our banner, many a brave
 boy marched down to die; that, reach it when, and as they would, the
 Valley of Manassas was the Valley of Death.

 Friday brought the particulars of Thursday’s encounter. We deplored
 it, but hoped for more care, and shrewder judgment next time. Saturday
 brought rumors of _intended_ battle, and most conflicting
 accounts of the enemy’s strength; the evening and Sunday morning
 papers told us reliably that he had eighty thousand men, and
 constantly reënforced. My blood ran cold as I read it, lest our army
 be deceived; but then they _knew_ it, the news came from them;
 surely they would never have the madness to attack, from open field,
 an enemy of three times their number behind entrenchments fortified by
 batteries, and masked at that. No, this _could not be_; then we
 breathed freer, and thought of all the humane consideration and wisdom
 of our time-honored, brave commanding general, that he had never
 needlessly sacrificed a man.

Clara Barton went immediately to the Washington hospitals to render
assistance after the battle of Bull Run. But it did not require all
the women in Washington to minister to a thousand wounded men. Those
of the wounded who got to Washington were fairly well cared for; but
two things appalled her, the stories she heard of suffering on the part
of the wounded before they could be conveyed to the hospitals, and
the almost total lack of facilities for the care of the wounded. She
thought of the good clean cloth in New England homes that might be used
for bandages; of the fruits and jellies in Northern farm homes which
the soldiers would enjoy. She began advertising in the Worcester “Spy”
for provisions for the wounded. She had immediate responses, and soon
had established a distributing agency.

I am very glad to have first-hand testimony as to the establishment
which she now set up. Mrs. Vassall, who, as Miss Frances Maria Childs,
had been her assistant teacher in Bordentown, has described the home of
Clara Barton during the Civil War. She said:

 The rooms she took were in a business block. It was not an ideal
 place for a home-loving woman. Originally there had been one large
 room, but she had a wooden partition put through, and she made it
 convenient and serviceable. She occupied one room and had her stores
 in the other. It was a kind of tent life, but she was happy in it and
 made it a center from which she brought cheer to others.

Before the end of 1861 the Worcester women had begun to inquire whether
there was any further need of their sending supplies to her. They had
sent so much, they thought the whole army was provided for, and for the
period of the war. We have her letter in reply:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., December 16, 1861

  MRS. MILLER, Sec.,
  Ladies’ Relief Committee,
  Worcester, Mass.

  DEAR MADAM:

 Your letter, mailed to me on the 11th, came duly to hand at a moment
 when I was _more_ than busy, and, as I had just written Mrs.
 Dickensen (of whom I received the articles) a detailed account of
 their history and final destination, I have ventured with much regret
 to allow your letter to remain unanswered for a day, that I might find
 time to write you at greater length. You must before this have learned
 from my letter to Mrs. D. the occasion of the delay (viz., uncertain
 orders, rainy weather, and Maryland roads), and decided with me that
 the (anxious) package has long before this accomplished its mission
 of charity and love. The bundles were all packed together in a stout
 box, securely nailed, and given to the sutler of the 15th Regiment,
 who promised to deliver them safely at Headquarters. I have no doubt
 but it has all been properly done. A box for the 25th I had delivered
 to Captain Atwood’s Company, and heard with much satisfaction the
 gratification it afforded the various recipients. The men were
 looking splendidly, and I need not tell you that the 25th is a
 “_live_” regiment from its _Colonel_ and _Chaplain_
 down. Worcester County has just cause for pride.

 I come now to the expressions in your excellent letter which I had all
 along feared,--“Are our labors needed, are we doing any good, shall
 we work, or shall we forbear?” From the first I have dreaded lest a
 sense of vague uncertainty in regard to matters here should discourage
 the efforts of our patriotic ladies at home; it was this fear and
 only this which even gave me courage to assemble the worthy ladies of
 your Committee (so vastly my superiors) to confer upon a matter with
 which they seemed perfectly familiar, while I knew so little. And
 even now I scarce know how to reply. It is _said_, upon proper
 authority, that “our army is supplied.” Well, this may be so, it is
 not for me to gainsay, and so far as our _New England_ troops
 are concerned, it may be that in these days of quiet idleness they
 have really no pressing wants, but in the event of a battle who can
 tell what their necessities might grow to in a single day? They would
 want _then_ faster than you could make. But only a _small_
 portion of our army, comparatively speaking, are _New England
 troops_,--New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri have
 sent their hundreds of thousands, and I greatly fear that those States
 lack somewhat the active, industrious, intelligent organizations at
 home which are so characteristic of our New England circles. I think
 I discern traces of this in this camp. I feel, while passing through
 them, that they could be better supplied without danger of enervation
 from luxuries. Still it is said that “our army is supplied.” It is
 said also, upon the same authority, that we “need no nurses,” either
 male or female, and none are admitted.

 I wished an hour ago that you had been with me. In compliance with
 a request of my sister in this city I went to her house and found
 there a young Englishman, a brother of one of their domestics who
 had enlisted during the summer in a regiment of Pennsylvania Cavalry.
 They are stationed at Camp Pierpont; the sister heard that her brother
 was sick, and with the energetic habit of a true Englishwoman crossed
 the country on foot nine miles out to his camp and back the same day,
 found him in an almost dying condition and begged that he be sent to
 her. He was taken shortly after in an ambulance, and upon his arrival
 his condition was found to be most deplorable; he had been attacked
 with ordinary fever six weeks before, and had lain unmoved until the
 flesh upon all parts of the body which rested hard upon whatever was
 under him had decayed, grown perfectly black, and was falling out;
 his heels had assumed the same appearance; his stockings had never
 been removed during all his illness and his toes were matted and grown
 together and are now _dropping off at the joint_; the cavities in
 his back are absolutely frightful. When intelligent medical attendance
 was summoned from the city, the verdict rendered upon examination was
 that his extremities were _perishing for want of nourishment_.
 He had been neglected until he was literally starving; too little
 nourishment had been taken into the system during his illness to
 preserve life in the extremities. This conclusion seems all the
 more reliable from the famished appearance which he presents. I am
 accustomed to see people _hungry_ when recovering from a fever,
 but I find that hunger and starvation are two distinct conditions.
 He can lie only on his face with his insteps propped up with hair
 pillows to prevent his toes from touching the bed (for with the life
 engendered by food and care, sensation is returning to them), and asks
 only for “something to eat.” Food is placed by him at night, and with
 the earliest dawn of day commence his bowls of broths and soups and
 a little meat, and he eats and begs for “more,” and sleeps and eats
 and begs. Three of his toes are to be amputated to-day. The surgeon
 of the regiment comes to see him, but had no idea of his condition;
 said that their assistant surgeon was killed and that it “was true
 that the men had not received proper care; he was very sorry.” With
 the attention which this young man is now receiving, he will probably
 recover, but had it been otherwise? Only thus, that not far from this
 time the city papers under caption of “Death of Soldiers” would have
 contained the paragraph--“Benjamin (or Berry) Pollard, _private_,
 Camp Pierpont,” and this would have been the end. Whoever could have
 mistrusted that this soldier had _starved to death_ through lack
 of proper attendance? Ah, me, all of our poor boys have not a sister
 within nine miles of them. And still it is said, upon authority,
 “_we have no need of nurses_” and “_our army is supplied_.”
 How this can be so I fail to see; still again it is not for me to
 gainsay. We are _loyal_ and our authority must be respected,
 though our men perish. I only mention such facts as come under my
 own observation, and only a fraction of those. This is not by any
 means in accordance with our home style of judging. If we New England
 people saw men lying in camp uncared for until their toes rotted from
 their feet, with not persons enough about them to take care of them,
 we should think they needed _more_ nurses; if with plenty of
 persons about who failed to care for them we should think they needed
 _better_. I can only repeat that I fail to see clear. I greatly
 fear that the few privileged, elegantly dressed ladies who ride over
 and sit in their carriages to witness “splendid services” and “inspect
 the Army of the Potomac” and come away “delighted,” learn very little
 of what lies there under canvas.

 Since receiving your letter I have taken occasion to converse with a
 number of the most intelligent and competent ladies who are or have
 been connected with the hospitals in this city, and all agree upon one
 point, viz., that _our army cannot afford_ that our ladies lay
 down their needles and fold their hands; if their contributions are
 not needed just to-day, they may be to-morrow, and _somewhere_
 they are needed to-day. And again all agree in advising that whatever
 be sent be gotten as nearly direct as possible from the hands of the
 donors to the very spot for which it is designed, not to pass through
 too general distribution, strengthening their advice by many reasons
 and circumstances which I do not feel at liberty to lay before you.
 No one can fail to perceive that a house of general receipts and
 distribution of stores of all descriptions from the whole United
 States must be a mammoth concern, abounding in confusion which always
 involves loss and destruction of property. I am confident that this
 idea cannot be incorrect, and therefore I will not hesitate to
 advance it upon my own responsibility, viz., that every State should
 have, in the vicinity of her greatest body of troops, a dépôt of her
 own where all her contributions should be sent and dispersed; if
 her own soldiers need it all, to them; if not, then let her share
 generously and intelligently with those who do need; but know what
 she has and what she gives. We shall never have any other precise
 method of discovering the real _wants_ of our soldiers. When the
 _storehouse_ of _any_ State should be found empty, it would
 be safe to conclude that her troops are in need; then let the full
 garners render the required assistance. This would systematize the
 whole matter, and do away with all necessary confusion, doubt, and
 uncertainty; it would preclude all possibility of loss, as it would be
 the business of each house to look to its own property. There is some
 truth in the old maxim that “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s
 business.” I believe that as long ago as the early settlement of our
 country it was found that the plan, general labor, general storehouse,
 and general distribution, proved ineffective and reduced our own
 little colony to a state of confusion and almost ruin; there were one
 hundred persons then, one hundred thousand now. If, pecuniarily I were
 able, Massachusetts should have her dépôt in this city and I should
 have no fear of unreliability; this to me would be no experiment, for
 however dimly and slowly I discern _other_ points, _this_
 has been clear to me from the first, strengthened by eight months’
 daily observation.

 While I write another idea occurs to me,--has it been thought of
 to provide each of our regiments that are to accompany the next
 expedition with some strong, well-filled boxes of useful articles and
 stores, which are not to be opened until some battle, or other strong
 necessity renders supplies necessary. These necessities are sure to
 follow, and, unless anticipated and guarded against, no activity on
 the part of friends at home can prevent the suffering which their
 absence will create. With regard to our 23d, 25th, and 27th Regiments,
 I cannot speak, but our 21st I _know_ have no such provisions,
 and will not have unless thought of at home, and the consequence
 of neglect will be that by and by our very hearts will be wrung by
 accounts of our best officers and dearest friends having their limbs
 amputated by the light of two inches of tallow candle in the midst of
 a battle, and pitchy darkness close down upon men bleeding to death,
 or since essaying to stanch their wounds with husks and straw.

 A note just now informs me that our four companies of surgeons from
 Fort Independence, now stationed at the arsenal in this city (some
 two miles from me), in waiting for their supplies from Boston, were
 compelled to sleep in low, damp places with a single blanket and are
 taking severe colds and coughing fearfully. My ingenuity points no
 way of relief but to buy sacking, run up many ticks to be filled with
 hay to raise them from the drafts a little, and to this the remainder
 of my day must be devoted; they are far more exposed than they would
 be on the ground under a good tent. I almost envy you ladies where so
 many of you can work together and accomplish so much, while my poor
 labors are so single-handed. The future often looks dark to me, and it
 seems sometimes that the smiles of Heaven are almost withdrawn from
 our poor, rent, and distracted country; and yet there is everything
 to be grateful for, and by no means the least is this strangely mild
 winter.

 But I must desist and crave pardon for my (perhaps unpardonably)
 long letter, for if you have followed me thus far, and especially at
 comparatively as rapid a rate as I have written, you must be weary. I
 did not intend to say so much, but let my interest be my apology. And
 with one more final word in answer to your rational question I have
 done. Ladies, remember that the call for your organized efforts in
 behalf of our army was _not_ from any commission or committee,
 but from Abraham Lincoln and Simon Cameron, and when they no longer
 need your labors they will tell you.

But all this preliminary work bore in upon the mind of Clara Barton
two important truths. The first was a necessity for organization.
People were ready to give if they knew where to give and how their
gifts would be made effective. The problem was one of publicity, and
then of effective organization for distribution. But the other matter
troubled her yet more. Supplies distributed from Washington and relief
given to men there reached the wounded many hours or even days after
the beginning of their needs. What was required was not simply good
nurses in hospitals and adequate food and medicine for the soldiers who
were conveyed thither, but some sort of provision on the battle-field
itself. In later years she described her own misgivings as she
considered the kind of service that ought to be rendered, and of the
difficulties, including those of social duties, which might stand in
the way:

 I was strong and thought I might go to the rescue of the men who fell.
 The first regiment of troops, the old 6th Massachusetts that fought
 its way through Baltimore brought my playmates and neighbors, the
 partakers of my childhood; the brigades of New Jersey brought scores
 of my brave boys, the same solid phalanx; and the strongest legions
 from old Herkimer, brought the associates of my seminary days. They
 formed and crowded around me. What could I do but go with them, or
 work for them and my country? The patriot blood of my father was
 warm in my veins. The country which he had fought for, I might at
 least work for, and I had offered my service to the Government in the
 capacity of a double clerkship at twice $1600 a year, upon discharge
 of two disloyal clerks from its employ--the salary never to be given
 to me, but to be turned back into the United States Treasury, then
 poor to beggary, with no currency, no credit. But there was no law for
 this, and it could not be done, and I would not draw salary from our
 Government in such peril, so I resigned and went into direct service
 of the sick and wounded troops wherever found.

 But I struggled long and hard with my sense of propriety--with the
 appalling fact that I was only a woman whispering in one ear, and
 thundering in the other, the groans of suffering men dying like dogs,
 unfed and unsheltered, for the life of every institution which had
 protected and educated me!

 I said that I struggled with my sense of propriety and I say it with
 humiliation and shame. I am ashamed that I thought of such a thing.

The thing that became increasingly plain to Clara Barton was that every
hour that elapsed after a man was wounded before relief reached him
was an hour on which might easily hang the issues of life and death.
Somehow she must get relief to men on the battle-field itself.

In later years people used sometimes to address her in terms which
implied that she had nursed with her own hands more soldiers than
any other American woman who labored in military hospitals; that
her hands had bound up more wounds than those of other nurses and
sanitary leaders. She always tried to make it plain that she put
forth no such claim for herself. Her distinctive contribution to the
problem was one of organization and distribution, and especially of
the prompt conveyance of relief to the places of greatest need and
of greatest danger. In this she was soon to organize a system, and,
indeed, had already effected the beginning of an organization which
was to constitute her distinctive work in the Civil War and to lay the
foundation for her great contribution to humanity, the American Red
Cross.




CHAPTER XII

HOME AND COUNTRY


The family and home life of Clara Barton occupy of necessity a smaller
place in this narrative than they rightfully deserve. Reference has
been made in the early pages of this work to Clara Barton’s advent into
a home which for several years had believed itself complete. It must
not be inferred on that account that the little late arrival was other
than heartily welcome. Nor must the fact that her more than normal
shyness and introspection during her childhood made her a problem be
understood as indicating any lack of sympathy between her and any
member of her household. On the contrary, her childhood memories were
happy ones, and her affection for every member of the household was
sincere and almost unbounded. Nor yet again must it be supposed that
her long absences from home weaned her heart away from those who were
entitled to her love. Love of family and pride of family and sincere
affection for every member of the home group were manifest in all her
correspondence. She left her home and went out into the world while
she was still a child in her own thought and in the thought of her
family. She became a teacher while she was still wearing the “little
waifish” dresses of her childhood. She had to do a large part of her
thinking and planning apart from the companionship of those she loved
best. But she loved them deeply and sincerely. The members of her
family receive only incidental mention in this narrative, and, with her
advent into wider fields of service, they must drop increasingly into
the background and out of view. In order, however, that we may have in
mind their incidental mention, let us here record the condition of her
immediate family at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War.

Her eldest sister Dorothy, born October 2, 1804, became an invalid and
died unmarried April 19, 1846, aged forty-one.

Her brother Stephen, born March 20, 1806, married November 24,
1833, Elizabeth Rich, and died in Washington, March 10, 1865, aged
fifty-nine years. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was living in
Hertford County, North Carolina, whither he had gone in 1854. He had
established a large sawmill there, and gathered about it a group of
industries which by 1861 had become the most important concern in the
village. Indeed, the village itself had grown up about his enterprise,
and took its name, Bartonville, from him. When the war broke out,
he was past the age for military service. At the beginning of the
struggle, however, he had no mind to leave the South. While he was a
Union man, and every one knew it, he had been long enough in the South
to appreciate the position of the Southern people and had no mind
needlessly to wound their feelings. His mill, his store, his blacksmith
shop, his lands, his grain, his cattle, had been accumulated by him
through years of toil, and he desired to stay where he was and protect
his property. He did not believe--no one believed--that the war was
going to last so long. There was no service which at the beginning he
could render to the Northern cause. So he remained. As the war went on,
his situation grew less and less tenable, and, in time, dangerous. He
sent his helpers North, some twenty of them. They made their way amid
perils and hardship, reached Washington where Clara Barton rendered
them assistance, and ultimately the most of them entered the Union
army. But earlier than this, in 1861 and at the beginning of 1862, his
family was growing increasingly anxious about him, and very desirous,
if possible, that he should get away. He was warned and threatened; at
one time he suffered a night assault by a mob. Bruised and battered
though he was, he fought them off single-handed and remained in the
South.

Her younger brother David, born August 15, 1808, married, September
30, 1829, Julia Ann Maria Porter, lived to the age of eighty, and died
March 12, 1888. At the outbreak of the war David and Julia Barton had
four children--their twin daughters Ada and Ida, born January 18, 1847,
the one son, Stephen Emery, born December 24, 1848, and in 1861 a lad
of twelve, and the daughter Mary, born December 11, 1851.

With her brother David, his wife Julia and his four children, Clara was
in continuous correspondence. His family lived in the old home, and she
kept in constant touch with them. Her sister-in-law Julia was very dear
to her, and perhaps the best correspondent in the family.

Her sister Sarah, born March 20, 1811, married, April 17, 1834, Vester
Vassall, and died in May, 1874. At the outbreak of the war both the
children of this marriage were living. The younger son Irving, died
April 9, 1865. The elder son, Bernard Barton Vassall, born October 10,
1835, married, October 26, 1863, Frances Maria Childs, and died March
23, 1894. Mrs. Vassall is still living.

With this family Clara’s relations were those of peculiar intimacy.
Her sister and her sister’s children were very dear to her. Irving was
a young man of fine Christian character, not physically strong enough
to bear arms, and was in Washington in the service of the Government
during the war. Bernard married Clara’s dear friend and assistant at
Bordentown. He was a soldier and during the war his wife Fannie lived
for a considerable time in Washington.

Clara Barton’s mother, Sarah or Sally Stone, born November 13, 1783,
died July 10, 1851, aged sixty-eight. Her death occurred while Clara
was studying at Clinton, and the expressions of solitude in Clara’s
diary at the time of her perplexities over her love affairs, were
induced in part, though perhaps unconsciously, by her loneliness after
her mother’s death.

Clara’s relations to her father were always those of peculiar nearness
and sympathy. In her childhood he was more constantly her companion
than her mother ever was. When Clara was away from home, nothing more
surely gave her concern than news from her brother or sister that
“father,” or from her nieces and nephews that “grandpa,” was not as
well as usual. Her diaries and her letters are burdened with her
solicitude for him. In the latter part of 1861 his health gave occasion
for some concern, but he seemed to recover. She made a journey to
Worcester and Oxford in December, but returned to Washington before
Christmas, taking with her boxes and trunks of provisions for the
soldiers which she wished to deliver if possible at Arlington, so as
to be closer to the place of actual need. Her nephew, Irving Vassall,
was with her on the return journey. The letter which preserves the
account of this expedition is interesting as recording her account of a
Sunday spent with the army. What took her there was her determination
to deliver her goods to the place of need before she returned to her
home in Washington. She was still learning military manners and the
ways of camp life, and was giving herself unsparingly to the collection
of supplies. She was assisting in hospital work in Washington, and
definitely planning to have a hospital there assigned to herself. As
yet, apparently, she had no definite plan to go herself directly to the
battle-field.

November and the early part of December were mild. Day by day she
thanked God for every ray of sunshine, and night by night she lifted up
her heart in thanksgiving that the boys, who were sleeping on the bare
ground with only single threads of white canvas above them, were not
compelled to suffer from the rigors of cold. On December 9, 1861, she
wrote the following which was a kind of prayer of thanksgiving for mild
weather:

  December 9, 1861

 The streets are thronged with men bright with tinsel, and the
 clattering hoofs of galloping horses sound continually in our ears.
 The weather is bright and warm as May, for which blessing I feel
 hourly to thank the great Giver of all good gifts, that upon this vast
 army lying like so many thousand herds of cattle on every side of our
 bright, beleaguered city, with only the soil, for which they peril
 life, beneath, and the single threads of white canvas above, watching
 like so many faithful dogs, held by bonds stronger than death, yet
 patient and uncomplaining. A merciful God holds the warring, pitiless
 elements in his firm, benignant grasp, withholds the rigors of early
 winter, and showers down upon their heads the genial rays of untimely
 warmth changing the rough winds of December to the balmy breezes of
 April. Well may we hold thanksgiving and our army unite in prayer and
 songs of praise to God.

Her diary at this period is irregular, and I have not yet discovered
a definite record of her journey from Washington and back, except in
her letter to the wife of an army surgeon, which she wrote on the day
before Christmas, 1861:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., December 24th, 1861

  MY DARLING COUSIN:

 How naughtily I have neglected your cheering little letter, but it has
 been all my hands and none my heart which have done the naughty thing.
 I have wanted so to write you all the time, and intruders _would_
 come between us and would have all my time. It was not always people.
 Oh, no,--work and care, and an o’ergrown correspondence intruded upon
 me, but I always solace myself with the thought that, if my friends
 will only have a _little patience_ with me, it will all come
 right, and their turn will come at last, and after a time the best of
 them learn me, and then in my easy, hurrying, slipshod way we come
 to be correspondents for aye. In the course of a year I say a great
 deal of nonsense to my correspondents, but I cannot always say it
 when my head and heart are the fullest of it. But first let me hasten
 to tell you what _cannot fail of being exceedingly gratifying_
 to you, viz., that I am in a “_habit_” of receiving _daily
 visits from your husband_. But I was a long time in getting about
 it, however. I sent twice to his hotel, the great Pandemonium wherein
 he is incarcerated, before Sunday, but could get no tidings all the
 time. I was fearful he _was_ here and I missing him, and then
 I was almost certain that he was _not able_ to be here; but at
 length I could risk it no longer and wrote a hurried little note and
 dropped in the office for him, and sure enough it brought him. I
 was so _glad_ to see him and so much _better_ too, it is
 _splendid_; but then he had been trying to find me, and I in the
 meantime had, along with all Washington, removed! Just think of it,
 but I removed out of a burden of care to perfect ease and yet can
 _command_ just as much room as I desire in case I need, and if
 I have no need of it am not troubled with it--only that I have the
 trouble of furnishing, at which Doctor may inform you I am making very
 slow progress. I have so many things in Massachusetts _now_ that
 I want; my walls are perfectly bare, not a picture, and I have plenty
 to furnish them. It is vexatious that I didn’t “know to take them”
 when I was there. I fear to allow others to pack them.

 I suspect that, after the daily letter of your husband, inimitable
 correspondent and conversationist that he is, there is nothing left
 for me to relate of our big city, grown up so strangely like a gourd
 all in a night; places which never before dreamed of being honored by
 an inhabitant save dogs, cats, and rats, are converted into “elegantly
 furnished rooms for rent,” and people actually live in them with all
 the city airs of people really living in respectable houses, and I
 suspect many of them do not _know_ that they are positively
 living in sheds, but we, who have become familiar with every old roof
 years agone, know perfectly well what shelters them. Well, the present
 aspect of our capital is a wide, fruitful field for description, and I
 will leave it for the Doctor; he will clothe it in a far richer dress
 than I could do.

 Perhaps you wish to know somewhat about my journey with my big trunks.
 Well, it was perfectly quiet; nothing like an adventure to enliven
 until we reached Baltimore, to which I had checked my baggage as the
 nearest point to Annapolis, for which place I could not get checks,
 but to which I had determined to go before proceeding to Washington. I
 delivered my checks to the expressman, took receipts, and gave every
 conductor on the train to understand that _my baggage_ was
 to be taken through the city in the same train with myself (for we
 disconnect and come through Baltimore in horse-cars); but just imagine
 my vexation when, as our train commenced to move off, I saw my baggage
 just moving by slow teams _up_ the street in the direction of our
 train. It had no checks, and I must not become long separated from
 it; the train was in motion and I could not leave it. I had no idea
 what would be done with it, whether retained in Baltimore, sent to
 Annapolis junction, or forwarded to Washington. I had to think fast,
 and you remember it was Saturday night. Relay House was the nearest
 station. I left the train there (Irving went on to Washington), and
 proceeded directly to the telegraph office and telegraphed back to
 Baltimore describing the baggage and directing it to come on the
 next train one hour later. They had just time to get it aboard, and
 on the arrival of the train I found it in the baggage car, took that
 train, and proceeded “nine miles to the junction,” stopped too late
 for Annapolis that night, chartered the parlor and sofa,--every room
 in the house filled with officers,--and as good luck would have it a
 train (special) ran down from Annapolis the next day about eleven,
 for a regiment of Zouaves, and I claimed my seat, and went, too,
 and the first any one knew I presented myself at the Headquarters
 of the 21st. You will have to imagine the cordial, affable Colonel
 springing from his seat with both hands extended, the extremely polite
 Lieutenant-Colonel Maggie, always in full dress with the constantly
 worn sword, with eyes and hair so much blacker than night, going
 through a succession of bows and formalities, which _I_, a
 simple, home-bred, unsophisticated Yankee didn’t know what upon earth
 to do with, completely confounded!--till the clear, appreciative,
 knowing twinkle of our “cute” Major Clark’s eyes set things right
 again; and almost the last, our honest, modest “Cousin” Fletcher
 coming up away round on the other side for his word, and not one
 among them all to whom I could extend a more cordial greeting. Please
 tell Grandma that he hasn’t broken a limb; his horse fell with him
 and hurt his shoulder, but it is nearly well now. I was just in time
 for a seat between the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel at dinner, and
 accompanying them to the Chapel to listen to the opening discourse of
 their newly arrived chaplain, Rev. Mr. Ball, Unitarian. He addressed
 the men with great kindness of manner, beseeching them to come near to
 him with all their trials, burdens, and temptations, and let him help
 to bear them. He was strong to bear, patient to hear, and willing to
 do, and his arm, and his ear, and his heart were theirs for all good
 purposes. There was many a glistening eye among that thousand waiting
 men, still as the night of death; for a regiment of soldiers can be
 the stillest living thing I ever looked at. The 21st are in the main
 good, true men, and I was glad that a man of gentle speech and kind
 and loving heart had come among them.

 Next morning brought some of our good Worcester ladies from the 25th
 to our Camp, among whom was the daughter-in-law of your neighbor Mr.
 Denny. A beautiful coach and span of horses were found, and a cozy,
 but rather gay, party of us started for the Camp of the 25th, and
 here we found your excellent pastor, Mr. James, the best specimen of
 a _true_ soldier that I ever saw; nothing too vast for his mind
 to grasp, nothing too trivial (if needful) to interest him, cheerful,
 brave, and tireless, watching like a faithful sentry the wants of
 every soldier, and apparently more than equal to every emergency.
 What a small army of _such_ men were sufficient to overcome all
 our present difficulties! You should see his tent; it was a cold,
 raw day, more so than any which has followed it, but the moment I
 was inside I found myself _so warm_ and my feet grew warm as if
 I were standing over a register, and I could not see where the heat
 came from; but my curiosity was irrepressible, and I had to ask an
 explanation of the mystery,--when Mr. James raised a little square
 iron lid, like the door of a stove (which I believe it was), almost
 hidden in the ground, in among the dried grass, and to my astonishment
 revealed a miniature volcano blazing beneath our very feet. The whole
 ground beneath his tent seemed to be on fire, with currents of air
 passing through which fed the flame, and took away the smoke. There
 was, of course, no dampness in the tent, and I could see no reason
 why it should be less healthy, or comfortable indeed (excepting small
 space), than any house, and such piles of letters and books and
 Neddy’s picture over the table, and the quiet little boy, following
 close and looking up in his master’s face, like any pet, all presented
 a scene which I wished his intelligent and appreciative wife, at
 least, could have looked in upon. Oh, yes, I must not “forget” to
 mention the conspicuous position which _Grandma’s mittens_
 occupied upon the table. Mr. James put them on to show what a nice fit
 they were and wondered what “Grandma” would say if she were to look in
 upon him in his tent.

Clara Barton was still in Washington through January and apparently
through February, 1862. Not always was she able to include pleasant
weather among the occasions of her thanksgiving. Every now and again a
pitiless storm beat down upon the soldiers, who were poorly provided
with tents and blankets. Frequently she met among the soldiers in
Washington some of her old pupils. She was never able to look upon
armies as mere masses of troops; she had to remember that they were
individual men, each capable of suffering pain in his own person, and
each of them carrying with him to the front the anxious thought of
loved ones at home. This was the burden of a letter which she wrote on
January 9, 1862:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan’y 9th, 1862
  Thursday morning

  MY DARLING SIS FANNIE:

 In spite of everything, I shall this moment commence this note to you,
 and I shall finish it as soon as I can, and when it is finished, I
 shall send it. In these days of “Proclamations,” this is mine.

 I am truly thankful for the institution of ghosts, and that mine
 haunted you until you felt constrained to cry out for “relief”--not
 that I would have invoked discomfort upon you, or welcomed it when it
 should come, but your letter was _so_ welcome, how _could_ I
 in mortal weakness be so unselfish as not to hail with joy _any_
 “provoking cause”? You perceive that my idea of ghosts is not limited
 to graveyards and tombs, or the tenants thereof; indeed, so far from
 it, the most troublesome I have ever known were at times the inmates
 of living and moving bodies habiting among other people, coming
 out only occasionally like owls and bats to frighten the weak and
 discourage the weary. I am rejoiced to know that you are comfortable
 and happy, and that your school is not wearing you--you are perfectly
 right, never let another school be a burden of care upon you; you
 will do all your duty without any such soul-vexing labors. I envy
 you and Miss Bliss your long social intellectual evenings; please
 play I am there sometimes. I will be so quiet, and never disturb
 a bit, but, dear me, I am in rougher scenes, if in scenes at all.
 My head is just this moment full to aching, bursting with all the
 thoughts and doings of our pet expedition. A half-hour ago came to
 my room the last messenger from them, the last I shall have in all
 probability until the enemy’s galling shot shall have raked through
 the ranks of my dear boys, and strewn them here and there, bleeding,
 crippled, and dying. Only think of it! the same fair faces that only
 a few years ago came every morning, newly washed, hair nicely combed,
 bright and cheerful, and took their places quietly and happily among
 my scholars,--the same fair heads (perhaps now a few shades darker)
 that I have smoothed and patted in fond approval of some good deed
 or well-learned task, so soon to lie low in the Southern sands,
 blood-matted and tangled, trampled under foot of man and horse, buried
 in a common trench “unwept, uncoffined, and unknown.” For the last two
 weeks my very heart has been crushed by the sad thoughts and little
 touching scenes which have come in my way. It tires me most when one
 would get a few hours’ leave from his regiment at Annapolis, and come
 to me with some little sealed package, and perhaps his “warrant” as
 a non-commissioned officer, and ask me to keep it for him, either
 until he returns for it, or--_when I should read his name in the
 “Black List,” send it home_. And by the time his errand were well
 done, his little hour would be up and, with a hearty grasp of the
 hand, an earnest, deep-toned “good-bye,” he stepped from my presence,
 marching cheerfully, bravely out--“To die,” I said to myself, as my
 soul sunk within me, and the struggling breath would choke and stop,
 until the welcome shower of tears came to my relief. Oh, the hours I
 have wept alone over scenes like these, no mortal knows! To any other
 friend than you, I should not feel like speaking so freely of such
 things, but you, who know how foolishly tender my friendships are, and
 how I loved “my boys,” will pardon me, and not think me strange or
 egotistical. But I must forget myself, and tell you what the messenger
 said. It was simply that they were all on board; that, when he left,
 the harbor was full, literally crammed with boats and vessels, covered
 with men, shouting from every deck. At every breeze that lifted
 the drooping flag aloft, a shout went up that deafened and drowned
 every other sound, save the roar of the cannon, following instantly,
 drowning them in return. The....

 Well, just as I knew it would be when I commenced twenty days ago to
 write you, some one interrupted me, and then came the returning hours
 of tedious labor, and a thrice-told quantity has held me fast until
 now. I have been a great deal _more_ than busy for the past three
 weeks, owing to some new arrangements in the office, mostly, by which
 I lead the Record, and hurry up the others who lag.

 Our city has known very little change, since I commenced my first
 sheet, although everybody but the wise people have looked intently for
 something new, and desperately dreadful, some “forward movement” or
 backward advance, but nothing of the kind has happened, doubtless much
 to our credit and comfort. No private returns from the “expedition”
 yet, but the Commandant of the Post at Annapolis, who just left me a
 moment ago, says that the Baltic will leave there this P.M.
 to join them in their landing wherever it may be.

 Colonel Allen’s death was a most sad affair: his regiment was the
 first to embark at Annapolis, a splendid regiment 1200 strong. But a
 truce to wars, so here’s my white flag, only I suppose you “don’t see
 it,” do you? By this time you are reveling in the February number of
 the “Atlantic.” So am I. I have just laid down “A. C.” after a hurried
 perusal; not equal to “Love and Skates,” though; what a capital thing
 that is! But the “Yankee Idyll” caps all that has yet been done or
 said. I _cannot_ lay _that_ down, and keep it there; it
 _will_ come up again, the thoughts to my mind, and the pages to
 my hand.

  “Old Uncle S,--says he, I guess,
  God’s price is high, says he.”[6]

 Who ever heard so much, so simply and so quaintly expressed?--there
 are at least ten volumes of good sound Orthodoxy embodied just there
 in that single stanza. But “Port Royal” mustn’t be eclipsed. The
 glories of that had been radiating through my mind, however, since its
 first appearance in the “Tribune” (if that were the first; it was the
 first I saw of it), and I thought it so beautiful that I shouldn’t be
 able to relish another poem for at least six weeks, and here it is, so
 soon bedimmed by a _rival_. Oh, the fickleness of human nature,
 and human loves, a beautiful pair they are, surmounted by the Godlike
 “Battle Hymn”[7] tossing over all. What did our poets do for subjects
 before the war? It’s a Godsend to them, I am certain, and they equally
 so to us; sometimes I think them the only bright spot in the whole
 drama.

 Well, here I am at _war_ again. I knew’t would be so when I
 signed that treaty on the previous page. I’m as bad as England; the
 fight is in me, and I will find a pretext.

 I have not seen our North Oxford “Regulars” for some time owing to
 the fact that a sea of mud has lain between me and them for the last
 three weeks, utterly impassable. A few weeks ago Cousin Leander
 called me to see a member of his “mess” who was just attacked with
 pleuritic fever. I went, and found him in hospital. He was cheerful
 (a fine young man) and thought he should be out soon. Work and storm
 kept me from him three days, and the fourth we bought him a grave in
 the Congressional Burying Ground. Poor fellow, and there he lies all
 alone. A _soldier’s_ grave, a sapling at the head, a rough slab
 at the foot, nine shots between, and all is over. He waits God’s bugle
 to summon him to a reënlistment in the Legion of Angels.

 Well, it’s no use, I’ve broken the peace again, and I _can’t_
 keep it. I hope you live in a more peaceful community than I do, and
 are consequently more manageable and less belligerent....

  CLARA


The foregoing letter dealt almost wholly with national affairs. Family
matters were giving her little concern during the twenty days in which
this unfinished missive lay on her desk. But scarcely had she mailed it
when she received this letter concerning her father:

  NORTH OXFORD, MASS., January 13, 1862

  MY DEAR CLARA:

 I sat up with Grandpa last night and he requested me to write to you
 and tell how he was. Some one has to sit up with him to keep his fire
 regulated. He takes no medicine, and says he shall take _no_
 more. He is quite low-spirited at times, and last night very much so.
 Complains of pains in his back and bowels; said he should not stop
 long with us, and should like to see you once more before he died. He
 spoke in high terms of Julie and of the excellent care she had taken
 of him, but said after all there was no one like you. I think he fails
 slowly and is gradually wearing out. A week ago he was quite low; so
 feeble that he was unable to raise himself in bed; now he is more
 comfortable and walks out into the sitting-room ’most every day. He
 cannot be prevailed upon to go to bed, but sits in his great chair and
 sleeps on the lounge. When he was the sickest I notified Dr. Darling
 of his situation and he called. Grandpa told him his medicine did
 not help or hurt him. Doctor left him some drops, but said he had no
 confidence in his medicine and he did not think it would help him.
 His appetite is tolerably good for all kinds of food, and what he
 wants he will have. I hardly know what to write about him. I do not
 wish to cause unnecessary alarm, and at the same time I want you to
 fully understand his case. As I said before, he gets low-spirited and
 disconsolate, but I think he may stand by us some months longer, and
 yet, he may be taken away at any moment. Of course every new attack
 leaves him feebler and more childish. He wants to see you again and
 seems quite anxious about it, but whether about anything in particular
 he did not say....

  SAM BARTON


Thus, at the beginning of February, 1862, she was called back to
Oxford. Her father, who had several times seemed near to death, but
who had recovered again and again, was now manifestly nearing the
end. She was with him more than a month before he died. His mind was
clear, and they were able to converse about all the great matters which
concerned them and their home and country. He made his final business
arrangements; he talked with the children who were there, and about
the children who were away. He was greatly concerned for Stephen, at
that time shut in by the Confederate army. Even if the Northern armies
could reach him, as they seemed likely to do before long, neither Clara
nor her father felt sure that he would leave. There was an element of
stubbornness in the Barton family, and Stephen was disposed to stand
his ground against all threats and all entreaties. Clara and her father
felt that the situation was certainly more serious than even Stephen
could realize. To invite him to return to Oxford and sit down in
idleness was worse than useless, and he could not render any military
service. Not only was he too old, but he had a hernia. But she felt
sure that if he were in Washington there would be something that he
could do; and, as was subsequently proved, she was right about it.
There were no mails between Massachusetts or Washington and the place
of his residence, but Clara had opportunity to send a letter which she
hoped would reach him. She wrote guardedly, for it was not certain into
whose hands the letter might fall. Sitting by her father’s bedside she
wrote the following long epistle:

  NORTH OXFORD, March 1st, 1862

  MY DEAR EXILED BROTHER:

 I trust that at length I have an opportunity of speaking to you
 without reserve. I only wish I might talk with you face to face, for
 in all the shades of war which have passed over us, we must have taken
 in many different views. I would like to compare them, but as this
 cannot be, I must tell you mine, and in doing so I shall endeavor
 to give such opinions and facts as would be fully endorsed by every
 friend and person here whose opinions you would ever have valued. I
 would sooner sever the hand that pens this than mislead you, and you
 may _depend_ upon the _strict fact_ of everything I shall
 say, remembering that I shall overcolor nothing.

 In the first place, let me remove the one great error, prevalent
 among all (Union) people at the South, I presume,--viz., that this
 is a war of “Abolitionism” or abolitionists. This is not so; our
 Government has for its object the restoration of the Union _as it
 was_, and will do so, unless the resistance of the South prove so
 obstinate and prolonged that the abolition or overthrow of slavery
 follow as a _consequence_--never an object. Again, the idea of
 “_subjugation_.” This application never originated with the
 North, nor is it tolerated there, for an instant; desired by no one
 unless, like the first instance, it follows as a necessity incident
 upon a course of protracted warfare. Both these ideas are used as
 stimulants by the Southern (mis)leaders, and without them they could
 never hold their army together a month. The North are fighting for
 the maintenance of the Constitutional Government of the United States
 and the defense and honor of their country’s flag. This accomplished,
 the army are ready to lay down their arms and return to their homes
 and peaceable pursuits, and our leaders are willing to disband them.
 Until such time, there will be found no willingness on the part of
 either. We have now in the field between 500,000 and 600,000 soldiers;
 more cavalry and artillery than we can use to advantage, our navy
 growing to a formidable size, and all this vast body of men, clothed,
 fed, and paid, as was never an army on the face of the earth before,
 perfectly uniformed, and hospital stores and clothing lying idly by
 waiting to be used; we feel no scarcity of money. I am not saying
 that we are not getting a large national debt, but I mean to say
 that our people are not feeling the pinchings of “war-time.” The
 people of the North are as comfortable as you used to see them. You
 should be set down in the streets of Boston, Worcester, New York,
 or Philadelphia to-day, and only by a profusion of United States
 flags and occasionally a soldier home on a furlough would you ever
 mistrust that we were _at war_. Let the fire bells ring in any of
 those cities, and you will never miss a man from the crowds you have
 ordinarily seen gather on such occasions. We can raise another army
 like the one we have in the field (only better men as a _mass_),
 arm and equip them for service, and still have men and means enough
 left at home for all practical purposes. Our troops are just beginning
 to be effective, only just properly drilled, and are now ready to
 commence work in earnest or just as ready to lay down their arms when
 the South are ready to return to the Union, as “loyal and obedient
 States”; not obedient to the _North_, but obedient to the laws
 of the whole country. Our relations with foreign countries are
 amicable, and our late recent victories must for a long time set at
 rest all hope or fears of foreign interference, and even were such an
 event probable, the Federal Government would not be dismayed. We are
 doubtless in better condition to meet a foreign foe, along with all
 our home difficulties to-day, than we should have been all together
 one year ago to-day. Foreign powers stand off and look with wonder
 to see what the Americans have accomplished in ten months; they will
 be wary how they wage war with “Yankees” after this. I must caution
 here, lest you think there is in all I say something of the spirit
 of “brag.” There is not a vestige of it. I am only stating plain
 facts, and not the hundredth part of them. I do not feel exultant,
 but humble and grateful that under the blessing of God, my country
 and my people have accomplished what they have; and even _were_
 I exulting, it would be _for_ you, and not over, or against you,
 for “according to the straightest of your sect,” have you lived a
 “Yankee.” And this brings me to the point of my subject; here comes my
 request, my prayer, supplication, entreaty, command--call it what you
 will, only _heed it_, at once. COME HOME, not home to
 Massachusetts, but home to _my_ home; I want you in Washington.
 I could cover pages, fill volumes, in telling you all the anxiety
 that has been felt for you, all the hours of anxious solicitude that
 I have known in the last ten months, wondering where you were, or if
 you were at all, and planning ways of getting to you, or getting you
 to me, but never until now has any safe or suitable method presented
 itself, and now that the expedition has opened a means of escape, I
 am tortured with the fear that, under the recent call of the State,
 you may have been drafted into the enemy’s service. If you are
 still at your place and this letter reaches you, I desire, and most
 sincerely advise, you to make ready, and, when the opportunity shall
 present (which surely will), place yourself, with such transportable
 things as you may desire to take, on board one of our boats, under
 protection of our officers, and be taken to the landing at Roanoke,
 and from thence by some of our transports up to Annapolis, where
 either myself or friends will be waiting for you, then go with me to
 Washington and call your days of trial over;--for so it can be done.
 If we could have known when General Burnside’s expedition left, that
 it was destined for your place, Sam would have accompanied them, and
 made his way to you on the first boat up your river; as it is, he
 is coming now, hoping that he may be in time to reach you, and have
 your company back. I want in some way that this and other letters
 reach you before he does, that you may make such preparations as
 will be necessary, and be ready, whenever he shall appear, to step
 on board and set your face toward a more peaceful quarter. You will
 meet a welcome from our officers such as you little dream of, unless
 perchance you have already met them. If you have, you have found
 them gentlemen and friends; you will find scores of old friends in
 that expedition, all anxious to see you, would do anything to serve
 you if you were with them, but don’t know where to find you. There
 are some down on the Island, among General Burnside’s men, who have
 your address, but they would scarcely be on our gunboats. There are
 plenty of men there who have not only your name in their pockets,
 but your memory in their hearts, and would hail you with a brother’s
 welcome. General Butler came in at Hatteras with a long letter in his
 possession relating to you, and if he had advanced so far, he would
 have claimed you. I don’t know how many of our prominent Worcester
 men have come or sent to me for your address, to make it known among
 our troops if ever they reached you, that they might offer you any
 aid in their power. No one can bear the idea of our forces going near
 you without knowing all about you, and claiming and treating you as a
 brother; you were never as near and dear to the people of Worcester
 County as you are to-day. I have seen the tears roll over more than
 one man’s face when told that Sam was going to see and take something
 to you, and bring you away if you would come. “God grant he may” is
 the hearty ejaculation which follows. I want to tell you who you
 will find among the officers and men composing the Expedition near
 you; Massachusetts has five regiments--21st, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 27th;
 the 21st and 25th were raised in Worcester, the former under Colonel
 Augustus Morse, of Leominster, formerly Major-General Morse, of the
 3rd Division, State Militia: he is detached from the regiment and
 is commandant (or second in command now) of the post at Annapolis.
 It is he who will send Sam free of cost to you. He is a good, true
 friend of mine, and tells me to send Sam to him, and he will put him
 on the track to you. He will also interest both General Burnside and
 Commander Goldsburgh in both of you and leave nothing undone for your
 comfort and interest. In the meantime he is waiting to grasp your
 hand, and share his table and blanket with you at Annapolis. So much
 for him; the other officers of the regiment are Lieutenant-Colonel
 Maggi, Major Clark (of Amherst College, Professor of Chemistry),
 Dr. Calvin Cutter as surgeon (you remember Cutter’s Physiology),
 Adjutant Stearns, Chaplain Ball, etc. etc. all of whom know me, are
 my friends, and will be yours in an instant; among the men are scores
 of boys whom you know. You can’t enter _that_ regiment without
 a shout of welcome, unless you do it _very slyly_. Then for the
 25th, Colonel Upton, of Fitchburg, Lieutenant-Colonel Sprague, of
 Worcester, Major Caffidy, of W., Chaplain Reverend Horace James, of
 the Old South, Cousin Ira’s old minister, one of the bravest men in
 the regiment, one of my best friends, and yours too; Captain I. Waldo
 Denny, son of Denny the insurance agent. The Captain has been talking
 about you for the last six months, and if he once gets hold of you
 will be slow to release you unless you set your face for me; the old
 gentleman (his father) has been very earnest in devising plans all
 through the difficulties to reach, aid, or get you away as might be
 best. He came to me in Washington for your address and all particulars
 long months ago, hoping that he could reach you through just some such
 opening as the present. I state all this because it is due you that
 you should know the state of feeling held towards you by your old
 friends and acquaintances whether you choose to come among them or
 not. Even old Brine was in here a few minutes ago, and is trying to
 have Sam take a hundred dollars of _his_ money out to you, lest
 you should need it and cannot get it there; the old fellow urged it
 upon me with the tears running down his cheeks. There is no bitterness
 here, even towards the Southerners themselves, and men would give
 their lives to save the Union men of the South. The North feel it to
 be a necessity to put down a rebellion, and there the animosity ends.
 Now, my advice to you would be this; if you do not see fit to follow
 it, you will promise not to take offense or think me conceited in
 _presuming_ to advise you; under ordinary circumstances I would
 not think of the thing, as you very well know. I get my privilege
 merely from the different standpoint I occupy. No word or expression
 has ever come from you, and you are regarded as a Union man closed
 in and unable to leave, standing by your property to guard it. This
 expedition is supposed to have opened the way for your safe exit or
 escape to your native land, friends, and loyal Government, and if now
 you should take the first opportunity to leave and report yourself
 at your own Government you would find yourself a hundred times more
 warmly received than if you had been here naturally, all the time. So
 far as lay in the power of our troops your property would be sacredly
 protected, far more so than if you remained on it in a manner a
 little hostile or doubtful. I am not certain but the best thing for
 Mr. Riddick would be for you to leave just in this way, and surely I
 would have his property harmed no more than yours. I have understood
 Mr. Riddick to be a Union man at heart like hundreds of other men whom
 our Government desires to protect from all harm and secure against
 all loss. This being the case, the best course for both of you which
 could be adopted, in my judgment, is for you to leave with our troops.
 This will secure the property against them; they would never harm a
 hair of it intentionally knowing it to belong to you, a Union man
 who had come away with them, and you could so represent the case
 of Mr. Riddick that his rights and property would be respected by
 them. _He would be infinitely more secure for such a move on your
 part_, while his connection with you would, I trust, be sufficient
 to secure your property from molestation by his neighbors, who would
 be slow to offend or injure him. If you leave and your property be
 _un_officially injured by our troops, the Federal Government
 must be held responsible for it, and if, after matters are settled,
 and business revives, you should find your attachment to your home so
 strong as to desire to return, I trust you could do so, as I would by
 no means have you do anything to weaken the goodly feeling between you
 and your friend, Mr. Riddick, for whom we have all learned to feel the
 utmost degree of grateful respect, and I cannot for a moment think
 that he would seriously disagree with my conclusions or advice. At all
 events, I am willing he should know them, or see or hear any portions
 of this letter which might be desired. I deal perfectly fairly and
 honestly with all, and I have written or said nothing that I am or
 shall be unwilling to have read by either side. I am a plain Northern
 Union woman, honest in my feelings and counsels, desiring only the
 good of all, disguising nothing, covering nothing, and so far my
 opinions are entitled to respect, and will, I trust, be received with
 confidence. If you will do this as I suggest and come at once to me at
 Washington, you need have no fears of remaining idle. This Sam will
 tell you of when you see him, better than for me to write so much.
 Washington had never so many people and so much business as now. Some
 of it would be for you at once.

 You must not for a moment suppose that you would be offered any
 position which would interfere with any oath you may have given,
 for all know that you must have done something of this nature to
 have remained in that country through such times, unharmed, and all
 know you too well to approach you with any such request, as that you
 shall forfeit your word. Now, what more can I say, only to repeat
 my advice, and desire you to consult Mr. Riddick in relation to the
 matter (if you think best) and leave the result with you, and you with
 the good God, whom I daily desire and implore to sustain, guide, keep,
 and protect you in the midst of all your trials and isolation.

 I sent a short letter to you some weeks ago, which I rather suppose
 must have reached you, in which I told you of the failing condition
 of our dear old father. He is still failing and rapidly; he cannot
 remain with us many days, I think (this calls me home); his appetite
 has entirely failed; he eats nothing and can scarcely bear his weight,
 growing weaker every hour. He has talked a _hundred volumes_
 about you; wishes he could see you, knows he cannot, but hopes you
 will come away with Sam until the trials are ended which distress our
 beloved country. Samuel will tell you more than I can write.

 Hoping to see you soon I remain

  Ever your affectionate sister

  CLARA


It was beside her father’s death-bed that Clara Barton consecrated
herself to work at the battle-front. She talked the whole problem
over with him. She told him what she had seen in the hospitals
at Washington, and that was none too encouraging. But the thing
that distressed her most of all was the shocking loss of life and
increase of suffering due to the transportation of soldiers from the
battle-field to the base hospitals in Washington. She saw more of this
later, but she had seen enough of it already to be appalled by the
conditions that existed. After Fredericksburg she wrote about it in
these terms:

 I went to the 1st Division, 9th Corps Hospital; found eight officers
 of the 57th lying on the floor with a blanket under them, none over;
 had had some crackers once that day. About two hundred left of the
 regiment. Went to the Old National Hotel, found some hundreds (perhaps
 four hundred) Western men sadly wounded, all on the floors; had
 nothing to eat. I carried a basket of crackers, and gave two apiece
 as far as they went and some pails of coffee; they had had no food
 that day and there was none for them. I saw them again at ten o’clock
 at night; they had had nothing to eat; a great number of them were to
 undergo amputation sometime, but no surgeons yet; they had not dippers
 for one in ten. I saw no straw in any hospital, and no mattresses, and
 the men lay so thick that gangrene was setting in, and in nearly every
 hospital there has been set apart an _erysipelas_ ward.

 There is not room in the city to receive the wounded, and those that
 arrived yesterday mostly were left lying in the wagons all night
 at the mercy of the drivers. It rained very hard, many died in the
 wagons, and their companions, where they had sufficient strength, had
 raised up and thrown them out into the street. I saw them lying there
 early this morning; they had been wounded two and three days previous,
 had been brought from the front, and after all this lay still another
 night without care, or food, or shelter, many doubtless famished
 after arriving in Fredericksburg. The city is full of houses, and
 this morning broad parlors were thrown open and displayed to the view
 of the rebel occupants the bodies of the dead Union soldiers lying
 beside the wagons in which they perished. Only those most slightly
 wounded have been taken on to Washington; the roads are fearful and
 it is worth the life of a wounded man to move him over them. A common
 ambulance is scarce sufficient to get through. We passed them this
 morning four miles out of town, full of wounded, with the tongue
 broken or wheels crushed in the middle of a hill, in mud from one
 to two feet deep; what was to be done with the moaning, suffering
 occupants God only knew.

 Dr. Hitchcock most strongly and earnestly and indignantly remonstrates
 against any more removals of broken or amputated limbs. He declares
 it little better than murder, and says the greater proportion of them
 will die if not better fed and afforded more room and better air. The
 surgeons do _all_ they _can_, but no provision had been made
 for such a wholesale slaughter on the part of any one, and I believe
 it would be impossible to comprehend the magnitude of the necessity
 without witnessing it.

Clara Barton knew these matters better in 1863 than she did at the
beginning of 1862, but she knew something about them when she reached
her father’s bedside, and he entered intelligently and with sympathy
into the recital of her story. He had been a soldier and he understood
exactly the conditions which she described. Her old friend Colonel
De Witt, formerly a member of Congress from her home district, also
appreciated what she had to say. On a day when her father was able to
be left, she went with Colonel De Witt to Boston to call on Governor
John A. Andrew. She had much to tell him about conditions and life in
the hospitals, and also something concerning leaks which she knew to be
occurring in Washington and vicinity, and of treasonable organizations
operating close to the capital, in constant communication with the
enemy. A few days after this call the Washington papers contained
an account of the arrest of twenty-five or thirty Secessionists at
Alexandria, and the disclosure of just such a “leak” and plot as she
had related to Governor Andrew:

  Sunday Chronicle, March 2nd, 1862

 Important Arrests at Alexandria.--Quite a sensation was produced
 in Alexandria on last Thursday evening by the arrest of some
 twenty-five or thirty alleged secessionists, who are charged with
 being concerned in a secret association for the purpose of giving aid
 and comfort to the rebels. The conspiracy, it seems, was organized
 under the pretended forms of a relief association, and comprised
 all the treasonable objects of affording relief to the enemy. It is
 further stated that a fund was obtained from rebel sympathizers for
 the purpose of supporting the families of soldiers in the service of
 the “Confederate States,” on the identical plan of the noble Relief
 Commission of Philadelphia, established with such different motives.
 It has also been engaged in the manufacture of rebel uniforms, which
 were distributed among the subordinate female associations. The
 purpose of the plotters was also to furnish arms and munitions of
 war. A considerable quantity has been discovered packed for shipment,
 consisting of knapsacks and weapons. Letters were found acknowledging
 the receipt through the agency of the association of rifles and
 pistols in Richmond....

 Among the papers secured are many letters implicating persons
 heretofore unsuspected.

 The parties were brought to this city on Friday, and lodged in the old
 Capital prison. As they passed along the avenue, under the guard of
 soldiers, they appeared to be quite indifferent as to their fate and
 the enormity and baseness of the crime with which they are charged.
 The majority of them presented a very respectable appearance, and were
 followed to jail by an anxious crowd of men and boys.

Clara Barton asked her father his opinion of the feasibility of her
getting to the front. He did not discourage the idea. He knew his
daughter and believed her capable of accomplishing what she set out to
do. Moreover, he knew the American soldier. He felt sure that Clara
would be protected from insult, and that her presence would be welcome
to the soldiers.

Having thus been favorably introduced to Governor Andrew, and her story
of the secret operations of Secessionists near Washington having been
confirmed, she felt that she could write the Governor and ask him for
permission to go to the very seat of war. She had been sending supplies
to Roanoke, and Newbern, North Carolina, and she wished very much that,
as soon as her father should have passed away, she might be permitted
to go with her supplies and perform her own work of distribution. From
her father’s bedside she wrote the following letter to Governor Andrew:

  NORTH OXFORD, Mar. 20, 1862

  TO HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN A. ANDREW, Governor
  of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

 Governor Andrew will perhaps recollect the writer as the lady who
 waited upon him in company with Hon. Alexander De Witt, to mention the
 existence of certain petitions from the officers of the Massachusetts
 Regiments of Volunteers, relating to the establishment of an agency in
 the City of Washington.

 With the promise of Your Excellency to “look after the leak” came a
 “lessening of my fears,” and the immediate discovery of the truly
 magnificent rebel organization in Alexandria, and the arrest of
 twenty-five of the principal actors, including the _purchasing
 committee_, brought with it not only entire satisfaction, but a
 joy I had scarce known in months. Since September I had been fully
 conscious in my own mind of the existence of something of this kind,
 and in October attempted to warn our Relief Societies, but, in the
 absence of all proof, I must perforce _say_ very little. I
 should never have brought the subject before you again, only that I
 incidentally learned that our excellent Dr. Hitchcock has taken back
 from Roanoke other papers relating to the same subject, which will
 doubtless be laid before you, and, as I have an entirely different
 boon to crave, I find it _necessary_ to speak.

 I desire Your Excellency’s permission to go to Roanoke. I should
 have proffered my request weeks earlier, but I am called home to
 witness the last hours of my old soldier father, who is wearing out
 the remnant of an oak and iron constitution, seasoned and tempered
 in the wild wars of “Mad Anthony.” His last tale of the Red Man is
 told; a _few_ more suns, and the old soldier’s weary march is
 ended,--honorably discharged, he is journeying home.

 With this, my highest duties close, and I would fain be allowed to go
 and administer comfort to our brave men, who peril life and limb in
 defense of the priceless boon the fathers so dearly won.

 If I know my own heart, I have none but right motives. I ask neither
 pay nor praises, simply a soldier’s fare and the sanction of Your
 Excellency to go and do with my might, whatever my hands find to do.

 In General Burnside’s noble command are upwards of forty young men who
 in former days were my pupils. I am glad to know that somewhere they
 have learned their duty to their country, and have come up neither
 cowards nor traitors. I think I am safe in saying that I possess
 the entire confidence and respect of every one of them. For the
 _officers_, their signatures are before you.

 If my request appear unreasonable, and must be denied, I shall submit,
 patiently, though sorrowfully, but trusting, hoping better things. I
 beg to submit myself

 With the highest respect,

  Yours truly

  CLARA H. BARTON


John A. Andrew was one of the great war governors. Massachusetts is
one of the States that can always be proud of the record of its chief
executive during the dark days of the Civil War. He responded promptly
to Clara Barton’s appeal. On the day of her father’s funeral she
received the following letter from Governor Andrew:

  COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
  EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
  BOSTON, March 24th, 1862

  MISS CLARA H. BARTON,
  North Oxford, Mass.

 I beg to assure you, Miss Barton, of my cordial sympathy with your
 most worthy sentiments and wishes; and that if I have any power to
 promote your design in aid of our soldiers I will surely use it.
 Whenever you may be ready to visit General Burnside’s division I will
 cheerfully give you a letter of introduction, with my hearty approval
 of your visit and my testimony to the value of the service to our sick
 and wounded it will be in _your_ power to render.

 With high respect I am,

  Your ob. servant

  JOHN A. ANDREW


This letter seemed a practical assurance that Clara Barton was to be
permitted to go to the front. She had the Governor’s virtual promise,
conditioned, of course, upon recommendations from proper authorities,
and she thought she had sufficient influence with the surgeon, Dr.
Hitchcock, to secure the required recommendation. Through an official
friend she took up the matter with Dr. Hitchcock, but in a few days his
letter to the Doctor came back to Clara by way of the Governor. Dr.
Hitchcock did not believe that the battle-field was a suitable place
for women. Among Clara Barton’s papers the letter to Dr. Hitchcock is
found bearing his comment and the Governor’s brief reference with which
the letter was forwarded to Clara Barton. This closed, for the time
being, her prospect of getting to the front:

  BOSTON, March 22, 1862

  DR. HITCHCOCK,
  DEAR SIR:

 A friend of mine, Miss Clara H. Barton, is very desirous of doing what
 she can to aid our sick and wounded men at Roanoke, or Newbern, and
 I to-day presented a letter from her to Governor Andrew asking that
 she might be sent there by the State. Governor Andrew said he would
 confer with you relative to the matter. I presume Miss Barton will
 write to you. She has been a resident of Washington and the petitions
 you brought for me to present to the Governor were for her appointment
 as an agent at Washington. She now desires to go to the Burnside
 expedition.

 I need not say that she would render efficient service to our sick and
 wounded and would not be an encumbrance to the service.

  Truly yours

  J. W. FLETCHER


This letter bears written on its back these endorsements by Dr. Alfred
Hitchcock and Governor Andrew:

 I do not think at the present time Miss Barton had better undertake to
 go to Burnside’s Division to act as a nurse.

  ALFRED HITCHCOCK

  March 25th, 1862.


 Respectfully referred for the information of Miss Barton.

  J. A. ANDREW

  March 25, /62.


Old Captain Stephen Barton died at last, aged almost eighty-eight.
The entries in Clara Barton’s diary on these days are brief and
interesting:

 _Thursday, March 20, 1862._ Wrote Governor Andrew, and watched by
 poor, suffering Grandpa. Sent a letter to Irving by the morning mail.

 _Friday, March 21, 1862._ At 10.16 at night, my poor father
 breathed his last. By him were Misses Grover, Hollendrake, Mrs. Vial,
 David, Julia, and I.

 _Saturday, March 22, 1862._ David and Julia went to Worcester.
 Mrs. Rich here. Sent letters to Irving, Judge, Mary, Dr. Darling.

 _Sunday, March 23, 1862._ Call from Deacon Smith.

 _Monday, March 24, 1862._ Mrs. Rich went to Worcester for me.
 Left a note for Arba Pierce to make a wreath for poor Grandpa’s coffin.

 _Tuesday, March 25, 1862._ At two P.M., commenced the
 services of the burial, Rev. Mr. Holmes of Charlton officiating. House
 and grounds crowded. Ceremony solemn and impressive. At evening Cousin
 Jerry Stone came and brought me a letter from Governor J. A. Andrew.

This was all she found time to write in the diary. Of the letters she
wrote to her cousin, Corporal Leander A. Poor, relating to her father’s
death, one has been recovered:

  NORTH OXFORD, March 27th, 1862
  Thursday Afternoon

  MY DEAR COUSIN LEANDER:

 Your welcome second letter came to me this noon--doubtless before this
 you have learned the answer to your kind inquiry, “How is Grandsire?”
 But if not, and the sentinel post is mine, I must answer, “All is
 well.” Down under the little pines, beside my mother, he rests
 quietly, sleeps peacefully, dreams happily. The old soldier’s heavy
 march is ended, for him the last tattoo has sounded, and, resting upon
 the unfailing arms of truth, hope, and faith, he awaits the “reveille
 of the eternal morning.”

 “Grandsire” had been steadily failing since I came home. For more
 than thirty days he did not taste a morsel of food, and could retain
 nothing stronger or more nourishing than a little milk and water--for
 over ten of the last days not that, simply a little cold water, which
 he dared not swallow. And still he lived and moved himself and talked
 strongly and sensibly and wisely as you had always heard him. Who ever
 heard of such constitutional strength?

 You will be gratified to know that he arranged all his business to
 his entire satisfaction some days previous to his death. After being
 raised up and writing his name, he said to me, “This is the last day I
 shall ever do any business; my work in this world is done.”

 He remained until Friday, the 21st [of March], sixteen minutes
 past ten o’clock at night. He spoke for the last time about five
 o’clock, but made us understand by signs until the very last, when he
 straightened himself in bed, closed his mouth firmly, gave one hand to
 Julia, and the other to me, and left us.

Clara Barton’s hopes of going to the front received a severe
disappointment when Governor Andrew returned Dr. Hitchcock’s
communication with the refusal to endorse her application. But she
was nothing if not persistent. Almost immediately after her receipt
of the Governor’s letter, she began again seeking to bring influence
to bear on a Massachusetts captain (Denney), whose wife she had come
to know. In this she gives more detail of the so-called “leak” in
stores, which had been sent more or less recklessly for the benefit of
troops, and without the prepaying of express charges. An organization
of Confederate sympathizers had been formed to purchase these goods
from the express company, and slip them through the lines. In some way
she had found this out, and so as to be morally certain of it before
the exposure and arrest of the conspirators, she had relied upon
advance information that she possessed of this system to commend her to
Governor Andrew, and he was, evidently, favorably impressed. But she
encountered the red tape of the surgeons who were not willing that she
should go to the battle-field.

No immediate results came from her continued efforts to secure
permission to go to the front. She still remained in New England
through the month of May, but in June returned to Washington and
remained there until the 18th of July.

She had already been receiving supplies from her friends in New
Jersey as well as from Massachusetts. She now went to Bordentown and
from there to New York, Boston, Worcester, and Oxford. This journey
was made for the purpose of ensuring a larger and continuous supply
of provisions, for she had now obtained what she long had coveted,
her permission to go to the front. Authority, when it finally came,
was direct from the Surgeon-General’s office, and it gave her as
large liberty as she could well have asked. The following passes and
authorizations were all issued within twenty-four hours. Just how she
obtained them, we do not know. In some way her persistence triumphed
over all official red tape, and when she secured her passes they were
practically unlimited either as to time or destination. The following
are from the official records:

  SURGEON-GENERAL’S OFFICE
  July 11, 1862

 Miss C. H. Barton has permission to go upon the sick transports in any
 direction--for the purpose of distributing comforts for the sick and
 wounded--and nursing them, always subject to the direction of the
 surgeon in charge.

  WILLIAM A. HAMMOND
  Surgeon-General, U.S.A.


  SURGEON-GENERAL’S OFFICE
  WASHINGTON CITY, July 11, 1862

 SIR:

 At the request of the Surgeon-General I have to request that you give
 every facility to Miss Barton for the transportation of supplies for
 the comfort of the sick. I refer you to the accompanying letter.

  Very respectfully
  R. C. WOOD, A.S. Gen’l.

  MAJOR D. H. RUCKER, A.Q.M.
  WASHINGTON, D.C.


  OFFICE OF DEPOT QUARTERMASTER
  WASHINGTON, July 11, 1862

 Respectfully referred to General Wadsworth, with the request that
 permission be given this lady and friend to pass to and from Acquia
 Creek on Government transports at all times when she may wish to visit
 the sick and hospitals, etc., with such stores as she may wish to take
 for the comfort of the sick and wounded.

  D. H. RUCKER, Quartermaster and Col.


  H’D QRS. MIL. DIV. OF VA.
  WASHINGTON, D.C., July 11, 1862

 The within mentioned lady (Miss Barton) and friend have permission to
 pass to and from Fredericksburg by Government boat and railroad at all
 times to visit sick and wounded and to take with her all such stores
 as she may wish to take for the sick, and to pass anywhere within
 the lines of the United States forces (excepting to the Army of the
 Potomac), and to travel on any military railroad or Government boat to
 such points as she may desire to visit and take such stores as she
 may wish by such means of transportation.

 By order of Brig.-Gen’l Wadsworth, Mil. Gov. D.C.

  T. E. ELLSWORTH, Capt. and A.D.C.


  INSPECTOR-GENERAL’S OFFICE, ARMY OF VIRGINIA
  WASHINGTON, D.C., August 12, 1862

  No. 83

  To Whom it may Concern:

 Know ye, that the bearers, Miss Barton and two friends, have
 permission to pass within the lines of this army for the purpose of
 supplying the sick and wounded. Transportation will be furnished by
 Government boat and rail.

  By command of Major-General Pope
  R. JONES, Asst. Inspector-General


It is said that when Clara Barton finally succeeded in getting
permission to go to the front, she broke down and burst into tears.
That is possible, but her diary shows no sign of her emotion. Nor is it
true, as has been affirmed, that, as soon as she received her passes,
she rushed immediately to the front. Her self-possession and deliberate
action at this moment of triumph are thoroughly characteristic of her.
Instead of going to the front, she went to New Jersey and New England,
as has already been intimated. She had no intention of going to the
front until she had assurance of supplies which she could take with
her and could continue to receive. She was no love-lorn, sentimental
maiden, going with unreckoning and hysterical ardor into conditions
which she did not understand. She was forty years old, and she knew
what hospitals were. She also knew a good deal about official red tape
and the reasonable unwillingness of surgeons to have any one around the
hospital unless she could earn her keep. With a pocket full of passes
which she now possessed, she could go almost anywhere. To be sure, it
was necessary to get special passes for particular objects, but in
general all she had to do was to present these blanket credentials, and
particular permission for a specific journey was promptly forthcoming.
Indeed, she seldom needed that when her lines of operation were
definitely established, but at the beginning she took no chances.
Among the other friends whom she gained while she was procuring these
certificates was Assistant Quartermaster-General D. H. Rucker. He
proved an unfailing friend. Never thereafter did she go to him in vain
with any request for transportation for herself or her goods.

Her first notable expedition in supplies started from Washington on
Sunday, August 3, 1862, just as the people were going to church.
Frequent mention has been made of the fact that this occurred on
Sunday, and some incorrect inferences have been drawn from it. Clara
Barton had too large a conception of the sacredness of her task to
have waited until Monday for a thing that needed to be done on Sunday.
On the other hand, she had too much religion of her own, and too much
regard for other people’s religion, to have chosen deliberately the
day and hour when people were going to church as that on which she
would mount a loaded truck and conspicuously take her journey to the
boat. She began her arrangements to go to Fredericksburg on Wednesday,
July 30th, as her diary shows. But it was Friday afternoon before her
arrangements were complete, including the special passes which she had
to procure from General Polk’s headquarters. Saturday she started, but
the boat was withdrawn, and it was due to this delay that she rode on
top of her load on Sunday morning. She was taking no chances concerning
her load of provisions; she knew that her welcome at the front and
her efficiency there depended upon her getting her supplies there as
well as herself. So she climbed over the wheel and sat beside the
mule-driver as he carted her provisions to the dock. The boat conveyed
her to Acquia Creek where she stayed all night, being courteously
treated by the quartermaster. On Monday she went on to Fredericksburg,
where she visited the general hospital, located in a woolen factory.
There she witnessed her first amputation. The next day she visited
the camp of the 21st Massachusetts. She distributed her supplies, and
found where more were needed. Returning, she reached Washington at six
o’clock Tuesday night. The next few days she had conferences with the
Sanitary Commission, and suggested some improvement in the methods of
supplying the hospitals.

She found the Sanitary Commission quite ready to coöperate with her,
and obtained from them without difficulty some stores for the 8th and
11th Connecticut Regiments. She took time to write the story of her
visit to Fredericksburg, and to secure its full value in additional
supplies.

This was the way she spent her time for a full month after she secured
her passes. She visited the friends who were to supply her with the
articles she was to need; she visited the front and personally oversaw
the method of distributing supplies; she placed herself in sympathetic
relationship with the Sanitary Commission, whose work was next of kin
to her own, and she wrote letters that were to bring her a still
larger volume of resources for her great work. A more businesslike,
methodical, or sensible method of procedure could not be imagined than
that which her diary and letters disclose.

How she felt about going to the front at this time is finely set forth
in a letter to her cousin, Corporal Leander A. Poor, who was sick in a
hospital at Point Lookout, Maryland, and whom she succeeded in getting
transferred to a hospital in Washington. She did not expect to be there
when he arrived, for she was committed to her plan of getting to the
front. Not that she expected to stay continuously; it was her purpose
to come and go; to get relief directly where it was needed, and to keep
her lines of communication open. This letter shows that she labored
under no delusion concerning the difficulties of transportation. She
was going in with her eyes open.

  WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 2, 1862
  Saturday P.M.

  OH, MY DEAREST COUZ:

 Can you believe it! that this afternoon’s mail takes an order from the
 Surgeon-General for you to report in Washington (provided the state of
 your health will permit)? I have just seen the order written.

 You are to report to Dr. Campbell, Medical Director, and he is to
 assign you to some hospital. Now I want you assigned near me, but am
 not certain that I can influence it in the least,--but I’ll try! I can
 tell you the ropes and you can help pull them when you go to report.

 At the Medical Director’s, I have an especial friend in the person
 of Dr. Sheldon, one of the _chargés des affaires_ of the
 Institution. I will acquaint him with the facts before your arrival
 either by a personal interview or a note, and then, when you go to
 report to Dr. Campbell, see first, if possible, Dr. Sheldon, and ask
 him if he can assist you in getting assigned to some hospital near
 me (7th Street) or in the vicinity of the Post-Office, he knows my
 residence, having called upon me.

 My choice would be the “Armory Square,” a new hospital on 7th Street
 a few rods the other side of the Avenue from me, on the way to the
 Arsenal, you will recollect, just opposite the Smithsonian Institute,
 on the east side of 7th. This is designed as a model hospital, but
 perhaps one difficulty will be that it is intended more exclusively
 for extreme cases, or desperately wounded who can be conveyed but
 little distance from the boat. There are in it _now_, however,
 some very slight cases, some whom I visit every day. The chaplain,
 E. W. Jackson, is from Maine, near Portland,--and I would not be
 surprised if more Maine men were in charge there, too.

 After this I have not much choice in any of the hospitals near me. E
 Street Church is near, and so many of the churches, and perhaps being
 less in magnitude they are less strict. I don’t even know if you
 will be allowed to see me before making your report to the Medical
 Director, and there is one bare possibility that I may be out on a
 scout when you arrive. Lord knows the condition of our poor wretched
 soldiers down in the army; all communication cut off to and from,
 they must be dying from want of care, and I am promised to go to them
 the first moment access can be had, but this would not discourage
 you, for I should come home again when the poor fellows were a little
 comfortable.

 I am not certain when you can come, probably not until some Government
 boat comes up; one went down yesterday, and if I had had your order
 _then_, I should have come for you, but to start in one now after
 this I might miss you, as they only go some once a week or so.

 All sorts of rumors in town,--that we are whipping the rebels, they
 are whipping us, Jackson defeated, Pope defeated. But one thing I do
 suppose to be true, viz., that our army is isolated, cut off from
 supplies of food, and that we cannot reach them with more until they
 fight their way out. This is not generally believed or understood,
 but your cousin both understands and believes it. People talk like
 children about “_transporting supplies_” as if it were the
 easiest thing imaginable to transport supplies by wagon thirty miles
 across a country scouted by guerrilla bands. Our men _must_ be on
 part rations, tired and hungry, fighting like tigers, and dying like
 dogs. There! Doesn’t that sound impatient. I won’t speak again.

 Of course you will write me instantly and tell me if you are able to
 come, and when as nearly as possible, etc., etc.

 I will enclose $5.00 lest you may need and not have.

  Your affectionate Cousin

  CLARA H. BARTON

  Washington, D.C.


Thus did Clara Barton at her father’s death-bed consecrate herself to a
work more difficult than any woman had at that time undertaken for the
relief of suffering caused by the war. Other women were equally brave;
others, equally tender in their personal ministrations; but Clara
Barton knew the difficulties of transportation and the awful agonies
and loss of life endured by men through neglect and delay and the
distance of the hospital from the battle-field. She was ready to carry
relief right behind the battle lines. She had not long to wait for her
opportunity.

[6] From James Russell Lowell’s second series of “Biglow Papers,” then
appearing in the _Atlantic_.

[7] A reference to Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,”
then new.




CHAPTER XIII

CLARA BARTON TO THE FRONT


When the author of this volume was a schoolboy, the advanced readers in
the public schools partook largely of a patriotic character, and the
rhetorical exercises of Friday afternoons contained recitations and
declamations inspired by the great Civil War. The author remembers a
Friday when he came upon the platform with his left arm withdrawn from
his coat-sleeve and concealed inside the coat, while he recited a poem
of which he still remembers certain lines:

  My arm? I lost it at Cedar Mountain;
    Ah, little one, that was a dreadful fight;
  For brave blood flowed like a summer fountain,
    And the cannon roared till the fall of night.

  Nay, nay! Your question has done me no harm, dear,
    Though it woke for the moment a thrill of pain;
  For whenever I look at my stump of an arm here,
    I seem to be living that day again.

The poem went on to relate the scenes of the battle, the desperate
charge, the wound, the amputation, and now the necessity of earning
a livelihood by the peddling of needles, pins, and other inexpensive
household necessities. It was a poem with rather large dramatic
possibilities, and the author utilized them according to the best of
his then ability. Since that Friday afternoon in his early boyhood
he has always thought of Cedar Mountain as a battle in which he had
something of a share. If he had really been there and had lost an arm
in the manner which the poem described, one of the things he would have
been almost certain to remember would have been the presence there of
Clara Barton. She afterward told of it in this simple fashion:

 When our armies fought on Cedar Mountain, I broke the shackles and
 went to the field. Five days and nights with three hours’ sleep--a
 narrow escape from capture--and some days of getting the wounded into
 hospitals at Washington brought Saturday, August 30. And if you chance
 to feel that the positions I occupied were rough and unseemly for a
 _woman_--I can only reply that they were rough and unseemly for
 _men_. But under all, lay the life of the Nation. I had inherited
 the rich blessing of health and strength of constitution--such as are
 seldom given to woman--and I felt that some return was due from me and
 that I ought to be there.

The battle of Cedar Mountain, also called Cedar Run and Culpeper, was
fought on Saturday, August 9, 1862. Stonewall Jackson, as directed by
General Lee, moved to attack Pope before McClellan could reënforce
him. The corps attack was under command of General Banks, and the
Confederates were successful. The Federal losses were 314 killed, 1465
wounded, and 622 missing. News of the battle reached Washington on
Monday. Clara Barton’s entry for that day contains no suggestion of
the heroic; no appearance of consciousness that she was beginning for
herself and her country, and the civilized world, a new epoch in the
history of woman’s ministration to men wounded on the battle-field:

 _Monday, August 11, 1862._ Battle at Culpeper reached us. Went to
 Sanitary Commission. Concluded to go to Culpeper. Packed goods.

The next day she went to General Pope’s headquarters and got her pass,
General Rucker accompanying her. The remainder of the day she spent in
completing her arrangements and in conference with Gardiner Tufts, of
Massachusetts, an agent sent by the State to look after Massachusetts
wounded. That night she went to Alexandria, which was as far as she
could get, and the next morning she resumed her journey and arrived at
Culpeper at half-past three in the afternoon.

The next days were busy days. It is interesting to find in her diary
that she ministered not only to the Union, but also to the Confederate
wounded. For several days she had little rest. When she returned to
Washington later in the month, she was not permitted to remain. She
learned that her cousin, Corporal Poor, had been brought to a hospital
in the city, but she was unable to visit him, being called to minister
to the wounded who were being brought to Alexandria as the result of
the fighting that followed Cedar Mountain. Her hastily written note is
not dated, but the time is in the latter part of August, 1862:

  MY OWN DARLING COUSIN:

 I was almost (_all-but_) ready to come to you, and then came this
 bloody fight at Culpeper and the State agent for Massachusetts comes
 and claims me to go to Alexandria where 600 wounded are to be brought
 in to-day, and I may have to go on further. I hope to be back yet in
 time to come to you _this_ week; if not I will write you.

 I am distressed that I cannot come to you to-morrow as I had intended.

 I hope you are as well as when I last heard. I should have written,
 but I thought to come so soon.

 I must leave now. My wagon waits for me.

 God bless you, my poor dear Cousin, and I will see you if the rebels
 don’t catch me.

 Good-bye,

  Your affec. cousin

  CLARA


Whether she was able to visit her cousin or not on her return from
Alexandria, we do not know. Her diary for the latter part of the year
1862 ceases to be consecutive. It contains not the record of her own
comings and goings, but names of wounded soldiers, memoranda of letters
to write for men who had died, and other data of this character. Her
entry for Saturday, August 30, 1862, is significant. It reads:

 Visited Armory Hospital. Took comb to Sergeant Field, of Massachusetts
 21st. On my way saw everybody going to wharf. I went.

That was her last record for more than a week. We know what was taking
the people to the wharf. We know what sad sights awaited those who made
their way to the Potomac. We know the sad procession that came over the
long bridge; the second battle of Bull Run had been fought. After the
first battle of Bull Run there was nothing she could do but stay in
Washington and write her father such distracting news that she had to
stop. The situation was different now; Clara Barton knew where she was
needed, and she had authority to go. No time was wasted now in special
passes. She had proved the value of her worth at Cedar Mountain.

That very night she was in a box car on her way to the battle-field.

Shortly after the second battle of Bull Run, Clara Barton wrote the
following account to a friend, and later revised it as a part of one of
her war lectures. It is, in some respects, the most vivid of all her
recitals of experiences on battle-fields:

 Our coaches were not elegant or commodious; they had no windows, no
 seats, no platforms, no steps, a slide door on the side was the only
 entrance, and this higher than my head. For my manner of attaining my
 elevated position, I must beg of you to draw on your own imaginations
 and spare me the labor of reproducing the boxes, barrels, boards, and
 rails, which, in those days, seemed to help me up and on in the world.
 We did not criticize the unsightly helpers and were only too thankful
 that the stiff springs did not quite jostle us out. This description
 need not be limited to this particular trip or train, but will suffice
 for all that I have known in army life. This is the kind of conveyance
 by which your tons of generous gifts have reached the field with the
 precious freights. These trains, through day and night, sunshine and
 rain, heat and cold, have thundered over heights, across plains,
 through ravines, and over hastily built army bridges ninety feet
 across the rocky stream beneath.

 At ten o’clock Sunday (August 31) our train drew up at Fairfax
 Station. The ground, for acres, was a thinly wooded slope--and among
 the trees, on the leaves and grass, were laid the wounded who were
 pouring in by scores of wagonloads, as picked up on the field under
 the flag of truce. All day they came, and the whole hillside was
 covered. Bales of hay were broken open and scattered over the ground
 like littering for cattle, and the sore, famishing men were laid upon
 it.

 And when the night shut in, in the mist and darkness about us, we
 knew that, standing apart from the world of anxious hearts, throbbing
 over the whole country, we were a little band of almost empty-handed
 workers literally by ourselves in the wild woods of Virginia, with
 three thousand suffering men crowded upon the few acres within our
 reach.

 After gathering up every available implement or convenience for our
 work, our domestic inventory stood, two water buckets, five tin cups,
 one camp kettle, one stewpan, two lanterns, four bread knives, three
 plates, and a two-quart tin dish, and three thousand guests to serve.

 You will perceive, by this, that I had not yet learned to equip
 myself, for I was no Pallas, ready armed, but grew into my work
 by hard thinking and sad experience. It may serve to relieve your
 apprehension for the future of my labors if I assure you that I was
 never caught so again.

 You have read of adverse winds. To realize this in its full sense you
 have only to build a camp-fire and attempt to cook something on it.

 There is not a soldier within the sound of my voice but will sustain
 me in the assertion that, go whichsoever side of it you will, wind
 will blow the smoke and flame directly in your face. Notwithstanding
 these difficulties, within fifteen minutes from the time of our
 arrival we were preparing food and dressing wounds. You wonder what,
 and how prepared, and how administered without dishes.

 You generous thoughtful mothers and wives have not forgotten the tons
 of preserves and fruits with which you filled our hands. Huge boxes of
 these stood beside that railway track. Every can, jar, bucket, bowl,
 cup or tumbler, when emptied, that instant became a vehicle of mercy
 to convey some preparation of mingled bread and wine or soup or coffee
 to some helpless, famishing sufferer, who partook of it with the tears
 rolling down his bronzed cheeks and divided his blessings between the
 hands that fed him and his God. I never realized until that day how
 little a human being could be grateful for, and that day’s experience
 also taught me the utter worthlessness of that which could not be
 made to contribute directly to our necessities. The bit of bread which
 would rest on the surface of a gold eagle was worth more than the coin
 itself.

 But the most fearful scene was reserved for the night. I have said
 that the ground was littered with dry hay and that we had only two
 lanterns, but there were plenty of candles. The wounded were laid so
 close that it was impossible to move about in the dark. The slightest
 misstep brought a torrent of groans from some poor mangled fellow in
 your path.

 Consequently here were seen persons of all grades, from the careful
 man of God who walked with a prayer upon his lips to the careless
 driver hunting for his lost whip--each wandering about among this hay
 with an open flaming candle in his hand.

 The slightest accident, the mere dropping of a light could have
 enveloped in flames this whole mass of helpless men.

 How we watched and pleaded and cautioned as we worked and wept that
 night! How we put socks and slippers upon their cold damp feet,
 wrapped your blankets and quilts about them, and when we had no longer
 these to give, how we covered them in the hay and left them to their
 rest!

 On Monday (September 1) the enemy’s cavalry appeared in the wood
 opposite and a raid was hourly expected. In the afternoon all the
 wounded men were sent off and the danger became so imminent that Mrs.
 Fales thought best to leave, although she only went for stores. I
 begged to be excused from accompanying her, as the ambulances were
 up to the fields for more, and I knew I should never leave a wounded
 man there if I were taken prisoner forty times. At six o’clock it
 commenced to thunder and lighten and all at once the artillery began
 to play, joined by the musketry about two miles distant. We sat down
 in our tent and waited to see them break in, but Reno’s forces held
 them back. The old 21st Massachusetts lay between us and the enemy
 and they could not pass. God only knows who was lost, I do not, for
 the next day all fell back. Poor Kearny, Stephen, and Webster were
 brought in, and in the afternoon Kearny’s and Heintzelman’s divisions
 fell back through our camp on their way to Alexandria. We knew this
 was the last. We put the thousand wounded men we then had into the
 train. I took one carload of them and Mrs. M. another. The men took to
 the horses. We steamed off, and two hours later there was no Fairfax
 Station. We reached Alexandria at ten o’clock at night, and, oh, the
 repast which met those poor men at the train. The people of the island
 are the most noble I ever saw or heard of. I stood in my car and fed
 the men till they could eat no more. Then the people would take us
 home and feed us, and after that we came home. I had slept one and one
 half hours since Saturday night and I am well and strong and wait to
 go again if I have need.

Immediately after the second Bull Run, or Manassas, followed the
battle of Chantilly. It was a woeful battle for the Federal cause.
The Confederates were completely successful. Pope’s army retreated to
Washington in almost as great a state of panic as had characterized the
army of McDowell in the previous year. Nothing saved Washington from
capture but the fact that the Confederate forces had been so reduced by
continuous fighting that they were unable to take advantage of their
success. But they had captured the Federal wagon trains; had inflicted
far greater losses than they had themselves endured, and were in so
confident a frame of mind that Lee immediately prepared to cross the
Potomac, invade the North, and bring the war, as he hoped, to a speedy
end. It was under these conditions that Clara Barton continued her
education at the battle-front.

Among many other experiences on the field of Chantilly, Miss Barton
recalled these incidents:

 The slight, naked chest of a fair-haired lad caught my eye, and
 dropping down beside him, I bent low to draw the remnant of his torn
 blouse about him, when with a quick cry he threw his left arm across
 my neck and, burying his face in the folds of my dress, wept like a
 child at his mother’s knee. I took his head in my hands and held it
 until his great burst of grief passed away. “And do you know me?” he
 asked at length; “I am Charley Hamilton who used to carry your satchel
 home from school!” My faithful pupil, poor Charley. That mangled right
 arm would never carry a satchel again.

 About three o’clock in the morning I observed a surgeon with his
 little flickering candle in hand approaching me with cautious step far
 up in the wood. “Lady,” he said as he drew near, “will you go with
 me? Out on the hills is a poor distressed lad, mortally wounded and
 dying. His piteous cries for his sister have touched all our hearts
 and none of us can relieve him, but rather seem to distress him by our
 presence.”

 By this time I was following him back over the bloody track, with
 great beseeching eyes of anguish on every side looking up into our
 faces saying so plainly, “Don’t step on us.”

 “He can’t last half an hour longer,” said the surgeon as we toiled
 on. “He is already quite cold, shot through the abdomen, a terrible
 wound.” By this time the cries became plainly audible to me.

 “Mary, Mary, sister Mary, come,--oh, come, I am wounded, Mary! I am
 shot. I am dying--oh, come to me--I have called you so long and my
 strength is almost gone--Don’t let me die here alone. Oh, Mary, Mary,
 come!”

 Of all the tones of entreaty to which I have listened--and certainly I
 have had some experience of sorrow--I think these, sounding through
 that dismal night, the most heart-rending. As we drew near, some
 twenty persons, attracted by his cries, had gathered around and stood
 with moistened eyes and helpless hands waiting the change which would
 relieve them all. And in the midst, stretched upon the ground, lay,
 scarcely full grown, a young man with a graceful head of hair, tangled
 and matted, thrown back from a forehead and a face of livid whiteness.
 His throat was bare. His hands, bloody, clasped his breast, his large,
 bewildered eyes turning anxiously in every direction. And ever from
 between his ashen lips pealed that piteous cry of “Mary! Mary! Come.”

 I approached him unobserved, and, motioning the lights away, I knelt
 by him alone in the darkness. Shall I confess that I intended if
 possible to cheat him out of his terrible death agony? But my lips
 were truer than my heart, and would not speak the word “Brother,” I
 had willed them to do. So I placed my hands upon his neck, kissed his
 cold forehead, and laid my cheek against his.

 The illusion was complete; the act had done the falsehood my lips
 refused to speak. I can never forget that cry of joy. “Oh, Mary! Mary!
 You have come? I knew you would come if I called you and I have called
 you so long. I could not die without you, Mary. Don’t cry, Darling,
 I am not afraid to die now that you have come to me. Oh, bless you.
 Bless you, Mary.” And he ran his cold, blood-wet hands about my neck,
 passed them over my face, and twined them in my hair, which by this
 time had freed itself from fastenings and was hanging damp and heavy
 upon my shoulders. He gathered the loose locks in his stiffened
 fingers and holding them to his lips continued to whisper through
 them, “Bless you, bless you, Mary!” And I felt the hot tears of joy
 trickling from the eyes I had thought stony in death. This encouraged
 me, and, wrapping his feet closely in blankets and giving him such
 stimulants as he could take, I seated myself on the ground and lifted
 him on my lap, and drawing the shawl on my own shoulders also about
 his I bade him rest.

 I listened till his blessings grew fainter, and in ten minutes with
 them on his lips he fell asleep. So the gray morning found us; my
 precious charge had grown warm, and was comfortable.

 Of course the morning light would reveal his mistake. But he had grown
 calm and was refreshed and able to endure it, and when finally he
 woke, he seemed puzzled for a moment, but then he smiled and said: “I
 knew before I opened my eyes that this could n’t be Mary. I know now
 that she could n’t get here, but it is almost as good. You’ve made me
 so happy. Who is it?”

 I said it was simply a lady who, hearing that he was wounded, had come
 to care for him. He wanted the name, and with childlike simplicity he
 spelled it letter by letter to know if he were right. “In my pocket,”
 he said, “you will find mother’s last letter; please get it and write
 your name upon it, for I want both names by me when I die.”

 “Will they take away the wounded?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied, “the
 first train for Washington is nearly ready now.” “I must go,” he said
 quickly. “Are you able?” I asked. “I must go if I die on the way. I’ll
 tell you why; I am poor mother’s only son, and when she consented
 that I go to the war, I promised her faithfully that if I were not
 killed outright, but wounded, I would try every means in my power to
 be taken home to her dead or alive. If I die on the train, they will
 not throw me off, and if I were buried in Washington, she can get me.
 But out here in the Virginia woods in the hands of the enemy, never. I
 _must_ go!”

 I sent for the surgeon in charge of the train and requested that my
 boy be taken.

 “Oh, impossible, madam, he is mortally wounded and will never reach
 the hospital! We must take those who have a hope of life.” “But you
 must take him.” “I cannot”--“Can you, Doctor, guarantee the lives of
 all you have on that train?” “I wish I could,” said he sadly. “They
 are the worst cases; nearly fifty per cent must die eventually of
 their wounds and hardships.”

 “Then give this lad a chance with them. He can only die, and he has
 given good and sufficient reasons why he must go--and a woman’s word
 for it, Doctor. You take him. Send your men for him.” Whether yielding
 to argument or entreaty, I neither knew nor cared so long as he did
 yield nobly and kindly. And they gathered up the fragments of the
 poor, torn boy and laid him carefully on a blanket on the crowded
 train and with stimulants and food and a kind-hearted attendant,
 pledged to take him alive or dead to Armory Square Hospital and tell
 them he was Hugh Johnson, of New York, and to mark his grave.

 Although three hours of my time had been devoted to one sufferer among
 thousands, it must not be inferred that our general work had been
 suspended or that my assistants had been equally inefficient. They had
 seen how I was engaged and nobly redoubled their exertions to make
 amends for my deficiencies.

 Probably not a man was laid upon those cars who did not receive some
 personal attention at their hands, some little kindness, if it were
 only to help lift him more tenderly.

 This finds us shortly after daylight Monday morning. Train after
 train of cars was rushing on for the wounded, and hundreds of wagons
 were bringing them in from the field still held by the enemy, where
 some poor sufferers had lain three days with no visible means of
 sustenance. If immediately placed upon the trains and not detained,
 at least twenty-four hours must elapse before they could be in the
 hospital and properly nourished. They were already famishing, weak
 and sinking from loss of blood, and they could ill afford a further
 fast of twenty-four hours. I felt confident that, unless nourished at
 once, all the weaker portion must be past recovery before reaching the
 hospitals of Washington. If once taken from the wagons and laid with
 those already cared for, they would be overlooked and perish on the
 way. Something must be done to meet this fearful emergency. I sought
 the various officers on the grounds, explained the case to them, and
 asked permission to feed all the men as they arrived before they
 should be taken from the wagons. It was well for the poor sufferers of
 that field that it was controlled by noble-hearted, generous officers,
 quick to feel and prompt to act.

 They at once saw the propriety of my request and gave orders that all
 wagons should be stayed at a certain point and only moved on when
 every one had been seen and fed. This point secured, I commenced my
 day’s work of climbing from the wheel to the brake of every wagon
 and speaking to and feeding with my own hands each soldier until he
 expressed himself satisfied.

 Still there were bright spots along the darkened lines. Early in the
 morning the Provost Marshal came to ask me if I could use fifty men.
 He had that number, who for some slight breach of military discipline
 were under guard and useless, unless I could use them. I only
 regretted there were not five hundred. They came,--strong, willing
 men,--and these, added to our original force and what we had gained
 incidentally, made our number something over eighty, and, believe me,
 eighty men and three women, acting with well-directed purpose, will
 accomplish a good deal in a day. Our fifty prisoners dug graves and
 gathered and buried the dead, bore mangled men over the rough ground
 in their arms, loaded cars, built fires, made soup, and administered
 it. And I failed to discern that their services were less valuable
 than those of the other men. I had long suspected, and have been
 since convinced, that a private soldier may be placed under guard,
 court-martialed, and even be imprisoned without forfeiting his honor
 or manliness; that the real dishonor is often upon the gold lace
 rather than the army blue.

 At three o’clock the last train of wounded left. All day we had known
 that the enemy hung upon the hills and were waiting to break in upon
 us....

 At four o’clock the clouds gathered black and murky, and the low growl
 of distant thunders was heard while lightning continually illuminated
 the horizon. The still air grew thick and stifled, and the very
 branches appeared to droop and bow as if in grief at the memory of
 the terrible scenes so lately enacted and the gallant lives so nobly
 yielded up beneath their shelter.

 This was the afternoon of Monday. Since Saturday noon I had not
 thought of tasting food, and we had just drawn around a box for that
 purpose, when, of a sudden, air and earth and all about us shook with
 one mingled crash of God’s and man’s artillery. The lightning played
 and the thunder rolled incessantly and the cannon roared louder and
 nearer each minute. Chantilly with all its darkness and horrors had
 opened in the rear.

 The description of this battle I leave to those who saw and moved
 in it, as it is my purpose to speak only of events in which I was a
 witness or actor. Although two miles distant, we knew the battle was
 intended for us, and watched the firing as it neared and receded and
 waited minute by minute for the rest.

 With what desperation our men fought hour after hour in the rain and
 darkness! How they were overborne and rallied, how they suffered from
 mistaken orders, and blundered, and lost themselves in the strange
 mysterious wood. And how, after all, with giant strength and veteran
 bravery, they checked the foe and held him at bay, is an all-proud
 record of history.

 And the courage of the soldier who braved death in the darkness of
 Chantilly let no man question.

 The rain continued to pour in torrents, and the darkness became
 impenetrable save from the lightning leaping above our heads and the
 fitful flash of the guns, as volley after volley rang through the
 stifled air and lighted up the gnarled trunks and dripping branches
 among which we ever waited and listened.

 In the midst of this, and how guided no man knows, came still another
 train of wounded men, and a waiting train of cars upon the track
 received them. This time nearly alone, for my worn-out assistants
 could work no longer, I continued to administer such food as I had
 left.

 Do you begin to wonder what it could be? Army crackers put into
 knapsacks and haversacks and beaten to crumbs between stones, and
 stirred into a mixture of wine, whiskey, and water, and sweetened with
 coarse brown sugar.

 Not very inviting you will think, but I assure you it was always
 acceptable. But whether it should have been classed as food, or,
 like the Widow Bedott’s cabbage, as a delightful beverage, it would
 puzzle an epicure to determine. No matter, so it imparted strength and
 comfort.

 The departure of this train cleared the grounds of wounded for the
 night, and as the line of fire from its plunging engines died out in
 the darkness, a strange sensation of weakness and weariness fell upon
 me, almost defying my utmost exertion to move one foot before the
 other.

 A little Sibley tent had been hastily pitched for me in a slight
 hollow upon the hillside. Your imaginations will not fail to picture
 its condition. Rivulets of water had rushed through it during the last
 three hours. Still I attempted to reach it, as its white surface, in
 the darkness, was a protection from the wheels of wagons and trampling
 of beasts.

 Perhaps I shall never forget the painful effort which the making of
 those few rods and the gaining of the tent cost me. How many times I
 fell, from sheer exhaustion, in the darkness and mud of that slippery
 hillside, I have no knowledge, but at last I grasped the welcome
 canvas, and a well-established brook, which washed in on the upper
 side at the opening that served as door, met me on my entrance. My
 entire floor was covered with water, not an inch of dry, solid ground.

 One of my lady assistants had previously taken train for Washington
 and the other, worn out by faithful labors, was crouched upon the top
 of some boxes in one corner fast asleep. No such convenience remained
 for me, and I had no strength to arrange one. I sought the highest
 side of my tent which I remembered was grass-grown, and, ascertaining
 that the water was not very deep, I sank down. It was no laughing
 matter then. But the recollection of my position has since afforded me
 amusement.

 I remember myself sitting on the ground, upheld by my left arm, my
 head resting on my hand, impelled by an almost uncontrollable desire
 to lie completely down, and prevented by the certain conviction that
 if I did, water would flow into my ears.

 How long I balanced between my desires and cautions, I have no
 positive knowledge, but it is very certain that the former carried the
 point by the position from which I was aroused at twelve o’clock by
 the rumbling of more wagons of wounded men. I slept two hours, and oh,
 what strength I had gained! I may never know two other hours of equal
 worth. I sprang to my feet dripping wet, covered with ridges of dead
 grass and leaves, wrung the water from my hair and skirts, and went
 forth again to my work.

 When I stood again under the sky, the rain had ceased, the clouds were
 sullenly retiring, and the lightning, as if deserted by its boisterous
 companions, had withdrawn to a distant corner and was playing quietly
 by itself. For the great volleying thunders of heaven and earth had
 settled down on the fields. Silent? I said so. And it was, save the
 ceaseless rumbling of the never-ending train of army wagons which
 brought alike the wounded, the dying, and the dead.

 And thus the morning of the third day broke upon us, drenched, weary,
 hungry, sore-footed, sad-hearted, discouraged, and under orders to
 retreat.

 A little later, the plaintive wail of a single fife, the slow beat
 of a muffled drum, the steady tramp, tramp, tramp of heavy feet, the
 gleam of ten thousand bayonets on the hills, and with bowed heads and
 speechless lips, poor Kearny’s leaderless men came marching through

 This was the signal for retreat. All day they came, tired, hungry,
 ragged, defeated, retreating, they knew not whither--they cared not
 whither.

 The enemy’s cavalry, skirting the hills, admonished us each moment
 that we must soon decide to go from them or with them. But our work
 must be accomplished, and no wounded men once given into our hands
 must be left. And with the spirit of desperation, we struggled on.

 At three o’clock an officer galloped up to me, with “Miss Barton, can
 you ride?” “Yes, sir,” I replied.

 “But you have no lady’s saddle--could you ride mine?”

 “Yes, sir, or without it, if you have blanket and surcingle.”

 “Then you can risk another hour,” he exclaimed, and galloped off.

 At four he returned at a break-neck speed, and, leaping from his
 horse, said, “Now is your time. The enemy is already breaking over the
 hills; try the train. It will go through, unless they have flanked,
 and cut the bridge a mile above us. In that case I’ve a reserve horse
 for you, and you must take your chances to escape across the country.”

 In two minutes I was on the train. The last wounded man at the station
 was also on. The conductor stood with a torch which he applied to
 a pile of combustible material beside the track. And we rounded the
 curve which took us from view and we saw the station ablaze, and a
 troop of cavalry dashing down the hill. The bridge was uncut and
 midnight found us at Washington.

 You have the full record of my sleep--from Friday night till Wednesday
 morning--two hours. You will not wonder that I slept during the next
 twenty-four.

 On Friday (the following), I repaired to Armory Square Hospital to
 learn who, of all the hundreds sent, had reached that point.

 I traced the chaplain’s record, and there upon the last page freshly
 written stood the name of Hugh Johnson

 Turning to Chaplain Jackson, I asked--“Did that man live until to-day?”

 “He died during the latter part of last night,” he replied. “His
 friends reached him some two days ago, and they are now taking his
 body from the ward to be conveyed to the depot.”

 I looked in the direction his hand indicated, and there, beside a
 coffin, about to be lifted into a wagon, stood a gentleman, the
 mother, and Sister Mary!

 “Had he his reason?” I asked.

 “Oh, perfectly.”

 “And his mother and sister were with him two days.”

 “Yes.”

 There was no need of me. He had given his own messages; I could add
 nothing to their knowledge of him, and would fain be spared the scene
 of thanks. Poor Hugh, thy piteous prayers reached and were answered,
 and with eyes and heart full, I turned away, and never saw Sister Mary.

 These were days of darkness--a darkness that might be felt.

 The shattered bands of Pope and Banks! Burnside’s weary legions!
 Reënforcements from West Virginia--and all that now remained of the
 once glorious Army of the Peninsula had gathered for shelter beneath
 the redoubts and guns that girdled Washington.

How the soldiers remembered these ministrations is shown in letters
such as this:

  CHARLES E. SIMMONS, Secretary, 21st Regt. Mass. Vol.
  CHARLES E. FRYE, President
  7 JAQUES AVENUE,
  WORCESTER, MASS.
  September 13th, 1911

  TO CLARA BARTON

 The survivors of the Veteran 21st Massachusetts Regiment, assembled
 in “Odd Fellows Temple in the City of Worcester,” wish to put on
 record the day of your coming to us at Bull Run and Chantilly, when
 we were in our deepest bereavement and loss; how your presence and
 deeds brought assurance and comfort; and how you assisted us up the
 hot and rugged sides of South Mountain by your ministry forty-nine
 years ago to-day, at and over the “Burnside Bridge” at Antietam, then
 through Pleasant Valley, to Falmouth, and in course of time were
 across the Rappahannock and storming the heights of Fredericksburg;
 were with us, indeed, when we recrossed the river and found shelter in
 our tents--broken, bruised, and sheared. With us evermore in body and
 spirit, lo, these fifty years. The prayer of the 21st Regiment is, God
 bless our old and tried friend. It was also voted that we present to
 Clara Barton a bouquet of flowers.

  CHARLES E. SIMMONS, Secretary




CHAPTER XIV

HARPER’S FERRY TO ANTIETAM


Clara Barton had now definitely settled the method of her operations.
She had demonstrated the practicability of getting to the front
early, and had begun to learn what equipment was necessary if she
were to perform her work successfully. Washington was still to be her
headquarters, her base of supplies, but from Washington as a center she
would radiate in any direction where the need was, going by the most
direct route and arriving on the scene of conflict as soon as possible
after authentic news of the battle. This was in contravention of all
established custom, which was for women, if they assisted at all, to
remain far in the rear until wounded soldiers were conveyed to them, or
until the retreat of the opposing army made it safe for them to come
upon the field where the conflict had been. It disheartened her to have
to remain in Washington where there was no lack of willing assistance,
and wait till it was safe to stir.

Moreover, she did not find her service in the Washington hospitals
wholly cheerful. It depressed her to move among the wounded and witness
the after effects of the battle, the gangrene, the infection of wounds,
and the slow fevers, and to think how much of this might have been
avoided if the men could have had relief earlier. An extract from a
letter to her sister-in-law, written in the summer of 1862, indicates
something of her feeling at this time:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., June 26th, 1862

  MY DEAR SISTER JULIA:

 I cannot make a pleasant letter of this; everything is sad; the very
 pain which is breathed out in the atmosphere of this city is enough
 to sadden any human heart. Five thousand suffering men, and room
 preparing for eight thousand more,--poor, fevered, cut-up wretches,
 it agonizes me to think of it. I go when I can; to-day am having a
 visit from a little Massachusetts (Lowell) boy, seventeen, his widowed
 mother’s only child, whom I found recovering from fever in Mount
 Pleasant Hospital. It had left him with rheumatism. He was tender,
 and, when I asked him “what he wanted,” burst in tears and said, “I
 want to _see my mother_. She didn’t know when I left.” I appealed
 to the chief surgeon and applied for his discharge as a native of
 Massachusetts. It was promised me, and, when the astonished little
 fellow heard it, he threw himself across the back of his chair and
 sobbed so he could scarcely get his breath. He had been ordered to
 another hospital next day; the order was checked; this was a week ago,
 and _yesterday he came to me discharged_, and with forty-three
 dollars and some new clothes. I send him on _to-night_ to his
 mother as a Sunday present. She knows nothing of it, only that he is
 suffering in hospital. I am ungrateful to be heavy-hearted when I have
 been able to do _only that little_. His name is William Diggles,
 nephew of Jonas Diggles, tailor of New Sharon, Maine.

Authentic news of battles reached Washington slowly. At first there was
no certainty whether a battle was a battle or only a skirmish. Then,
when it became certain that a battle had been fought, the first news
was almost always unreliable. It would have been a great advantage
if Clara Barton could have known where a battle was to be fought.
Manifestly, she could not always know. The generals in command did
not always know. But there were times when official Washington had
premonitory information. She sought to establish relationship with
sufficiently high authority to enable her to know in advance where such
battles were to be fought as were brought on by a Union offensive. On
Saturday night, September 13, 1862, she had secret information that a
great battle was about to be fought. A small battle had been fought the
day before and it had been disastrous. There had been an engagement
at Harper’s Ferry in which the Union army had 44 killed, 173 wounded,
and the amazing number of 12,520 missing or captured. She already
suspected, and a little later she knew, that that long list of men
missing and captured, was more ominous than an added number killed or
wounded:

“Our army was weary,” she said, “and lacked not only physical strength,
but confidence and spirit. And why should they not? Always defeated!
Always on the retreat! I was almost demoralized myself! And I had just
commenced.”

She “had just commenced”; that was characteristic of her. She had been
ministering to the soldiers ever since the day when the first blood was
shed on the 19th of April, 1861, and had been at it without rest or
stint ever since. But she had just commenced; she had just learned how
to do it in the way that was hereafter to characterize her methods.

The defeat at Harper’s Ferry threw Washington into a panic. But it
moved McClellan to a long-deferred engagement with the Union forces in
the offensive.

 The long maneuvering and skirmishing [she wrote], had yielded no
 fruit. Pope had been sacrificed and all the blood shed from Yorktown
 to Malvern Hill seemed to have been utterly in vain. But the minor
 keys, upon which I played my infinitesimal note in the great anthem
 of war and victory which rang through the land when these two fearful
 forces met and closed, with gun-lock kissing gun-lock across the rocky
 bed of Antietam, are yet known only to a few. Washington was filled
 with dismay, and all the North was moved as a tempest stirs a forest.

 Maryland lay temptingly in view, and Lee and Jackson with the flower
 of the rebel army marched for its ripening fields. Who it was that
 whispered hastily on Saturday night, September 13,--“_Harper’s
 Ferry, not a moment to be lost_”--I have never dared to name.

 In thirty minutes I was waiting the always kindly spoken “_Come
 in_,” of my patron saint, Major, now Quartermaster-General, Rucker.

 “Major,” I said--“I want to go to Harper’s Ferry; can I go?”

 “Perhaps so,” he replied, with genial but doubtful expression.
 “Perhaps so; do you want a conveyance?”

 “Yes,” I said.

 “But an army wagon is the only vehicle that will reach there with any
 burden in safety. I can send you one of these to-morrow morning.”

 I said, “I will be ready.”

 But here was to begin a new experience for me. I was to ride eighty
 miles in an army wagon, and straight into battle and danger at that.

 I could take no female companion, no friend, but the stout working-men
 I had use for.

 You, who are accustomed to see a coach and a pair of fine horses with
 a well-dressed, gentlemanly driver draw up to your door, will scarcely
 appreciate the sensation with which I watched the approach of the long
 and high, white-covered, tortoise-motioned vehicle, with its string of
 little, frisky, long-eared animals, with the broad-shouldered driver
 astride, and the eternal jerk of the single rein by which he navigated
 his craft up to my door.

 The time, you will remember, was Sunday; the place, 7th Street, just
 off Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington City.

 Then and there, my vehicle was loaded, with boxes, bags, and parcels,
 and, last of all, I found a place for myself and the four men who were
 to go with me.

 I took no Saratoga trunk, but remembered, at the last moment, to tie
 up a few articles in my handkerchief.

 Thus equipped, and seated, my chain of little uneasy animals
 commenced to straighten itself, and soon brought us into the center
 of Pennsylvania Avenue, in full gaze of the whole city in its best
 attire, and on its way to church.

 Thus all day we rattled on over the stones and dikes, and up and down
 the hills of Maryland.

 At nightfall we turned into an open field, and, dismounting, built a
 camp-fire, prepared supper, and retired, I to my work in my wagon, the
 men wrapped in their blankets, camping about me.

 All night an indistinct roar of artillery sounded upon our ears, and
 waking or sleeping, we were conscious of trouble ahead; but it was
 well for our rest that no messenger came to tell us how death reveled
 among our brave troops that night.

 Before daybreak, we had breakfasted, and were on our way. You will
 not infer that, because by ourselves, we were alone upon the road. We
 were directly in the midst of a train of army wagons, at least ten
 miles in length, moving in solid column--the Government supplies and
 ammunition, food, and medicine for an army in battle.

 Weary and sick from their late exposures and hardships, the men were
 falling by the wayside, faint, pale, and often dying.

 I busied myself as I rode on hour by hour in cutting loaves of bread
 in slices and passing them to the pale, haggard wrecks as they sat
 by the roadside, or staggered on to avoid capture, and at each little
 village we entered, I purchased all the bread its inhabitants would
 sell.

 Horses as well as men had suffered and their dead bodies strewed the
 wayside.

 My poor words can never describe to you the consternation and horror
 with which we descended from our wagon, and trod, there in the
 mountain pass, that field of death.

 There, where we now walked with peaceful feet, twelve hours before the
 ground had rocked with carnage. There in the darkness God’s angels of
 wrath and death had swept and, foe facing foe, the souls of men went
 out. And there, side by side, stark and cold in death mingled the
 Northern Blue and the Southern Gray.

 To such of you as have stood in the midst or followed in the track
 of armies and witnessed the strange and dreadful confusion of recent
 battle-grounds, I need not describe this field. And to you who have
 not, no description would ever avail.

 The giant rocks, hanging above our heads, seemed to frown upon the
 scene, and the sighing trees which hung lovingly upon their rugged
 edge drooped low and wept their pitying dews upon the livid brows and
 ghastly wounds beneath.

 Climbing hills and clambering over ledges we sought in vain for some
 poor wretch in whom life had still left the power to suffer. Not one
 remained, and, grateful for this, but shocked and sick of heart, we
 returned to our waiting conveyance.

So far as Harper’s Ferry was concerned, her advance information
appeared to have come too late to be of any value. The number of
wounded was not large, and these had all been taken to Frederick,
Maryland. Only the day before, Stonewall Jackson and his men had passed
through, and Barbara Frietchie had refused to haul down her flag.
There had not been many wounded, anyway; the Federal army simply had
failed to fight at Harper’s Ferry. The word “morale” was not then in
common use, but that was what the Union army had lost. On Monday,
September 15, 1862, was fought the battle of South Mountain, Maryland.
There Hooker and Franklin and Reno were defeated with a loss of 325
men killed, 1403 wounded, and 85 prisoners. There were few prisoners
as compared with Harper’s Ferry, but that was partly because the
mountainous country gave the defeated Union soldiers a better chance to
escape. The defeat was beyond question, and General Reno was killed.
While Clara Barton was driving from Harper’s Ferry where she had
expected to find a battle, she came suddenly upon a battle-field, that
of South Mountain. There she did her ministering work. But Harper’s
Ferry and South Mountain were both preliminary to the real battle of
which she had had her Washington warning. And now she made a discovery.
If she was ever to get to the front in time to be of the greatest
possible service, she must short-circuit the ordinary military method
which would have put her and her equipment among the baggage-wagons.
For her the motto from this time on was, “Follow the cannon.” This
gave her something approaching an open road, and afforded her the
opportunity which she was just learning how to utilize with greatest
efficiency.

 The increase of stragglers along the road [Miss Barton recalled]
 was alarming, showing that our army was weary, and lacked not only
 physical strength, but confidence and spirit.

 And why should they not? Always defeated! Always on the retreat! I
 was almost demoralized myself! And I had just commenced.

 I have already spoken of the great length of the army train, and that
 we could no more change our position than one of the planets. Unless
 we should wait and fall in the rear, we could not advance a single
 wagon.

 And for the benefit of those who may not understand, I may say that
 the order of the train was, first, ammunition; next, food and clothing
 for well troops; and finally, the hospital supplies. Thus, in case
 of the battle the needed stores for the army, according to the slow,
 cautious movement of such bodies, must be from two to three days in
 coming up.

 Meanwhile, as usual, our men must languish and die. Something must
 be done to gain time. And I resorted to strategy. We found an early
 resting-place, supped by our camp-fire, and slept again among the dews
 and damps.

 At one o’clock, when everything was still, we arose, breakfasted,
 harnessed, and moved on past the whole train, which like ourselves had
 camped for the night. At daylight we had gained ten miles and were up
 with the artillery and in advance even of the ammunition.

 All that weary, dusty day I followed the cannon, and nightfall brought
 us up with the great Army of the Potomac, 80,000 men resting upon
 their arms in the face of a foe equal in number, sullen, straitened,
 and desperate.

 Closely following the guns we drew up where they did, among the
 smoke of the thousand camp-fires, men hastening to and fro, and the
 atmosphere loaded with noxious vapors, till it seemed the very breath
 of pestilence. We were upon the left wing of the army, and this was
 the last evening’s rest of Burnside’s men. To how many hundred it
 proved the last rest upon the earth, the next day’s record shows.

 In all this vast assemblage I saw no other trace of womankind. I was
 faint, but could not eat; weary, but could not sleep; depressed, but
 could not weep.

 So I climbed into my wagon, tied down the cover, dropped down in
 the little nook I had occupied so long, and prayed God with all the
 earnestness of my soul to stay the morrow’s strife or send us victory.
 And for my poor self, that He impart somewhat of wisdom and strength
 to my heart, nerve to my arm, speed to my feet, and fill my hands for
 the terrible duties of the coming day. Heavy and sad I awaited its
 approach.

The battle of Antietam occurred on September 16 and 17, 1862. It was
the first battle in the East that roused to any considerable degree the
forlorn hope of the friends of the Union. It was the first real Eastern
victory for the Union army. It was not as decided a victory as it ought
to have been, but it was a victory. It put heart into Abraham Lincoln
and certified to his conscience that the time had come to redeem the
promise he had made to God--that if He would give victory to the Union
arms Lincoln would free the slaves. McClellan did not follow up his
advantage as he should have done and make that victory triumphant. But
he did something other than delay and retreat, and he put some heart
into the Union army when it discovered that it need not forever be on
the defensive, nor always suffer defeat. In this great, and, in spite
of its limitations, victorious, battle, Clara Barton was on the ground
before the first gun was fired, and she did not leave the field until
the last wounded man had been cared for. At the outset she watched the
battle, but almost immediately she laid down her field-glasses, went
to the place where the wounded were being brought in, and was able to
perform her work of ministration without a single hour’s delay.

She told her story of the conflict as she saw it:

 The battle commenced on the right and already with the aid of
 field-glasses we saw our own forces, led by “Fighting Joe” [Hooker],
 overborne and falling back.

 Burnside commenced to send cavalry and artillery to his aid, and,
 thinking our place might be there, we followed them around eight
 miles, turning into a cornfield near a house and barn, and stopping
 in the rear of the last gun, which completed the terrible line of
 artillery which ranged diagonally in the rear of Hooker’s army. That
 day a garden wall only separated us. The infantry were already driven
 back two miles, and stood under cover of the guns. The fighting had
 been fearful. We had met wounded men, walking or borne to the rear
 for the last two miles. But around the old barn there lay, too badly
 wounded to admit of removal, some three hundred thus early in the day,
 for it was scarce ten o’clock.

 We loosened our mules and commenced our work. The corn was so high as
 to conceal the house, which stood some distance to the right, but,
 judging that a path which I observed must lead to it, and also that
 surgeons must be operating there, I took my arms full of stimulants
 and bandages and followed the opening.

 Arriving at a little wicker gate, I found the dooryard of a small
 house, and myself face to face with one of the kindest and noblest
 surgeons I have ever met, Dr. Dunn, of Conneautville, Pennsylvania.

 Speechless both, for an instant, he at length threw up his hands with
 “God has indeed remembered us! How did you get from Virginia here so
 soon? And again to supply our necessities! And they are terrible. We
 have nothing but our instruments and the little chloroform we brought
 in our pockets. We have torn up the last sheets we could find in this
 house. We have not a bandage, rag, lint, or string, and all these
 shell-wounded men bleeding to death.”

 Upon the porch stood four tables, with an etherized patient upon each,
 a surgeon standing over him with his box of instruments, and a bunch
 of green corn leaves beside him.

 With what joy I laid my precious burden down among them, and thought
 that never before had linen looked so white, or wine so red. Oh!
 be grateful, ladies, that God put it in your hearts to perform the
 work you did in those days. How doubly sanctified was the sacred old
 household linen woven by the hands of the sainted mother long gone to
 her reward. For you arose the tender blessings of those grateful men,
 which linger in my memory as faithfully to-night as do the bugle notes
 which called them to their doom.

 Thrice that day was the ground in front of us contested, lost, and
 won, and twice our men were driven back under cover of that fearful
 range of guns, and each time brought its hundreds of wounded to our
 crowded ground.

 A little after noon, the enemy made a desperate attempt to regain
 what had been lost; Hooker, Sedgwick, Dana, Richardson, Hartsuff, and
 Mansfield had been borne wounded from the field and the command of the
 right wing devolved upon General Howard.

 The smoke became so dense as to obscure our sight, and the hot,
 sulphurous breath of battle dried our tongues and parched our lips to
 bleeding.

 We were in a slight hollow, and all shell which did not break over our
 guns in front came directly among or over us, bursting above our heads
 or burying themselves in the hills beyond.

 A man lying upon the ground asked for a drink; I stopped to give it,
 and, having raised him with my right hand, was holding him.

 Just at this moment a bullet sped its free and easy way between us,
 tearing a hole in my sleeve and found its way into his body. He fell
 back dead. There was no more to be done for him and I left him to
 his rest. I have never mended that hole in my sleeve. I wonder if a
 soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat?

 The patient endurance of these men was most astonishing. As many as
 could be were carried into the barn, as a slight protection against
 random shot. Just outside the door lay a man wounded in the face, the
 ball having entered the lower maxillary on the left side and lodged
 among the bones of the right cheek. His imploring look drew me to
 him, when, placing his finger upon the sharp protuberance, he said,
 “Lady, will you tell me what this is that burns so?” I replied that it
 must be the ball which had been too far spent to cut its way entirely
 through.

 “It is terribly painful,” he said. “Won’t you take it out?”

 I said I would go to the tables for a surgeon. “No! No!” he said,
 catching my dress. “They cannot come to me. I must wait my turn, for
 this is a little wound. You can get the ball. There is a knife in your
 pocket. Please take the ball out for me.”

 This was a new call. I had never severed the nerves and fibers of
 human flesh, and I said I could not hurt him so much. He looked up,
 with as nearly a smile as such a mangled face could assume, saying,
 “You cannot hurt me, dear lady, I can endure any pain that your hands
 can create. Please do it. It will relieve me so much.”

 I could not withstand his entreaty and, opening the best blade of
 my pocket-knife, prepared for the operation. Just at his head lay a
 stalwart orderly sergeant from Illinois, with a face beaming with
 intelligence and kindness, and who had a bullet directly through the
 fleshy part of both thighs. He had been watching the scene with great
 interest and, when he saw me commence to raise the poor fellow’s head,
 and no one to support it, with a desperate effort he succeeded in
 raising himself to a sitting posture, exclaiming as he did so, “I will
 help do that.” Shoving himself along the ground he took the wounded
 head in his hands and held it while I extracted the ball and washed
 and bandaged the face.

 I do not think a surgeon would have pronounced it a scientific
 operation, but that it was successful I dared to hope from the
 gratitude of the patient.

 I assisted the sergeant to lie down again, brave and cheerful as he
 had risen, and passed on to others.

 Returning in half an hour, I found him weeping, the great tears
 rolling diligently down his manly cheeks. I thought his effort had
 been too great for his strength and expressed my fears. “Oh! No! No!
 Madam,” he replied. “It is not for myself. I am very well, but,”
 pointing to another just brought in, he said, “this is my comrade, and
 he tells me that our regiment is all cut to pieces, that my captain
 was the last officer left, and he is dead.”

 Oh, God! what a costly war! This man could laugh at pain, face death
 without a tremor, and yet weep like a child over the loss of his
 comrades and his captain.

 At two o’clock my men came to tell me that the last loaf of bread had
 been cut and the last cracker pounded. We had three boxes of wine
 still unopened. What should they do?

 “Open the wine and give that,” I said, “and God help us.”

 The next instant an ejaculation from Sergeant Field, who had opened
 the first box, drew my attention, and, to my astonished gaze, the wine
 had been packed in nicely sifted Indian meal.

 If it had been gold dust it would have seemed poor in comparison. I
 had no words. No one spoke. In silence the men wiped their eyes and
 resumed their work.

 Of twelve boxes of wine which we carried, the first nine, when opened,
 were found packed in sawdust, the last three, when all else was gone,
 in Indian meal.

 A woman would not hesitate long under circumstances like these.

 This was an old farmhouse. Six large kettles were picked up and set
 over fires, almost as quickly as I can tell it, and I was mixing water
 and meal for gruel.

 It occurred to us to explore the cellar. The chimney rested on an
 arch, and, forcing the door, we discovered three barrels and a bag.
 “They are full,” said the sergeant, and, rolling one into the light,
 found that it bore the mark of Jackson’s army. These three barrels of
 flour and a bag of salt had been stored there by the rebel army during
 its upward march.

 I shall never experience such a sensation of wealth and competency
 again, from utter poverty to such riches.

 All that night my thirty men (for my corps of workers had increased
 to that number during the day) carried buckets of hot gruel for miles
 down the line to the wounded and dying where they fell.

 This time, profiting by experience, we had lanterns to hang in and
 around the barn, and, having directed it to be done, I went to the
 house and found the surgeon in charge, sitting alone, beside a table,
 upon which he rested his elbow, apparently meditating upon a bit of
 tallow candle which flickered in the center.

 Approaching carefully, I said, “You are tired, Doctor.” He started
 up with a look almost savage, “Tired! Yes, I am tired, tired of such
 heartlessness, such carelessness!” Turning full upon me, he continued:
 “Think of the condition of things. Here are at least one thousand
 wounded men, terribly wounded, five hundred of whom cannot live till
 daylight, without attention. That two inches of candle is all I have
 or can get. What can I do? How can I endure it?”

 I took him by the arm, and, leading him to the door, pointed in the
 direction of the barn where the lanterns glistened like stars among
 the waving corn.

 “What is that?” he exclaimed.

 “The barn is lighted,” I said, “and the house will be directly.”

 “Who did it?”

 “I, Doctor.”

 “Where did you get them?”

 “Brought them with me.”

 “How many have you?”

 “All you want--four boxes.”

 He looked at me a moment, as if waking from a dream, turned away
 without a word, and never alluded to the circumstances, but the
 deference which he paid me was almost painful.

During a lecture in the West, Miss Barton related this incident, and
as she closed a gentleman sprang upon the stage, and, addressing
the audience, exclaimed: “Ladies and gentlemen, if I never have
acknowledged that favor, I will do it now. I am that surgeon.”

 Darkness [Miss Barton continues] brought silence and peace, and
 respite and rest to our gallant men. As they had risen, regiment by
 regiment, from their grassy beds in the morning, so at night the
 fainting remnant again sank down on the trampled blood-stained earth,
 the weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

 Through the long starlit night we wrought and hoped and prayed. But
 it was only when in the hush of the following day, as we glanced over
 that vast Aceldama, that we learned at what a fearful cost the gallant
 Union army had won the battle of Antietam.

 Antietam! With its eight miles of camping armies, face to face;
 160,000 men to spring up at dawn like the old Scot from the heather!
 Its miles of artillery shaking the earth like a chain of Ætnas!
 Its ten hours of uninterrupted battle! Its thunder and its fire!
 The sharp, unflinching order,--“Hold the Bridge, boys,--always the
 Bridge.” At length, the quiet! The pale moonlight on its cooling guns!
 The weary men, the dying and the dead! The flag of truce that buried
 our enemies slain, and Antietam was fought, and won, and the foe
 turned back!

Clara Barton remained on the battle-field of Antietam until her
supplies were exhausted and she was completely worn out. Not only
fatigue but fever came upon her, and she was carried back to Washington
apparently sick. But the call of duty gave her fresh strength, and she
was soon wondering where the next battle was to be and planning to
be on the field. Almost the only entry in her diary in the autumn of
1862, aside from memoranda of wounded men and similar entries relating
to people other than herself, is one of October 23, which she began
in some detail, but broke off abruptly. She records that she “left
Washington for Harper’s Ferry expecting to meet a battle there. Have
taken four teams of Colonel Rucker loaded at his office, traveled and
camped as usual, reaching Harper’s Ferry the third day. At the first
end of the pontoon bridge one of Peter’s mules ran off and we delayed
the progress of the army for twenty minutes to be extricated.”

The rest of the entry contains the names of her drivers, details of the
overturned wagon, and other memoranda. Two things are of interest in
this fragmentary record. One is the definiteness of the method which
she now had adopted of going where she “expected to meet a battle.”
The other is the fact that a delay of twenty minutes, caused by an
accident to one of her wagons on the pontoon bridge, illustrates a
reason why, in general, armies cannot permit even so necessary things
as supplies for the wounded to get in the way of the free movement
of troops. However, this delay was quite exceptional. She did not
usually cause any inconvenience of this sort, nor did it in this
instance result in any serious harm. On this occasion she was provided
with an ambulance for her own use. That thoughtful provision for her
convenience and means of conserving her energy, was provided for her
by Quartermaster-General Rucker.

On this journey the question was decided who was really in command of
her part of the expedition. In one of her lectures she described her
associates on this and subsequent expeditions:

 There may be those present who are curious to know how eight or ten
 rough, stout men, who knew nothing of me, received the fact that they
 were to drive their teams under the charge of a lady.

 This question has been so often asked in private that I deem it proper
 to answer it publicly.

 Well, the various expressions of their faces afforded a study. They
 were not soldiers, but civilians in Government employ. Drovers,
 butchers, hucksters, mule-breakers, probably not one of them had ever
 passed an hour in what could be termed “ladies’ society,” in his life.
 But every man had driven through the whole peninsular campaign. Every
 one of them had taken his team unharmed out of that retreat, and had
 sworn an oath never to drive another step in Virginia.

 They were brave and skillful, understood their business to perfection,
 but had no art. They said and looked what they thought; and I
 understood them at a glance.

These teamsters proposed to go into camp at four o’clock in the
afternoon, and start when they got ready in the morning, but she first
established her authority over them, and then cooked them a hot supper,
the first and last she ever cooked for army teamsters, and they came
to her later in the evening, apologized for their obstinacy, and were
ready to drive her anywhere.

 “We come to tell you we are ashamed of ourselves” [their leader said].

 I thought honest confession good for the soul, and did not interrupt
 him.

 “The truth is,” he continued, “in the first place we didn’t want to
 come. There’s fighting ahead and we’ve seen enough of that for men who
 don’t carry muskets, only whips; and then we never seen a train under
 charge of a woman before and we couldn’t understand it, and we didn’t
 like it, and we thought we’d break it up, and we’ve been mean and
 contrary all day, and said a good many hard things and you’ve treated
 us like gentlemen. We hadn’t no right to expect that supper from you,
 a better meal than we’ve had in two years. And you’ve been as polite
 to us as if we’d been the General and his staff, and it makes us
 ashamed. And we’ve come to ask your forgiveness. We shan’t trouble you
 no more.”

 My forgiveness was easily obtained. I reminded them that as men it was
 their duty to go where the country had need of them. As for my being
 a woman, they would get accustomed to that. And I assured them that,
 as long as I had any food, I would share it with them. That, when they
 were hungry and supperless, I should be; that if harm befell them, I
 should care for them; if sick, I should nurse them; and that, under
 all circumstances, I should treat them like gentlemen.

 They listened silently, and, when I saw the rough, woolen coat-sleeves
 drawing across their faces, it was one of the best moments of my life.

 Bidding me “good-night” they withdrew, excepting the leader, who went
 to my ambulance, hung a lighted lantern in the top, arranged the few
 quilts inside for my bed, assisted me up the steps, buckled the canvas
 down snugly outside, covered the fire safely for morning, wrapped his
 blanket around him, and lay down a few feet from me on the ground.

 At daylight I became conscious of low voices and stifled sounds, and
 soon discovered that these men were endeavoring to speak low and feed
 and harness their teams quietly, not to disturb me.

 On the other side I heard the crackling of blazing chestnut rails and
 the rattling of dishes, and George came with a bucket of fresh water,
 to undo my buckle door latches, and announce that breakfast was nearly
 ready.

 I had cooked my last meal for my drivers. These men remained with me
 six months through frost and snow and march and camp and battle; and
 nursed the sick, dressed the wounded, soothed the dying, and buried
 the dead; and if possible grew kinder and gentler every day.

There was one serious difficulty about following advance information
and attempting to be on the battle-field when the battle occurred. The
battle does not always occur at the time and place expected. The battle
at Harper’s Ferry in October, 1862, did not take place as planned.
General Lee may have received the same advance information which was
conveyed to Clara Barton. At all events, he was not among those present
when the battle was scheduled to take place. He withdrew his army and
waited until he was ready to fight. McClellan decided to follow Lee,
and Clara Barton moved with the army. As she moved, she cared for the
sick, supplying them from her own stores, returning to Washington with
a body of sick men about the first of December. She was suffering from
a felon on her hand from the first of November until near the end of
that month. Her hand was lanced in the open field, and she suffered
from the cold, but did not complain.

She did not remain long in Washington, but returned by way of Acquia
Creek and met the army at Falmouth. From Falmouth she wrote a letter
to some of the women who had been assisting her, and sent it by the
hand of the Reverend C. M. Wells, one of her reliable associates.
It contains references to her sore finger and to the nature of
accommodations:

  CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA.
  HEADQUARTERS GENERAL STURGIS, 2ND DIVISION

  December 8th, 1862

  MESSRS. BROWN & CO.

  DEAR FRIENDS:

 Mr. Wells returns to-morrow and I improve the opportunity to send a
 line by him to you, not feeling quite certain if posted matter reaches
 directly when sent from the army.

 We reached Acquia Creek safely in the time anticipated, and to my
 great joy learned immediately that our old friend Captain (Major) Hall
 (of the 21st) was Quartermaster. As soon as the boat was unloaded, he
 came on board and spent the remainder of the evening with me.--We had
 a _home_ chat, I assure you. Remained till the next day, sent a
 barrel of apples, etc., up to the Captain’s quarters, and proceeded
 with the remainder of our luggage, for which it is needless to say
 _ready transportation_ was found, and the Captain chided me for
 having left anything behind at the depot, as I told him I had done. On
 reaching Falmouth Station we found another old friend, Captain Bailey,
 in charge, who instituted _himself_ as watch over the goods until
 he sent them all up to Headquarters. My ambulance came through that
 P.M., but for fear it might not, General Sturgis had his
 taken down for me, and had supper arranged and a splendid serenade.
 I don’t know how we could have had a warmer “welcome home,” as the
 officers termed it.

 Headquarters are in the dooryard of a farmhouse, one room of which is
 occupied by Miss G. and myself. My wagons are a little way from me,
 out of sight, and I am wishing for a tent and stove to pitch and live
 near them. The weather is cold, and the ground covered with snow,
 but I could make me comfortable with a good tent, floor, and stove,
 and should prefer it to a room in a rebel house and one so generally
 occupied.

 The 21st are a few rods from me; many of the officers call to see me
 every day. Colonel Clark is very neighborly; he is looking finely now;
 he was in this P.M., and was going in search of Colonel Morse
 whom he thought to be a mile or two distant. I learned to-night that
 the 15th are only some three miles away; the 36th I cannot find yet. I
 have searched hard for them and shall get on their track soon, I trust.

 Of army movements nothing can be said with certainty; no two
 persons, not even the generals, agree in reference to the future
 programme. The snow appears to have deranged the plans very
 seriously. I have received calls from two generals to-day, and
 in the course of conversation I discovered that their views were
 entirely different. General Burnside stood a long time in front of
 my door to-day, but to my astonishment _he did not express his
 opinion_--STRANGE!

 I have not suffered for want of the boots yet, but should find them
 convenient, I presume, and shall be glad to see them. The sore finger
 is much the same; not _very_ troublesome, although somewhat
 so. If you desire to reach this point, I think you would find no
 difficulty after getting past the guard at Washington--at Acquia you
 would find all right I am sure.

 I can think of a host of things I wish you could take out to me.

In spite of her wish that she might have had a tent, and so have
avoided living in a captured house, her residence was the Lacy house
on the shore of the Rappahannock and close to Fredericksburg. There
was nothing uncertain about her information this time. She knew when
the battle was to occur, and at two o’clock in the morning she wrote
a letter to her cousin, Vira Stone, just before the storm of battle
broke:

  HEADQUARTERS 2ND DIVISION
  ARMY OF THE POTOMAC
  CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA.

  December 12, 1862, 2 o’clock A.M.

  DEAR COUSIN VIRA:

 Five minutes’ time with you, and God only knows what that five minutes
 might be worth to the--may be--doomed thousands sleeping around
 me. It is the night before a “battle.” The enemy, Fredericksburg,
 and its mighty entrenchments lie before us--the river between. At
 to-morrow’s dawn our troops will essay to cross and the guns of the
 enemy will sweep their frail bridges at every breath. The moon is
 shining through the soft haze with a brightness almost prophetic;
 for the last half-hour I have stood alone in the awful stillness of
 its glimmering light gazing upon the strange, sad scene around me
 striving to say, “Thy will, O God, be done.” The camp-fires blaze with
 unwonted brightness, the sentry’s tread is still but quick, the scores
 of little shelter tents are dark and still as death; no wonder, for,
 as I gazed sorrowfully upon them, I thought I could almost hear the
 slow flap of the grim messenger’s wings as one by one he sought and
 selected his victims for the morning’s sacrifice.

 Sleep, weary ones, sleep and rest for to-morrow’s toil! Oh, sleep and
 visit in dreams once more the loved ones nestling at home! They may
 yet live to dream of you, cold, lifeless, and bloody; but this dream,
 soldier, is thy last; paint it brightly, dream it well. Oh, Northern
 mothers, wives, and sisters, all unconscious of the peril of the hour,
 would to Heaven that I could bear for you the concentrated woe which
 is so soon to follow; would that Christ would teach my soul a prayer
 that would plead to the Father for grace sufficient for you all! God
 pity and strengthen you every one.

 Mine are not the only waking hours; the light yet burns brightly in
 our kind-hearted General’s tent, where he pens what may be a last
 farewell to his wife and children, and thinks sadly of his fated men.
 Already the roll of the moving artillery is sounding in my ears. The
 battle draws near and I must catch one hour’s sleep for to-day’s labor.

 Good-night, and Heaven grant you strength for your more peaceful and
 terrible, but not less weary, days than mine.

  CLARA


All her apprehensions were less than the truth. It was a terrible
battle, and a disheartening disaster. The Union army lost 1284 in
killed, 9600 wounded, and 1769 missing. The memories of Fredericksburg
remained with her distinct and terrible to the day of her death. She
described the battle and the events which followed it in her war
lectures:

 We found ourselves beside a broad, muddy river, and a little canvas
 city grew up in a night upon its banks. And there we sat and waited
 “while the world wondered.” Ay, it did more than wonder! It murmured,
 it grumbled, it cried shame, to sit there and shiver under the canvas.
 “Cross over the river and occupy those brick houses on the other
 shore!” The murmurs grew to a clamor!

 Our gallant leader heard them and his gentle heart grew sore as he
 looked upon his army that he loved as it loved him and looked upon
 those fearful sights beyond. Carelessness or incapacity at the capital
 had baffled his best-laid plans till time had made his foes a wall of
 adamant. Still the country murmured. You, friends, have not forgotten
 how, for these were the dark days of old Fredericksburg, and our
 little canvas city was Falmouth.

 Finally, one soft, hazy winter’s day the army prepared for an attack;
 but there was neither boat nor bridge, and the sluggish tide rolled
 dark between.

 The men of Hooker and Franklin were right and left, but here in the
 center came the brave men of the silvery-haired Sumner.

 Drawn up in line they wait in the beautiful grounds of the stately
 mansion whose owner, Lacy, had long sought the other side, and stood
 that day aiming engines of destruction at the home of his youth and
 the graves of his household.

 There on the second portico I stood and watched the engineers as they
 moved forward to construct a pontoon bridge. It will be remembered
 that the rebel army occupying the heights of Fredericksburg previous
 to the attack was very cautious about revealing the position of its
 guns.

 A few boats were fastened and the men marched quickly on with timbers
 and planks. For a few rods it proved a success, and scarcely could the
 impatient troops be restrained from rending the air with shouts of
 triumph.

 On marches the little band with brace and plank, but never to be laid
 by them. A rain of musket balls has swept their ranks and the brave
 fellows lie level with the bridge or float down the stream.

 No living thing stirs on the opposite bank. No enemy is in sight.
 Whence comes this rain of death?

 Maddened by the fate of their comrades, others seize the work and
 march onward to their doom. For now, the balls are hurling thick and
 fast, not only at the bridge, but over and beyond to the limit of
 their range--crashing through the trees, the windows and doors of the
 Lacy house. And ever here and there a man drops in the waiting ranks,
 silently as a snowflake. And his comrades bear him in for help, or
 back for a grave.

 There on the lower bank under a slouched hat stands the man of honest
 heart and genial face that a soldier could love and honor even through
 defeat. The ever-trusted, gallant Burnside. Hark--that deep-toned
 order rising above the heads of his men: “Bring the guns to bear and
 shell them out.”

 Then rolled the thunder and the fire. For two long hours the shot
 and shell hurled through the roofs and leveled the spires of
 Fredericksburg. Then the little band of engineers resumed its work,
 but ere ten spaces of the bridge were gained, they fell like grass
 before the scythe.

 For an instant all stand aghast; then ran the murmurs: “The cellars
 are filled with sharp-shooters and our shell will never reach them.”

 But once more over the heads of his men rose that deep-toned order:
 “_Man the boats._”

 Into the boats like tigers then spring the 7th Michigan.

 “Row!! Row!! Ply for your lives, boys.” And they do. But mark! They
 fall, some into the boats, some out. Other hands seize the oars and
 strain and tug with might and main. Oh, how slow the seconds drag! How
 long we have held our breath.

 Almost across--under the bluffs--and out of range! Thank God--they’ll
 land!

 Ah, yes; but not all. Mark the windows and doors of those houses above
 them. See the men swarming from them armed to the teeth and rushing to
 the river.

 They’ve reached the bluffs above the boats. Down point the muskets.
 Ah, that rain of shot and shell and flame!

 Out of the boats waist-deep in the water; straight through the fire.
 Up, up the bank the boys in blue! Grimly above, that line of gray!

 Down pours the shot. Up, up the blue, till hand to hand like fighting
 demons they wrestle on the edge.

 Can we breathe yet? No! Still they struggle. Ah, yes, they break, they
 fly, up through the street and out of sight, pursuer and pursued.

 It were long to tell of that night crossing and the next terrible day
 of fire and blood. And when the battle broke o’er field and grove,
 like a resistless flood daylight exposed Fredericksburg with its
 fourth-day flag of truce, its dead, starving, and wounded, frozen to
 the ground. The wounded were brought to me, frozen, for days after,
 and our commissions and their supplies at Washington with no effective
 organization or power to go beyond! The many wounded lay, uncared for,
 on the cold snow.

Although the Lacy house was exposed to fire she was not permitted to
remain within the shelter of its walls. While the fight was at its
hottest, she crossed the river under fire for a place of greater danger
and of greater need:

 At ten o’clock of the battle day when the rebel fire was hottest,
 the shell rolling down every street, and the bridge under the heavy
 cannonade, a courier dashed over and, rushing up the steps of the Lacy
 house, placed in my hand a crumpled, bloody slip of paper, a request
 from the lion-hearted old surgeon on the opposite shore, establishing
 his hospitals in the very jaws of death.

 The uncouth penciling said: “Come to me. Your place is here.”

 The faces of the rough men working at my side, which eight weeks ago
 had flushed with indignation at the very thought of being controlled
 by a woman, grew ashy white as they guessed the nature of the summons,
 and the lips which had cursed and pouted in disgust trembled as they
 begged me to send them, but save myself. I could only permit them to
 go with me if they chose, and in twenty minutes we were rocking across
 the swaying bridge, the water hissing with shot on either side.

 Over into that city of death, its roofs riddled by shell, its very
 church a crowded hospital, every street a battle-line, every hill a
 rampart, every rock a fortress, and every stone wall a blazing line of
 forts!

 Oh, what a day’s work was that! How those long lines of blue, rank
 upon rank, charged over the open acres, up to the very mouths of those
 blazing guns, and how like grain before the sickle they fell and
 melted away.

 An officer stepped to my side to assist me over the débris at the end
 of the bridge. While our hands were raised in the act of stepping
 down, a piece of an exploding shell hissed through between us, just
 below our arms, carrying away a portion of both the skirts of his
 coat and my dress, rolling along the ground a few rods from us like a
 harmless pebble into the water.

 The next instant a solid shot thundered over our heads, a noble
 steed bounded in the air, and, with his gallant rider, rolled in the
 dirt, not thirty feet in the rear! Leaving the kind-hearted officer,
 I passed on alone to the hospital. In less than a half-hour he was
 brought to me--dead.

 I mention these circumstances not as specimens of my own bravery.
 Oh, no! I beg you will not place that construction upon them, for I
 never professed anything beyond ordinary courage, and a thousand times
 preferred safety to danger.

 But I mention them that those of you, who have never seen a battle,
 may the better realize the perils through which these brave men
 passed, who for four long years bore their country’s bloody banner
 in the face of death, and stood, a living wall of flesh and blood,
 between the invading traitor and your peaceful homes.

 In the afternoon of Sunday an officer came hurriedly to tell me that
 in a church across the way lay one of his men shot in the face the
 day before. His wounds were bleeding slowly and, the blood drying and
 hardening about his nose and mouth, he was in immediate danger of
 suffocation.

 (Friends, this may seem to you repulsive, but I assure you that many a
 brave and beautiful soldier has died of this alone.)

 Seizing a basin of water and a sponge, I ran to the church, to find
 the report only too true. Among hundreds of comrades lay my patient.
 For any human appearance above his head and shoulders, it might as
 well have been anything but a man.

 I knelt by him and commenced with fear and trembling lest some unlucky
 movement close the last aperture for breath. After some hours’ labor,
 I began to recognize features. They seemed familiar. With what
 impatience I wrought. Finally my hand wiped away the last obstruction.
 An eye opened, and there to my gaze was the sexton of my old home
 church!

 I have remarked that every house was a hospital. Passing from one to
 another during the tumult of Saturday, I waited for a regiment of
 infantry to sweep on its way to the heights. Being alone, and the only
 woman visible among that moving sea of men, I naturally attracted the
 attention of the old veteran, Provost Marshal General Patrick, who,
 mistaking me for a resident of the city who had remained in her home
 until the crashing shot had driven her into the street, dashed through
 the waiting ranks to my side, and, bending down from his saddle, said
 in his kindliest tones, “You are alone and in great danger, Madam. Do
 you want protection?”

 Amused at his gallant mistake, I humored it by thanking him, as I
 turned to the ranks, adding that I believed myself the best protected
 woman in the United States.

 The soldiers near me caught my words, and responding with “That’s so!
 That’s so!” set up a cheer. This in turn was caught by the next line
 and so on, line after line, till the whole army joined in the shout,
 no one knowing what he was cheering at, but never doubting there was a
 victory somewhere. The gallant old General, taking in the situation,
 bowed low his bared head, saying, as he galloped away, “I believe you
 are right, Madam.”

 It would be difficult for persons in ordinary life to realize the
 troubles arising from want of space merely for wounded men to occupy
 when gathered together for surgical treatment and care. You may
 suggest that “all out-of-doors” ought to be large, and so it would
 seem, but the fact did not always prove so. Civilized men seek shelter
 in sickness, and of this there was ever a scarcity.

 Twelve hundred men were crowded into the Lacy house, which contained
 but twelve rooms. They covered every foot of the floors and porticoes,
 and even lay on the stair landings! A man who could find opportunity
 to lie between the legs of a table thought himself lucky: he was not
 likely to be stepped on. In a common cupboard, with four shelves, five
 men lay, and were fed and attended. Three lived to be removed, and two
 died of their wounds.

 Think of trying to lie still and die quietly, lest you fall out of a
 bed six feet high!

 Among the wounded of the 7th Michigan was one Faulkner, of Ashtabula
 County, Ohio, a mere lad, shot through the lungs and, to all
 appearances, dying. When brought in, he could swallow nothing,
 breathed painfully, and it was with great difficulty that he gave me
 his name and residence. He could not lie down, but sat leaning against
 the wall in the corner of the room.

 I observed him carefully as I hurried past from one room to another,
 and finally thought he had ceased to breathe. At this moment another
 man with a similar wound was taken in on a stretcher by his comrades,
 who sought in vain for a spot large enough to lay him down, and
 appealed to me. I could only tell them that when that poor boy in the
 corner was removed, they could set him down in his place. They went
 to remove him, but, to the astonishment of all, he objected, opened
 his eyes, and persisted in retaining his corner, which he did for some
 two weeks, when, finally, a mere bundle of skin and bones, for he gave
 small evidence of either flesh or blood, he was wrapped in a blanket
 and taken away in an ambulance to Washington, with a bottle of milk
 punch in his blouse, the only nourishment he could take.

 On my return to Washington, three months later, a messenger came from
 Lincoln Hospital to say that the men of Ward 17 wanted to see me.
 I returned with him, and as I entered the ward seventy men saluted
 me, standing, such as could, others rising feebly in their beds, and
 falling back--exhausted with the effort.

 Every man had left his blood in Fredericksburg--every one was from the
 Lacy house. My hand had dressed every wound--many of them in the first
 terrible moments of agony. I had prepared their food in the snow and
 winds of December and fed them like children.

 How dear they had grown to me in their sufferings, and the three great
 cheers that greeted my entrance into that hospital ward were dearer
 than the applause. I would not exchange their memory for the wildest
 hurrahs that ever greeted the ear of conqueror or king. When the first
 greetings were over and the agitation had subsided somewhat, a young
 man walked up to me with no apparent wound, with bright complexion,
 and in good flesh. There was certainly something familiar in his face,
 but I could not recall him, until, extending his hand with a smile, he
 said, “I am Riley Faulkner, of the 7th Michigan. I didn’t die, and the
 milk punch lasted all the way to Washington!”

The author once inquired of Miss Barton how she dressed for these
expeditions. She dressed simply, she said, so that she could get
about easily, but her costume did not greatly differ from that of the
ordinary woman of the period. She added humorously that her wardrobe
was not wholly a matter of choice. Her clothes underwent such hard
usage that nothing lasted very long, and she was glad to wear almost
anything she could get.

This was not wholly satisfactory, for those were the days of
hoop-skirts and other articles of feminine attire which had no
possible place in her work. From Mrs. Vassall the author obtained
somewhat more explicit information. She said:

 When Clara went to the front, she dressed in a plain black print
 skirt with a jacket. She wished to dress so that she could easily get
 about and not consume much time in dressing. Her clothing received
 hard usage, and when she returned from any campaign to Washington,
 she was in need of a new outfit. At one time the women of Oxford sent
 her a box for her own personal use. Friends in Oxford furnished the
 material, and Annie Childs made the dresses. The box was delivered at
 her room during her absence, and she returned from the field, weary
 and wet, her hair soaked and falling down her back, and entered her
 cold and not very cheerful room. There she found this box with its
 complete outfit, and kneeling beside it she burst into happy tears.

The author counts it especially fortunate that he has been able to find
a letter from Clara relating to this very experience, which was on
the occasion of her return from the battle of Fredericksburg. It was
addressed to Annie Childs, and dated four months later:

  PORT ROYAL, May 28th, 1863

  MY DEAR ANNIE:

 I remember, four long months ago, one cold, dreary, windy day, I
 dragged me out from a chilly street-car that had found me ankle-deep
 in the mud of the 6th Street wharf, and up the slippery street and
 my long flights of stairs into a room, cheerless, in confusion, and
 alone, looking in most respects as I had left it some months before,
 with the exception of a mysterious _box_ which stood unopened
 in the middle of the floor. All things looked strange to me, for in
 that few months I had taken in so much that yet I had no clear views.
 The great artist had been at work upon my brain and sketched it all
 over with life scenes, and death scenes, never to be erased. The
 fires of _Fredericksburg_ still blazed before my eyes, and her
 cannon still thundered at my ear, while away down in the depths of my
 heart I was smothering the groans and treasuring the prayers of her
 dead and dying heroes; worn, weak, and heartsick, I was _home from
 Fredericksburg_; and when, there, for the first time I looked at
 myself, shoeless, gloveless, ragged, and blood-stained, a new sense
 of desolation and pity and sympathy and weariness, all blended, swept
 over me with irresistible force, and, perfectly overpowered, I sank
 down upon the strange box, unquestioning its presence or import, and
 wept as I had never done since the soft, hazy, winter night that saw
 our attacking guns silently stealing their approach to the river,
 ready at the dawn to ring out the shout of death to the waiting
 thousands at their wheels.

 I said I wept, and so I did, and gathered strength and calmness
 and consciousness--and finally the _strange box_, which had
 afforded me my _first rest_, began to claim my attention; it was
 clearly and handsomely marked to myself at Washington, and came by
 express--so much for the outside; and a few pries with a hatchet, to
 hands as well accustomed as mine, soon made the inside as visible,
 only for the neat paper which covered all. It was doubtless something
 sent to some soldier; pity I had not had it earlier--it might be too
 late now; he might be past his wants or the kind remembrances of the
 loved ones at home. The while I was busy in removing the careful
 paper wrappings a letter, addressed to me, opened--“_From friends
 in Oxford and Worcester_”--no signature. Mechanically I commenced
 lifting up, one after another, hoods, shoes, boots, gloves, skirts,
 handkerchiefs, collars, linen,--and that beautiful dress! look at it,
 all made--who--! Ah, there is no mistaking the workmanship--Annie’s
 scissors shaped and her skillful fingers fitted that. Now, I begin to
 comprehend; while I had been away in the snows and frosts and rains
 and mud of Falmouth, forgetting my friends, myself, to eat or sleep or
 rest, forgetting everything but my God and the poor suffering victims
 around me, these dear, kind friends, undismayed and not disheartened
 by the great national calamity which had overtaken them, mourning,
 perhaps, the loss of their own, had remembered _me_, and with
 open hearts and willing hands had prepared this noble, thoughtful gift
 for me at my return. It was too much, and this time, burying my face
 in the dear tokens around me, I wept again as heartily as before, but
 with very different sensations; a new chord was struck; my labors,
 slight and imperfect as they had been, had been appreciated; I was not
 alone; and then and there again I re-dedicated myself to my little
 work of humanity, pledging before God all that I _have_, all that
 I _am_, all that I _can_, and all that I _hope_ to be,
 to the cause of _Justice_ and _Mercy_ and _Patriotism_,
 my _Country_, and my _God_. And cheered and sustained as
 I have been by the kind remembrances of old friends, the cordial
 greeting of new ones, and the tearful, grateful blessings of the
 thousands of noble martyrs to whose relief or comfort it has been my
 blessed privilege to add my mite, I feel that my cup of happiness is
 more than full. It is an untold privilege to have lived in this day
 when there is work to be done, and, still more, to possess health and
 strength to do it, and most of all to feel that I bear with me the
 kindly feelings and perhaps prayers of the noble mothers and sisters
 who have sent sons and brothers to fight the battles of the world in
 the armies of Freedom. Annie, if it is not asking too much, now that I
 have gathered up resolution enough to speak of the subject at all (for
 I have never been able to before), I would like to know _to whom_
 besides yourself I am indebted for these beautiful and valuable gifts.
 It is too tame and too little to say that I am thankful for them.
 You did not _want that_, but I will say that, God willing, I
 will _yet wear them where none of the noble donors would be ashamed
 to have them seen_. Some of those gifts shall yet see service if
 Heaven spare my life. With thanks I am the friend of my “Friends in
 Oxford and Worcester.”

  CLARA BARTON




CHAPTER XV

CLARA BARTON’S CHANGE OF BASE

SPRING OF 1863


The events we have been describing bring Miss Barton to the end of
1862. The greater part of the year 1863 was spent by her in entirely
different surroundings. Believing that the most significant military
events of that year would be found in connection with a campaign
against Charleston, South Carolina, and that the Army of the Potomac,
which she had thus far accompanied, was reasonably well cared for in
provisions which were in large degree the result of her establishment,
she began to consider the advisability of going farther south.

Her reasons for this were partly military and partly personal. The
military aspect of the situation was that she learned in Washington
that the region about Charleston was likely to be the place of largest
service during the year 1863. On the personal side was first her great
desire to establish communication with her brother Stephen, who still
was in North Carolina. When Charleston was captured, the army could
move on into the interior. If she were somewhere near, she could have
a part in the rescue of her brother, and she had reason to believe
that he might have need of her service after his long residence within
the bounds of the Confederacy. Her brother David received a commission
in the Quartermaster’s Department, and he was sent to Hilton Head in
the vicinity of Charleston. Her cousin, Corporal Leander T. Poor,
in the Engineers’ Department, was assigned there, partly through
her influence. It seemed as though that field promised to her every
possible opportunity for public and private usefulness. There she could
most largely serve her country; there she could have the companionship
of her brother David and her cousin, Leander Poor; there she could most
probably establish communications with Stephen, who might be in great
need of her assistance. It is difficult to see how in the circumstances
she could have planned with greater apparent wisdom. If in any respect
the outcome failed to justify her expectations, it was because she
was no wiser with respect to the military developments of the year
1863 than were the highest officials in Washington. Her request for
permission to go to Port Royal was written early in 1863, and was
addressed to the Assistant Secretary of War.

This request was promptly granted, and she was soon planning for a
change of scene. The first three months of 1863, however, were spent in
Washington, and we have few glimpses of her activities. In the middle
of January she rejoined the army, acting on information which led her
to believe that a battle was impending.

It should be stated that Clara Barton’s diaries are most fragmentary
where there is most to record. She was much given to writing, and,
when she had time, enjoyed recording in detail almost everything that
happened. She was accustomed to record the names of her callers,
and the persons from whom she received, and those to whom she sent,
letters; her purchases with the cost of each; her receipts and
expenditures; her repairs to her wardrobe, and innumerable other little
items; but a large proportion of the most significant events in her
public life are not recorded in her diaries, or, if recorded at all,
are merely set down in catchwords, and the details are given, if at
all, in her letters. Of this expedition in the winter of 1863 we have
no word either in her diary, which she probably left in Washington, or
in her letters which she may have been too busy to write, or which, if
written, have not been preserved. Our knowledge of her departure upon
this expedition is contained in a letter from her nephew Samuel Barton:

  SURGEON-GENERAL’S OFFICE
  WASHINGTON CITY, D.C., January 18th, 1863

  MY DEAR COUSIN MARY:

 Your very acceptable letter, with Ada’s and Ida’s, was received last
 Thursday evening. I could not answer sooner, for I have been quite
 busy evenings ever since it was received. Aunt Clara left the city
 this morning for the army. Her friend, Colonel Rucker, the Assistant
 Quartermaster-General, told her last Thursday that the army were about
 to move and they were expecting a fight and wanted her to go if she
 felt able, so this morning she, Mr. Welles, who always goes with her
 to the battles, and Mr. Doe, a Massachusetts man, took the steamboat
 for Acquia Creek, where they will take the cars for Falmouth and there
 join the army. Colonel Rucker gave her two new tents, and bread,
 flour, meal, and a new stove, and requested her to telegraph to him
 for anything she wanted and he would send it to her. Aunt Sally left
 for Massachusetts last Thursday evening....

  SAM BARTON


In the State House in Boston is the battle-flag of the 21st
Massachusetts, stained with the blood of Sergeant Thomas Plunkett.
Both his arms were shot away in the battle of Fredericksburg, but
he planted the flagstaff between his feet and upheld the flag with
his two shattered stumps of arms. Massachusetts has few relics so
precious as this flag. Clara Barton was with him at Fredericksburg
and ministered to him there, and remained his lifelong friend. In
many ways she manifested her interest in him, rendering her aid in a
popular movement which secured him a purse of $4000. Sergeant Plunkett
was in need of a pension, and Clara Barton addressed to the Senate’s
Committee on Military Affairs a memorial on his behalf. It was written
on Washington’s Birthday, after her return from the field:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 22nd, ’63

  TO THE MEMBERS OF THE
  MILITARY COMMITTEE, U.S. SENATE.

  SENATORS:

 Nothing less than a strong conviction of duty owed to one of the
 brave defenders of our Nation’s honor could induce me to intrude for
 a moment upon the already burdened, and limited term of action yet
 remaining to your honorable body.

 During the late Battle of Fredericksburg, the 21st Massachusetts
 Regiment of Volunteers were ordered to charge upon a battery across an
 open field; in the terrible fire which assailed them, the colors were
 three times in quick succession bereft of their support; the third
 time they were seized by Sergeant Thomas Plunkett, of Company E, and
 borne over some three hundred yards of open space, when a shell from
 the enemy’s battery in its murderous course killed three men of the
 regiment and shattered both arms of the Sergeant. He could no longer
 support the colors upright, but, planting his foot against the staff,
 he endeavored to hold them up, while he strove by his shouts amid the
 confusion to attract attention to their condition; for some minutes
 he sustained them against his right arm torn and shattered just below
 the shoulder, while the blood poured over and among the sacred folds,
 literally obliterating the _stripes_, leaving as fit emblem of
 such heroic sacrifice only the _crimson and the stars_. Thus
 drenched in blood, and rent by the fury of eight battles, the noble
 standard could be no longer borne, and, while its gallant defender
 lay suffering in field hospital from amputation of _both_ arms,
 it was reverently wrapped by Colonel Clark and returned to the State
 House in Boston, with the request that others might be sent them; the
 21st had never lost their colors, but they had worn them out.

 The old flag and its brave bearer are alike past their usefulness save
 as examples for emulation and titles of glory for some bright page
 of our Nation’s history, and, while the one is carefully treasured
 in the sacred archives of the State, need I more than ask of this
 noble body to put forth its protecting arm to shelter, cherish, and
 sustain the other? If guaranty were needful for the private character
 of so true a _soldier_, it would have been found in the touching
 address of his eloquent Colonel (Clark) delivered on Christmas beside
 the stretcher waiting at the train at Falmouth to convey its helpless
 burden to the car, whither he had been escorted not only by his
 regiment, but his _General_. The tears which rolled over the
 veteran cheeks around him were ample testimony of the love and respect
 he had won from them, and to-day his heart’s deepest affections twine
 round his gallant regiment as the defenders of their country.

 A moment’s reflection will obviate the necessity of any suggestions
 in reference to the provisions needful for his future support; it is
 only to be remembered that he can nevermore be unattended, a common
 doorknob is henceforth as formidable to him as a prison bolt. His
 little pension as a Sergeant would not remunerate an attendant for
 placing his food in his mouth, to say nothing of how it shall be
 obtained for _both_ of them.

 For the sake of formality merely, for to you gentlemen I know the
 appeal is needless, I will close by praying your honorable body to
 grant to Sergeant Plunkett such pension as shall in your noble wisdom
 be ample for his future necessities and a fitting tribute to his
 patriotic sacrifice.

  C. B.


The assignment of her brother David to duty in the vicinity of
Charleston was the event which decided her to ask for a transfer to
that field, or rather for permission to go there with supplies.

It must be remembered that Miss Barton’s service was a voluntary
service. She was not an army nurse, and had no intention of becoming
one. The system of army nurses was under the direct supervision of
Dorothea Lynde Dix, a woman from her own county, and one for whom she
cherished feelings of the highest regard, but under whom she had no
intention of working. Indeed, it is one of the fine manifestations
of good sense on the part of Clara Barton that she never at any time
attempted what might have seemed an interference with Miss Dix, but
found for herself a field of service, and developed it according to a
method of her own. It will be well at this time to give some account
of Miss Dix, and a little outline of her great work in its relation to
that of Clara Barton.

Dorothea Lynde Dix was born April 4, 1802, and died July 17, 1887. She
was twenty-nine years older than Clara Barton, and their lives had
many interesting parallels. Until the publication of her biography by
Francis Tiffany in 1890, it was commonly supposed that she was born in
Worcester County, Massachusetts, where she spent her childhood. But
her birth occurred in Maine. Unlike Clara Barton she had no happy home
memories. Her father was an unstable, visionary man, and it was on one
of his frequent and futile migrations that she was born. Her biographer
states that her childhood memories were so painful that “in no hour
of the most confidential intimacy could she be induced to unlock the
silence which, to the very end of life, she maintained as to all the
incidents of her early days.” She had no happy memories of association
with school or church, or sympathetic friends. The background of her
childhood memory was of poverty with a lack of public respect for a
father who, though of good family, led an aimless, shiftless, wandering
life. Unhappily, he was a religious fanatic, associated with no church,
but issuing tracts which he paid for with money that should have been
used for his children, and, to save expense, required her to paste or
stitch. She hated the employment and the type of religion which it
represented. She broke away from it almost violently and went to live
with her grandmother in Boston.

There she fell under the influence of William Ellery Channing, and was
born again. To her through his ministry came the spirit that quickened
and gave life to her dawning hope and aspiration.

How she got her education we hardly know, but she began teaching, as
Clara Barton did, when she was fifteen years of age. And like Clara
Barton she became a pioneer in certain forms of educational work.
Dorothea Dix opened a school “for charitable and religious uses,” above
her grandmother’s barn, and in time she inherited property which made
her independent, so that she was able to devote herself to a life of
philanthropy.

In 1837, being then thirty-five years of age, and encouraged by her
pastor, Dr. Channing, in whose home she spent much of her time, she
launched forth upon her career of devotion to the amelioration of
the condition of convicts, lunatics, and paupers. In her work for the
insane she was especially effective. She traveled in nearly all of the
States of the Union, pleading for effective legislation to promote the
establishment of asylums for the insane. Like Clara Barton she found
an especially fruitful field of service in New Jersey; the Trenton
Asylum was in a very real sense her creation. The pauper, the prisoner,
and especially the insane of our whole land owe her memory a debt of
lasting gratitude.

By 1861 her reputation was well established. She was then almost sixty
years of age and had gained the well-merited confidence of the medical
profession. She was on her way from Boston to Washington, and was
spending a few days at the Trenton Asylum, when the Sixth Massachusetts
was fired upon in Baltimore on April 19, 1861. Like Clara Barton she
hastened immediately to the place of service. On the very next day
she wrote to a friend: “I think my duty lies near military hospitals
for the present. This need not be announced. I have reported myself
and some nurses for free service at the War Department, and to the
Surgeon-General.” Her offer was accepted with great heartiness and
with ill-considered promptness. She was appointed “Superintendent of
Female Nurses.” She was authorized “to select and assign female nurses
to general or permanent military hospitals; they not to be employed
without her sanction and approval except in case of urgent need.”

Whether the United States contained any woman better qualified to
undertake such a task as this than Dorothea Dix may be questioned.
Certainly none could have been found with more of experience or with a
higher consecration. It was an impossible task for any one, and, while
Miss Dix was possessed of some of the essential qualities, she did not
possess them all. Her biographer very justly says:

 The literal meaning, however, of such a commission as had thus been
 hastily bestowed on Miss Dix--applying, as it did to the women nurses
 of the military hospitals of the whole United States not in actual
 rebellion--was one which, in those early days of the war, no one so
 much as began to take in.... Such a commission--as the march of events
 was before long to prove--involved a sheer, practical impossibility.
 It implied, not a single-handed woman, nearly sixty and shattered
 in health, but immense organized departments at twenty different
 centers.”[8]

The War Department acted upon what must have appeared a wise impulse
in turning this whole matter of women nurses over to the authority of
a woman known in all the States--as Miss Dix was known--and possessing
the confidence of the people of the whole country. But she was not only
sixty years of age and predisposed to consumption, and at that time
suffering from other ailments, but she had never learned to delegate
responsibility to her subordinates. It had been well for Clara Barton
if she had known better how to set others to work, but she knew how
better than Dorothea Dix and was twenty years younger. Indeed, Clara
Barton was younger at eighty than Dorothea Dix was at sixty, but she
herself suffered somewhat from this same limitation. Dorothea Dix could
not be everywhere, and with her system she needed to be everywhere,
just as Clara Barton under her system had to be at the very front in
direct management of her own line of activities. But Dorothea Dix,
besides needing to be simultaneously on twenty battle-fields, had to be
where she could examine and sift out and prepare for service the chosen
from among a great many thousand women applying for the privilege of
nursing wounded soldiers, and ranging all the way from sentimental
school-girls to sickly and decrepit grandmothers. Again, Mr. Tiffany
says:

 Women nurses were volunteering by the thousands, the majority of them
 without the experience or health to fit them for such arduous service.
 Who should pass on their qualifications, who station, superintend, and
 train them? Now, under the Atlas weight of care and responsibilities
 so suddenly thrust on Miss Dix, the very qualifications which had so
 preëminently fitted her for the sphere in which she had wrought such
 miracles of success began to tell against her. She was nearly sixty
 years old, and with a constitution sapped by malaria, overwork, and
 pulmonary weakness. She had for years been a lonely and single-handed
 worker, planning her own projects, keeping her own counsel, and
 pressing on, unhampered by the need of consulting others, toward her
 self-chosen goal. The lone worker could not change her nature. She
 tried to do everything herself, and the feat before long became an
 impossibility. At length she came to recognize this, again and again
 exclaiming in her distress, “This is not the work I would have my life
 judged by.”

By that, however, in part her life-work must be judged, and, in the
main, greatly to her advantage and wholly to her honor. We can see,
however, the inevitable limitations of her work. Up to that time, she
had dealt with small groups of subordinates from whom she could demand
and secure some approach to perfection of organization and discipline.
This she could not possibly secure in her present situation. Again we
quote the discriminating words of her biographer:

 But in war--especially in a war precipitately entered into by a raw
 and inexperienced people--all such perfection of organization and
 discipline is out of the question. If a good field hospital is not
 to be had, the best must be made of a bad one. If a skillful surgeon
 is not at hand, then an incompetent one must hack away after his own
 butcher fashion. If selfish and greedy attendants eat up and drink
 up the supplies of delicacies and wines for the sick, then enough
 more must be supplied to give the sick the fag end of a chance. It
 is useless to try to idealize war.... All this, however, Miss Dix
 could not bring herself to endure. Ready to live on a crust, and to
 sacrifice herself without stint, her whole soul was on fire at the
 spectacles of incompetence and callow indifference she was doomed
 daily to witness. She became overwrought, and lost the requisite
 self-control.... Inevitably she became involved in sharp altercations
 with prominent medical officials and with regimental surgeons.[9]

It is necessary to recall this in order to understand Clara Barton’s
attitude toward the established military hospitals. She was not, in any
narrow or technical term, a hospital nurse. She stood ready to assist
the humblest soldier in any possible need, and to work in any hospital
at any task howsoever humble, if that was where she could work to
advantage. But she knew the hospitals in and about Washington too well
not to appreciate these infelicities. She had no intention whatever of
becoming a cog in that great and unmanageable machine.

Clara Barton held Dorothea Dix in the very highest regard. In all her
diaries and letters and in her memoranda of conversations which her
diaries sometimes contain, there is no word concerning Dorothea Dix
that is not appreciative. In 1910 the New York “World” wired her a
request that she telegraph to that newspaper, at its expense, a list
of eight names of women whom she would nominate for a Woman’s Hall of
Fame. The eight names which she sent in reply to this request were
Abigail Adams, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone Blackwell, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Frances Dana Gage, Maria Mitchell, Dorothea Dix, and Mary A.
Bickerdyke. It was a fine indication of her broad-mindedness that she
should have named two women, Dorothea Dix and Mother Bickerdyke, who
should have won distinction in her own field and might have been deemed
her rivals for popular affection. If Clara Barton was capable of any
kind of jealousy, it was not a jealousy that would have thought ever to
undermine or belittle a woman like Dorothea Dix. Few women understood
so well as Clara Barton what Dorothea Dix had to contend with. Her
contemporary references show how fully she honored this noble elder
sister, and how loyally she supported her.

At the same time, Clara Barton kept herself well out from under the
administration and control of Miss Dix. In some respects the two women
were too much alike in their temperament for either one to have worked
well under the other. For that matter, neither one of them greatly
enjoyed working under anybody. It is at once to the credit of Clara
Barton’s loyalty and good sense that she went as an independent worker.

But the hospitals in and about Washington were approaching more and
more nearly something that might be called system, and that system was
the system of Dorothea Dix. Clara Barton had all the room she wanted
on the battle-field. There was no great crowd of women clamoring to go
with her when under fire she crossed the bridge at Fredericksburg. But
by the spring of 1863 it began to be less certain that there was going
to be as much fighting as there had been in the immediate vicinity of
Washington. There was a possibility that actual field service with the
Army of the Potomac was going to be less, and that the base hospitals
with their organized system would be able to care more adequately for
the wounded than would the hospitals farther south where the next great
crisis seemed to be impending.

These were among the considerations in the mind of Clara Barton when
she left the Army of the Potomac--“my own army,” as she lovingly called
it--and secured her transfer to Hilton Head, near Charleston.

[8] Tiffany, _Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix_, 336, 337.

[9] Tiffany, 338, 339.




CHAPTER XVI

THE ATTEMPT TO RECAPTURE FORT SUMTER


 I am confounded! Literally speechless with amazement! When I left
 Washington every one said it boded no peace; it was a bad omen for
 me to start; I never missed finding the trouble I went to find, and
 was never late. I thought little of it. This P.M. we neared
 the dock at Hilton Head and the boat came alongside and boarded us
 instantly. The first word was, “The first gun is to be fired upon
 Charleston this P.M. at three o’clock.” We drew out watches,
 and the hands pointed three to the minute. I felt as if I should sink
 through the deck. I am no fatalist, but it is so singular.

Thus wrote Clara Barton in her journal on Tuesday night, April 7,
1863, the night of her arrival at Port Royal. She had become so expert
in learning where there was to be a battle that her friends looked
upon her as a kind of stormy petrel and expected trouble as soon as
she arrived. She had come to Hilton Head in order to be on hand when
the bombardment of Charleston should occur, and the opening guns of
the bombardment were her salute as her boat, the Arogo, warped up to
the dock. Everything seemed to indicate that she had come at the very
moment when she was needed.

But the following Saturday the transports which had loaded recruits at
Hilton Head, ready to land and capture Charleston as soon as the guns
had done their work, returned to Hilton Head and brought the soldiers
back. Her diary that morning recorded that the Arogo returning would
stop off at Charleston for dispatches, but her entry that night said:

 In the P.M., much to the consternation of everybody, the
 transports laden with troops all hove in sight. Soon the harbor
 was literally filled with ships and boats, the wharf crowded with
 disembarking troops with the camp equipage they had taken with them.
 What had they returned for? was the question hanging on every lip.
 Conjecture was rife; all sorts of rumors were afloat; but the one
 general idea seemed to prevail that the expedition “had fizzled,” if
 any one knows the precise meaning and import of that term. Troops
 landed all the evening and perhaps all night, and returned to the old
 camping grounds. The place is alive with soldiers. No one knows why he
 is here, or why he is not there; all seem disappointed and chagrined,
 but no one is to blame. For my part, I am rather pleased at the turn
 it has taken, as I thought from the first that we had “too few troops
 to fight and too many to be killed.” I have seen worse retreats if
 this be one.

“Fizzled” appears to have been a new word, but the country had abundant
opportunity to learn its essential meaning. The expedition against
Charleston was one of several that met this inglorious end, and the
flag was not raised over Sumter until 1865.

Now followed an interesting chapter in Clara Barton’s career, but
one quite different from anything she had expected when she came to
Hilton Head. After the “fizzle” in early April, the army settled down
to general inactivity. Charleston must be attacked simultaneously by
land and sea and reduced by heavy artillery fire before the infantry
could do anything. There was nothing for Clara Barton to do but to wait
for the battle which had been postponed, but was surely coming. She
distributed her perishable supplies where they would do the most good,
and looked after the comfort of such soldiers as needed her immediate
ministration. But the wounded were few in number and the sick were
in well-established hospitals where she had no occasion to offer her
services.

Moreover, she found the situation here very different from what she
had seen only a few miles from Washington. There were no muddy roads
between Hilton Head and New York Harbor. The Arogo was a shuttle moving
back and forward every few days, and in time another boat was added.
There was a regular mail service between New York and Hilton Head, and
every boat took officers and soldiers going upon, or returning from,
furloughs, and the boats from New York brought nurses and supplies. The
Sanitary Commission had its own dépôt of supplies and a liberal fund of
money from which purchases could be made of fruits and such other local
delicacies as were procurable. It is true, as Miss Barton was afterward
to learn, that the hospital management left something to be desired,
and that fewer delicacies were purchased than could have been. But
that was distinctly not her responsibility, nor did she for one moment
assume it to be such. She came into conflict with official red tape
quite soon enough in her own department, without intruding where she
did not belong. She settled down to await the time when she should be
needed for the special work that had brought her to Hilton Head. That
time came, but it did not come soon, and its delay was the occasion of
very mixed emotions on her part.

Clara Barton came to Hilton Head with a reputation already established.
She no longer needed to be introduced, nor was there any difficulty in
her procuring passes to go where she pleased, excepting as she was
sometimes refused out of consideration for her own personal safety.
But not once while she was in Carolina was she asked to show her
passes. When she landed, she found provision made for her at regimental
headquarters. Colonel J. G. Elwell, of Cleveland, to whom she reported,
was laid up at this time with a broken leg. She had him for a patient
and his gratitude continued through all the subsequent years. Her
journal described him as a noble, Christian gentleman, and she found
abundant occasion to admire his manliness, his Christian character, his
affection for his wife and children, his courtesy to her, and later,
his heroism as she witnessed it upon the battle-field. The custody
of her supplies brought her into constant relations with the Chief
Quartermaster, Captain Samuel T. Lamb, for whom she cherished a regard
almost if not quite as high as that she felt for Colonel, afterward
General, Elwell. Her room was at headquarters, under the same roof with
these and other brave officers, who vied with each other in bestowing
honors and kindnesses upon her. As Colonel Elwell was incapacitated
for service, she saw him daily, and the care of her supplies gave her
scarcely less constant association with Captain Lamb. General Hunter
called upon her, paid her high compliments, issued her passes and
permits, and offered her every possible courtesy. Her request that her
cousin, Corporal Leander Poor, be transferred to the department over
which her brother David presided, met an immediate response. The nurses
from the hospital paid her an official call, and apparently spoke very
gracious words to her, for she indicates that she was pleased with
something they said or did. Different officers sent her bouquets; her
table and her window must have been rather constantly filled with
flowers. More than once the band serenaded her, and between the musical
numbers there was a complimentary address which embarrassed, even more
than it pleased her, in which a high tribute was paid “To Clara Barton,
the Florence Nightingale of America.”

The officers at headquarters had good saddle horses, and invited her to
ride with them. If there was any form of exercise which she thoroughly
enjoyed, it was horseback riding. She procured a riding-skirt and
sent for her sidesaddle, which the Arogo in due time brought to her.
So far nothing could have been more delightful. The very satisfaction
of it made her uncomfortable. She hoped that God would not hold her
accountable for misspent time, and said so in her diary.

Lest she should waste her time, she began teaching some negro boys to
read, and sought out homesick soldiers who needed comfort. Whenever
she heard of any danger or any likelihood of a battle anywhere within
reach, she conferred with Colonel Elwell about going there. He was a
religious man, and she discussed with him the interposition of Divine
Providence, and the apparent indication that she was following a Divine
call in coming to Hilton Head exactly when she did. But no field opened
immediately which called for her ministrations. She felt sometimes that
it would be a terrible mistake if she had come so far away from what
really was her duty, when she wrote: “God is great and fearfully just.
Truly it is a fearful thing to fall into His hands; His ways are past
finding out.” Still she could not feel responsible for the fact that
no great battle had occurred in her immediate vicinity. Each time the
Arogo dropped anchor, she wondered if she ought to return on her; but
each time it seemed certain that it was not going to be very long until
there was a battle. So she left the matter in God’s hands. She wrote:
“It will be wisely ordered, and I shall do all for the best in the end.
God’s will, not mine, be done. I am content. How I wish I could always
keep in full view the fact and feeling that God orders all things
precisely as they should be; all is best as it is.”

On Sunday she read Beecher’s sermons and sometimes copied religious
poetry for Colonel Elwell, who, in addition to his own disability,
had tender memories of the death of his little children, and many
solicitous thoughts for his wife.

In some respects she was having the time of her life. A little group
of women, wives of the officers, gathered at the headquarters, and
there grew up a kind of social usage. One evening when a group of
officers and officers’ wives were gathered together, one of the ladies
read a poem in honor of Clara Barton. One day, at General Hunter’s
headquarters and in his presence, Colonel Elwell presented her with
a beautiful pocket Bible on behalf of the officers. If she needed
anything to increase her fame, that need was supplied when Mr. Page,
correspondent of the New York “Tribune,” whom she remembered to have
met at the Lacy house during the battle of Fredericksburg, arrived
at Hilton Head, and he, who had seen every battle of the Army of the
Potomac except Chancellorsville, told the officers how he had heard
General Patrick, at the battle of Fredericksburg, remonstrate with
Miss Barton on account of her exposing herself to danger, saying
afterward that he expected to see her shot every minute. The band of
a neighboring regiment came over and serenaded her. Her windows were
filled with roses and orange blossoms, and she wrote in her diary: “I
do not deserve such friends as I find, and how can I deserve them? I
fear that in these later years our Heavenly Father is too merciful to
me.”

It would have been delightful if she could only have been sure that she
was doing her duty. Surrounded by appreciative friends, bedecked with
flowers, serenaded and sung to, and with a saddled horse at her door
almost every morning and at least one officer if not a dozen eager for
the joy and honor of a ride with her, only two things disturbed her.
The first was that she still had no word from Stephen, and the other
was the feeling that, unless the Lord ordained a battle in her vicinity
before long, she ought to be back with what she called “my own army.”

Clara Barton’s diary displays utter freedom from cant. She was not
given to putting her religious feelings and emotions down on paper. But
in this period she gave much larger space to her own reflections than
was her custom when more fully occupied. She was feeling in a marked
degree the providential aspects of her own life; she was discussing
with Christian officers their plans for what Colonel Elwell called his
“soldier’s church.” Her religious nature found expression in her diary
more adequately than she had usually had time to express.

Toward the end of her period of what since has been termed her watchful
waiting, she received a letter from a friend, an editor, who felt that
the war had gone on quite long enough, and who wished her to use her
influence in favor of an immediate peace. Few people wanted peace more
than Clara Barton, but her letter in answer to this request shows an
insight into the national situation which at that time could hardly
have been expected:

  HILTON HEAD, S.C., June 24th, 1863

  T. W. MEIGHAN, ESQ.,

 My kind friend, your welcome letter of the 6th has been some days
 in hand. I did not get “frightened.” I am a _U.S. soldier_,
 you know, and therefore not supposed to be susceptible to
 _fear_, and, _as I am_ merely a _soldier_, and
 _not_ a _statesman_, I shall make no attempt at discussing
 _political_ points with you. You have spoken openly and frankly,
 and I have perused your letter and considered your sentiments with
 interest, and, I believe, with sincerity and candor, and, while I
 observe with pain the wide difference of _opinion_ existing
 between us, I cannot find it in my heart to believe it _more_
 than a matter of _opinion_. I shall not take to myself more
 of honesty of purpose, faithfulness of zeal, or patriotism, than I
 award to you. I have not, aye! never shall forget _where I first
 found you_. The soldier who has stood in the ranks of my country’s
 armies, and toiled and marched and fought, and fallen and struggled
 and risen, but to fall again more worn and exhausted than before,
 until _my_ weak arm had greater strength than his, and could aid
 him, and yet made no complaint, and only left the ranks of death when
 he had no longer strength to stand up in them--is it for _me_
 to rise up in judgment and accuse _this man_ of a _want of
 patriotism_? True, he does not see as I see, and works in a channel
 _in_ which I have no confidence, _with_ which I have no
 sympathy, and _through_ which I could not go; still, I must
 believe that in the end the same _results_ which would gladden my
 heart would rejoice his.

 Where you in prospective see _peace_, glorious, coveted
 peace, and rest for our tired armies, and home and happiness and
 firesides and friends for our war-worn heroes, _I_ see only the
 _beginning of war_. If we should make overtures for “peace upon
 any terms,” then, I fear, would follow a code of terms to which no
 civilized nation could submit and present even an honorable existence
 among nations. God forbid that _I_ should ask the useless
 exposure of the life of _one_ man, the desolation of one more
 home; I never for a moment lose sight of the mothers and sisters,
 and white-haired fathers, and children moving quietly about, and
 dropping the unseen, silent tear in those far-away saddened homes,
 and I have too often wiped the gathering damp from pale, anxious
 brows, and caught from ashy, quivering lips the last faint whispers
 of home, not to realize the terrible cost of these separations;
 nor has morbid sympathy been all,--out amid the smoke and fire and
 thunder of our guns, with only the murky canopy above, and the bloody
 ground beneath, I have wrought day after day and night after night,
 my heart well-nigh to bursting with conflicting emotions, so sorry
 for the necessity, so glad for the _opportunity_ of ministering
 with my own hands and strength to the dying wants of the patriot
 martyrs who fell for their country and mine. If my poor life could
 have purchased theirs, how cheerfully and quickly would the exchange
 have been made; more than this I could not do, deeper than this I
 could not feel, and yet among it all it has never once been in my
 heart, or on my lips, to sue to our enemies for peace. First, they
 broke it without cause; last, they will not restore it without shame.
 True, we _may_ never find peace by _fighting_, certainly we
 never shall by _asking_. “Independence?” They always _had_
 their independence till they madly threw it away; if there _be_
 a chain on them to-day it is of their own riveting. I grant that our
 Government has made mistakes, sore ones, too, in some instances,
 but ours is a _human government_, and like _all_ human
 operations liable to mistakes; only the machinery and plans of Heaven
 move unerringly and we short-sighted mortals are, half our time, fain
 to complain of these. I would that so much of wisdom and foresight and
 strength and power fall to our rulers as would show them to-morrow
 the path to victory and peace, but we shall never strengthen their
 hands or incite their patriotism by deserting and upbraiding them. To
 _my_ unsophisticated mind, the Government of my country _is_
 my country, and the _people_ of my country, the Government of
 my country as nearly as a representative system will allow. I have
 taught me to look upon our “Government” as the band which the people
 bind around the bundle of sticks to hold it firm, where every patriot
 hand must grasp the knot the tighter, and our “Constitution” as a
 symmetrical framework unsheltered and unprotected, around which the
 people must rally, and brace and stay themselves among its inner
 timbers, and lash and bind and nail and rivet themselves to its outer
 posts, till in its sheltered strength it bids defiance to every
 elemental jar,--till the winds cannot rack, the sunshine warp, or
 the rains rot, and I would to Heaven that so we rallied and stood
 to-day. If our Government is “_too weak_” to act vigorously and
 energetically, _strengthen it till it can_. Then comes the peace
 we all wait for as kings and prophets waited,--and without which, like
 them, we seek and never find.

 Pardon me, my good friend, I had never thought to speak at this
 length, or, indeed, _any_ length upon this strangely knotted
 subject, so entirely out of my line. My business is stanching blood
 and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet
 and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or
 a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of
 a political movement. I make gruel--not speeches; I write _letters
 home_ for wounded soldiers, not political addresses--and again I
 ask you to pardon, not so much _what_ I have said, as the fact
 of my having said anything in relation to a subject of which, upon the
 very nature of things, I am supposed to be profoundly ignorant.

 With thanks for favors, and hoping to hear from you and yours as usual,

 I remain as ever

  Yours truly

  CLARA BARTON

 I am glad to hear from your wife and mother, and I am most thankful
 for your cordial invitation to visit you, which I shall (if I have
 not forfeited your friendship by my plainness of speech, which _I
 pray_ I may not) accept most joyously, and I am even now rejoicing
 in prospect over my anticipated visit. We are not suffering from heat
 yet, and I am enjoying such horseback rides as seldom fall to the lot
 of ladies, I believe. I don’t know but I should _dare ride with a
 cavalry rider_ by and by, if I continue to practice. I could at
 least take lessons. I have a fine new English leaping saddle on the
 way to me. I hope _you will endeavor_ to see to it that the rebel
 privateers shall not get hold of it. I could not sustain both the loss
 and disappointment, I fear.

 Love to all.

  Yours

  C. B.


While Miss Barton was engaged in these less strenuous occupations she
issued a requisition upon her brother in the Quartermaster’s Department
for a flatiron. She said: “My clothes are as well washed as at home,
and I have a house to iron in if I had the iron. I could be as clean
and as sleek as a kitten. Don’t you want a smooth sister enough to send
her a flatiron?”

In midsummer, hostilities began in earnest. On July 11 an assault
on Fort Wagner was begun from Morris Island, and was followed by a
bombardment, Admiral Dahlgren firing shells from his gunboats, and
General Gillmore opening with his land batteries. Then followed the
charge of the black troops under Colonel R. G. Shaw, and the long siege
in which the “swamp angel,” a two-hundred-pounder Parrott, opened fire
on Charleston. It was then that Clara Barton found what providential
leading had brought her to this place. Not from a sheltered retreat,
but under actual fire of the guns she ministered to the wounded and
the dying. All day long under a hot sun she boiled water to wash
their wounds, and by night she ministered to them, too ardent to
remember her need of sleep. The hot winds drove the sand into her
eyes, and weariness and danger were ever present. But she did her work
unterrified. She saw Colonel Elwell leading the charge, and he believed
that not only himself, but General Voris and Leggett would have died
but for her ministrations.

 Follow me, if you will, through these eight months [Miss Barton said
 shortly afterward]. I remember eight months of weary siege--scorched
 by the sun, chilled by the waves, rocked by the tempest, buried in the
 shifting sands, toiling day after day in the trenches, with the angry
 fire of five forts hissing through their ranks during every day of
 those weary months.

 This was when your brave old regiments stood thundering at the gate
 of proud rebellious Charleston.... There, frowning defiance, with
 Moultrie on her left, Johnson on her right, and Wagner in front, she
 stood hurling fierce death and destruction full in the faces of the
 brave band who beleaguered her walls.

 Sumter, the watch-dog, that stood before her door, lay maimed and
 bleeding at her feet, pierced with shot and torn with shell, the tidal
 waves lapping his wounds. Still there was danger in his growl and
 death in his bite.”[10]

 One summer afternoon our brave little army was drawn up among the
 island sands and formed in line of march. For hours we watched. Dim
 twilight came, then the darkness for which they had waited, while the
 gloom and stillness of death settled down on the gathered forces of
 Morris Island. Then we pressed forward and watched again. A long line
 of phosphorescent light streamed and shot along the waves ever surging
 on our right.

 I remember so well these islands, when the guns and the gunners, the
 muskets and musketeers, struggled for place and foothold among the
 shifting sands. I remember the first swarthy regiments with their
 unsoldierly tread, and the soldierly bearing and noble brows of the
 patient philanthropists who volunteered to lead them. I can see again
 the scarlet flow of blood as it rolled over the black limbs beneath
 my hands and the great heave of the heart before it grew still. And I
 remember Wagner and its six hundred dead, and the great-souled martyr
 that lay there with them when the charge was ended and the guns were
 cold.

Vividly she went on to describe the siege of Fort Wagner from Morris
Island, thus:

 I saw the bayonets glisten. The “swamp angel” threw her bursting
 bombs, the fleet thundered its cannonade, and the dark line of blue
 trailed its way in the dark line of belching walls of Wagner. I saw
 them on, up, and over the parapets into the jaws of death, and heard
 the clang of the death-dealing sabers as they grappled with the foe.
 I saw the ambulances laden down with agony, and the wounded, slowly
 crawling to me down the tide-washed beach, Voris and Cumminger gasping
 in their blood. And I heard the deafening clatter of the hoofs of
 “Old Sam” as Elwell madly galloped up under the walls of the fort for
 orders. I heard the tender, wailing fife, the muffled drum and the
 last shots as the pitiful little graves grew thick in the shifting
 sands.

Of this experience General Elwell afterward wrote:

 I was shot with an Enfield cartridge within one hundred and fifty
 yards of the fort and so disabled that I could not go forward. I was
 in an awful predicament, perfectly exposed to canister from Wagner
 and shell from Gregg and Sumter in front, and the enfilade from James
 Island. I tried to dig a trench in the sand with my saber, into which
 I might crawl, but the dry sand would fall back in place about as fast
 as I could scrape it out with my narrow implement. Failing in this, on
 all fours I crawled toward the lee of the beach, which was but a few
 yards off.... A charge of canister all around me aroused my reverie
 to thoughts of action. I abandoned the idea of taking the fort and
 ordered a retreat of myself, which I undertook to execute in a most
 unmartial manner on my hands and knees spread out like a turtle.

 After working my way for a half-hour and making perhaps two hundred
 yards, two boys of the 62d Ohio found me and carried me to our first
 parallel, where had been arranged an extempore hospital. After resting
 awhile I was put on the horse of my lieutenant-colonel, from which he
 had been shot that night, and started for the lower end of the island
 one and a half miles off, where better hospital arrangements had been
 prepared. Oh, what an awful ride that was! But I got there at last, by
 midnight. I had been on duty for forty-two hours without sleep under
 the most trying circumstances and my soul longed for sleep, which I
 got in this wise: an army blanket was doubled and laid on the soft
 side of a plank with an overcoat for a pillow, on which I laid my
 worn-out body.

 And such a sleep! I dreamed that I heard the shouts of my boys in
 victory, that the rebellion was broken, that the Union was saved, and
 that I was at my old home and that my dear wife was trying to soothe
 my pain....

 My sleepy emotions awoke me and a dear, blessed woman was bathing my
 temples and fanning my fevered face. Clara Barton was there, an angel
 of mercy doing all in mortal power to assuage the miseries of the
 unfortunate soldiers.

While she was still under fire, but after the stress of the first
assault, she found time to send a little note which enables us to
identify with certainty her headquarters. Her work was not done in
the shelter of any of the base hospitals in the general region of
Charleston, it was with the advance hospital and under fire.

The midsummer campaign left Clara Barton desperately sick. She came
very near to laying down her life with the brave men for whose sake
she had freely risked it. What with her own sickness and the strenuous
nature of her service, there is only a single line in her diary (on
Thanksgiving Day) between July 23 and December 1. On July 22 she
personally assisted at two terrible surgical operations as the men were
brought directly in from the field. The soldiers were so badly wounded
she wanted to see them die before the surgeon touched them. But the
surgeons did their work well, and, though it was raining and cold,
she covered them with rubber blankets and was astonished to find how
comfortable they came to be. She returned to see them in the evening
and they were both sleeping soundly. On the following day, the day of
her last entry for the summer, she reported the wounded under her care
as doing well; also, that she had now a man detailed to assume some
of the responsibility for the food of the wounded. Fresh green corn
was available, and she was having hominy cooked for men who had had
quite too much of salt pork. She was arranging the meals, but had other
people to serve them.

Then Clara Barton dropped; her strength gave out. Overcome with fatigue
and sick with fever, she lay for several weeks and wrote neither
letters nor in her journal.

By October she was ready to answer Annie Childs’s thoughtful inquiry
about her wardrobe. There were two successive letters two weeks apart
that consisted almost wholly of the answers she made to the question
wherewithal she should be clothed. Lest we should suppose Clara Barton
to be an institution and not a wholly feminine woman, it is interesting
to notice her concern that these dresses be of proper material and
suitably made.

The dresses arrived with rather surprising promptness, and they fitted
with only minor alterations which she described in detail to Annie.
Toward the end of October she had occasion to write again to Annie
thanking the friends who had remembered her so kindly, and expressing
in her letter the feeling, which she so often recorded in her diary,
that she was not doing as much as she ought to merit the kindness of
her friends. In another letter a few days later, she told of one use
she was making of her riding-skirt; she was furnishing a hospital at
Fort Mitchell, seven miles away, and her ride to that hospital combined
both business and pleasure.

About this time she gathered some trophies and sent to Worcester for
the fair. They were exhibited and sold to add to the resources of the
good people who were providing in various ways for the comfort of the
soldiers. At this time she wrote to other organizations who had sent
her supplies, telling of the good they had done.

But again she fell upon a time of relative inactivity. There were no
more battles to be fought immediately. She again wondered if she had
any right to stay in a place where everything was so comfortable,
especially as Annie Childs had written to her that the Worcester and
Oxford women would not permit her to bear any part of the expense for
the new clothes that had been made for her.

About this time her brother David received a letter from Stephen which
showed that it was useless for her to stay where she was with any
present expectation of securing his relief. He was still remaining
with his property unmolested by both sides, and thought it better to
continue there than run what seemed to him the larger risks of leaving.

One of the most interesting and in its way pathetic entries in her
diary at this season, is a long one on December 5, 1863. Miss Barton
had collided with official arrogance, and had unhappy memories of it.
She probably would have said nothing about it had she not been appealed
to by one of the women at the headquarters to do something to improve
conditions at the regular hospital. And that was something which Clara
Barton simply could not do. She knew better than almost any one else
how much those hospitals lacked of perfection. She herself did not
visit them, excepting as she went there to return official calls.
She had made it plain to those in charge that she had not come to
interfere with any form of established work, but to do a work of her
own in complete sympathy and coöperation with theirs. She knew that
Dorothea Dix had undertaken an impossible task. She saw some nurses
near to where she was who were much more fond of spending pleasant
evenings at headquarters than they were of doing the work for which
they were supposed to have come down. But she also knew that even such
work as she was doing was looked upon by some of them with feelings of
jealousy, as work outside of the general organization, yet receiving
from the public a confidence and recognition not always accorded their
own. One night, after one of the officer’s wives had poured out her
soul to Clara Barton, she poured out her soul to her diary. It is a
very long entry, but it treats of some highly important subjects:

 I moved along to the farther end of the piazza and found Mrs. D., who
 soon made known to me the subject of her desires. As I suspected, the
 matter was hospitals. She has been visiting the hospital at this place
 and has become not only interested, but excited upon the subject; the
 clothing department she finds satisfactory, but the storeroom appears
 empty and a sameness prevailing through food as provided which seems
 to her appalling for a diet for sick men. She states that they have
 no delicacies such as the country at the North are flooding hospitals
 with; that the food is all badly cooked, served cold, and always the
 same thing--dip toast, meat cooked dry, and tea without milk, perhaps
 once a week a potato for each man, or a baked apple. She proposed
 to establish a kitchen department for the serving of proper food to
 these men, irrespective of the pleasure of the “Powers that Be.” She
 expects opposition from the surgeons in charge and Mrs. Russell, the
 matron appointed and stationed by Miss Dix, but thinks to commence
 by littles and work herself in in spite of opposition, or make
 report direct to Washington through Judge Holt, and other influential
 friends and obtain a _carte blanche_ from Secretary Stanton to
 act independently of all parties. She wished to know if I thought it
 would be possible to procure supplies sufficient to carry on such a
 plan, and people to cook and serve if it were once established and
 directed properly. She had just mailed a letter to Miss Dame calling
 upon her to stir people at the North and make a move if possible in
 the right direction. She said General Gillmore took tea with her the
 evening previous and inquired with much feeling, “_How are my poor
 boys?_” She desired me to attend church at the hospital to-morrow
 (Sunday) morning; not with her, but go, pass through, and judge
 for myself. In the meantime the Major came in and the subject was
 discussed generally. I listened attentively, gave it as my opinion
 that there would be no difficulty in obtaining supplies and means
 of paying for the _preparation_ of them, but of the manner and
 feasibility of delivering and distributing them among the patients I
 said nothing. _I had nothing to say._ I partly promised to attend
 church the next morning, and retired having said very little. What I
 have _thought_ is quite another thing. I have no doubt but the
 patients lack many luxuries which the country at large endeavors to
 supply them with, and supposes they have, no doubt; but men suffer and
 die for the lack of the nursing and provisions of the loved ones at
 home. No doubt but the stately, stupendous, and magnificent indolence
 of the “officers in charge” embitters the days of the poor sufferers
 who have become mere machines in the hands of the Government to be
 ruled and oppressed by puffed-up, conceited, and self-sufficient
 superiors in position. No doubt but a good, well-regulated kitchen,
 presided over with a little good common sense and womanly care, would
 change the whole aspect of things and lengthen the days of some, and
 brighten the last days of others of the poor sufferers within the thin
 walls of this hospital. I wish it might be, but what can _I_
 do? First it is not _my_ province; I should be out of place
 there; next, Miss Dix is supreme, and her appointed nurse is matron;
 next, the surgeons will not brook any interference, and will, in my
 opinion, resent and resist the smallest effort to break over their
 own arrangements. What _others_ may be able to do I am unable to
 conjecture, but I feel that _my_ guns are effectually silenced.
 My sympathy is not destroyed, by any means, but my _confidence_
 in my ability to accomplish anything of an alleviating character in
 _this_ department is completely annihilated. I _went_ with
 all I had, to work where I thought I saw greatest need. A man can
 _have_ no greater need than to be saved from death, and after
 six weeks of unremitting toil I was driven from my own tents by the
 selfish _cupidity_ or _stupidity_ of a pompous staff surgeon
 with a little accidental temporary authority, and I by the means
 thrown upon a couch of sickness, from which I barely escaped with
 my life. After four weeks of suffering most intense, I rose in my
 weakness and repaired again to my post, and scarcely were my labors
 recommenced when, through the _same_ influence or _no_
 influence brought to bear upon the General Commanding, I was made
 the subject of a general order, and commanded to leave the island,
 giving me three hours in which to pack, remove, and ship four tons
 of supplies with no assistance that _they_ knew of but one old
 female negro cook. I complied, but was remanded to _Beaufort_
 to labor in the hospitals there. With this portion of the “order”
 I failed to comply, and went home to Hilton Head and wrote the
 Commanding General a full explanation of my position, intention,
 proposed labors, etc., etc., which brought a rather sharp response,
 calling my humanity to account for not being willing to comply
 with his specified request, viz. to labor in Beaufort hospitals;
 insisting upon the plan as gravely as if it had been a possibility
 to be accomplished. But for the extreme ludicrousness of the thing
 I should have felt hurt at the bare thought of such a charge against
 _me_ and from such a quarter. The hospitals were supplied by
 the Sanitary Commission, Miss Dix holding supremacy over all female
 attendants by authority from Washington, Mrs. Lander _claiming_,
 and endeavoring to enforce the same, and scandalizing through the
 Press--each hospital labeled, _No Admittance_, and its surgeons
 bristling like porcupines at the bare sight of a proposed visitor. How
 in reason’s name was I “to labor there”? Should I prepare my food and
 thrust it against the outer walls, in the hope it might strengthen the
 patients inside? Should I tie up my bundle of clothing and creep up
 and deposit it on the doorstep and slink away like a guilty mother,
 and watch afar off to see if the master of the mansion would accept or
 reject the “foundling”? If the Commanding General in his wisdom, when
 he assumed the direction of my affairs, and commanded me _where_
 to labor, had opened the doors for me to enter, the idea would have
 _seemed_ more practical. It did not occur to me at the moment
 how I was to effect an entrance to these hospitals, but I have since
 thought that I might have been _expected_ to watch my opportunity
 some _dark night_, and STORM them, although it must be
 confessed that the popularity of this mode of attack was rather on the
 decline in this department at that time, having reached its height
 very soon after the middle of July.

One other uncomfortable experience Clara Barton had at this time. When
she first began her work for the relief of the soldiers, she went forth
from Washington as a center and still kept up her work in the Patent
Office. When she found that this work was to take all her time, she
approached the Commissioner of Patents and asked to have her place
kept for her, but without salary. He refused this proposal, and said
her salary should continue to be paid. The other clerks, also, were
in hearty accord with this proposal, and offered to distribute her
work among them. But as the months went by, this grew to be a somewhat
laborious undertaking. The number of women clerks in the Patent Office
had increased as so many of the men were in the army. There were twenty
of these women clerks, some of whom had never known Clara Barton, and
they did not see any reason why she should be drawing a salary and
winning fame for work which they were expected to do. Moreover, the
report became current that she was drawing a large salary for her war
work in addition. The women in the Patent Office drew up a “round
robin” demanding that her salary cease. This news, with the report that
the Commissioner had acted upon the request, came to her while she had
other things to trouble her. Had the salary ceased because she was no
longer doing the work, it would have been no more than she had herself
proposed. But when her associates, having volunteered to do the work
for her that her place might be kept and her support continued, became
the agents for the dissemination of a false report, she was hurt and
indignant.

To the honor of Judge Holloway and his associates in the Patent Office,
be it recorded that she received a letter from Judge Holloway that she
had been misinformed about the termination of her salary; there had,
indeed, been such a rumor and request, but he would not have acted on
it without learning the truth, and did not credit it. Her desk would
await her return if he continued as Commissioner.

A few days before Christmas another pleasant event occurred. Her nephew
Stephen, whom she had continued to call “Bub,” arrived in uniform.
Though hardly fifteen, he had enlisted in the telegraph corps, and was
sent to be with her. He became her closest friend in an intimacy of
relation that did not cease until her eyes closed in death; and then,
in her perfect confidence in him, she appointed him her executor.

A letter in this month reviews the experiences of her sojourn at Hilton
Head:

  HILTON HEAD, S.C.
  Wednesday, December 9th, 1863

  MR. PARKER,

  MY DEAR KIND FRIEND:

 It would be impossible for me to tell how many times I have commenced
 to write you. Sometimes I have put my letter by because we were doing
 so little there was nothing of interest to communicate; at other
 times, because there was so much I had not time to tell it, until
 some greater necessity drew me away, and my half-written letter
 became “rubbish” and was destroyed. And now I have but one topic
 which is of decided interest to _me_, and that is so peculiarly
 so that I will hasten to speak of it at once. After _almost_ a
 year’s absence, I am beginning to _think_ about once more coming
 _home_, once more meeting the scores of kind friends I have
 been from so long; and the nearer I bring this object to my view,
 the brighter it appears. The nearer I fancy the meeting, the dearer
 the faces and the kinder the smiles appear to me and the sweeter the
 welcome voices that fall upon my ear. Not that I have not found good
 friends here. None could have been kinder. I came with one brother,
 loving, kind, and considerate; I have met others here scarcely less
 so, and those, too, with whom rested the power to make me comfortable
 and happy, and I have yet to recall the first instance in which they
 have failed to use their utmost endeavor to render me so, and while a
 tear of joy glistens in my eye at the thought of the kind friends I
 hope so soon to meet, there will still linger one of regret for the
 many of those I leave.

 Eight months and two days ago we landed at the dock in this harbor.
 When nations move as rapidly as ours moves at present, that is a
 long time, and in it as a nation we have done much, gained much,
 and suffered much. Still much more remains to be done, much more
 acquired, and I fear much more suffered. Our brave and noble old
 Army of Virginia still marches and fights and the glorious armies of
 the West still fight and conquer; our soldiers still die upon the
 battle-field, pine in hospitals, and languish in prison; the wives and
 sisters and mothers still wait, and weep and hope and toil and pray,
 and the little child, fretting at the long-drawn days, asks in tearful
 impatience, “_When will my papa come?_”

 The first sound which fell upon my ear in this Department was the
 thunder of our guns in Charleston Harbor, and still the proud city
 sits like a queen and dictates terms to our army and navy. Sumter,
 the watch-dog that lay before her door, fell, maimed and bleeding, it
 is true; still there is defiance in his growl, and death in his bite,
 and pierced and prostrate as he lies with the tidal waves lapping his
 wounds, it were worth _our_ lives, and more than _his_, to
 go and take him.

 We have captured one fort--Gregg--and one charnel house--Wagner--and
 we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little
 sand-hills that glitter in the pale moonlight are a thousand
 headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and break upon the
 whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to the toil-worn, gallant dead
 who sleep beside.

As the year drew to a close, the conviction grew stronger that her work
in this field was done. Charleston still resisted attempts to recapture
it. Sumter, though demolished, was in the hands of the Confederates.
There was no prospect of immediate battle, and unless there was
fresh bloodshed there was no imperative call for her. Moreover,
little jealousies and petty factions grew up around the hospitals and
headquarters, where there were few women and many men, and there were
rumors of mismanagement which she must hear, but not reply to. She had
many happy experiences to remember, and she left a record of much good
done. But her work was finished at that place. In her last entries in
her diary she is disposing of her remaining stores, packing her trunk,
and when, after a rather long interval, we hear from her again, she is
in Washington.

[10] Fort Sumter, fiercely bombarded July 24, repulsed an assault
against it on September 8, and was not completely silenced until
October 26.




CHAPTER XVII

FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE JAMES

IN THE YEAR 1864


Clara Barton returned from Port Royal and Hilton Head sometime in
January, 1864. On January 28 she was in Worcester, whence she addressed
a letter to Colonel Clark in regard to the forthcoming reunion of
veterans in Worcester. She did not expect to be present, as her stay in
Massachusetts was to be brief.

On Sunday, February 14, she was in Brooklyn, and, as usual, went to
hear Henry Ward Beecher. He preached on “Unwritten Heroism,” and
related some heroic incidents in the life of an Irish servant girl who,
all unknown to fame, was still a heroine. Clara meditated on the sermon
and regretted that she herself was not more heroic.

Before many days she was in Washington. It was rainy and cold. She
found very little that was inspiring. Her room was cheerless, though
she does not say so, but the little touches which she gave to it, as
recorded, show how bare and comfortless it must have been. Her salary
at the Patent Office continued, but it now becomes apparent that the
arrangement whereby the other women in the Patent Office were to do
her work had not continued indefinitely. She was hiring a partially
disabled man to do her writing and was dividing her salary with him.
Out of the balance she paid the rent of her room, eighty-four dollars a
year, payable a year in advance. It was not exorbitant rent considering
the demand for space in Washington. But it was a cheerless place, and
she did not occupy it much. Principally, it was a storehouse for her
supplies, with a place partitioned off for her own bedroom. She had
many callers, however, Senator Wilson coming to see her frequently,
and aiding her in every possible way. More than once she gave him
information which he, as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs
of the United States Senate, utilized with far-reaching results.
Sometimes she told him in the most uncompromising manner of what she
regarded as abuses which she had witnessed. There were times when men
seemed to her very cowardly, and the Government machinery very clumsy
and ineffective. On the evening of April 13, 1864, she was fairly well
disgusted with all mankind. She thus wrote her opinion of the human
race, referring particularly to the masculine part of it:

 I am thinking very busily about the result of the investigation into
 the Florida matter. Is General Seymour to be sacrificed when so many
 hundred people and the _men_ know it to be all based on falsehood
 and wrong? Is there no manly justice in the world? Is there not one
 among them all that _dares_ risk the little of military station
 he may possess to come out and speak the truth, and do the right? Oh,
 pity! O Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him!

The next day was not a cheerful day for her. She was still brooding
on some of these same matters. She tried in those days to escape from
these unhappy reflections by going where she would be compelled to
think of something else. But not even in church could she always keep
her mind off of them. She wrote at length in her diary on the morning
of the 14th, and that evening, when Senator Wilson called, she told
him what she thought of the United States Army, the United States
Senate, and of people and things in general:

 _Thursday, April 14th, 1864._ This was one of the most
 down-spirited days that ever came to me. All the world appeared
 selfish and treacherous. I can get no hold on a good noble sentiment
 _anywhere_. I have scanned over and over the whole moral horizon
 and it is all dark, the night clouds seem to have shut down, so
 stagnant, so dead, so selfish, so calculating. Is there no right?
 Are there no consequences attending wrong? How shall the world move
 on in all this weight of dead, morbid meanness? Shall lies prevail
 forevermore? Look at the state of things, both civil and military,
 that curse our Government. The pompous air with which little dishonest
 pimps lord it over their betters. Contractors ruining the Nation,
 and oppressing the poor, and no one rebukes them. See a monkey-faced
 official, not twenty rods from me, oppressing and degrading poor women
 who come up to his stall to feed their children, that he may steal
 with better grace and show to the Government how much his economy
 saves it each month. Poor blind Government never feels inside his
 pockets, pouching with ill-gotten gain, heavy with sin. His whole
 department know it, but it might not be quite _wise_ for them to
 speak--they will tell it freely enough, but will not, dare not affirm
 it--COWARDS! Congress knows it, but no one can see that it
 will make votes for him at home by meddling with it, so it is winked
 at. The Cabinet know it, but people that live in glass houses must
 not throw stones. So it rests, and the women live lighter and _sink
 lower_, God help them. And next an ambitious, dishonest General
 lays a political plot to be executed with human life. He is to create
 a Senator, some memberships, a Governor, commissions, and all the
 various offices of a state, and the grateful recipients are to repay
 the favor by gaining for him his confirmation as Major-General. So the
 poor rank and file are marched out to do the job, a leader is selected
 known to be _brave_ to rashness if need be, and given the command
 in the dark, that he may never be able to claim any portion of the
 glory--so that he cannot say _I_ did it. Doomed, and he knows it,
 he is sent on, remonstrates, comes back and explains, is left alone
 with the responsibility on his shoulders, forces divided, animals
 starving, men suffering, enemy massing in front, and still there he
 is. Suddenly he is attacked, defeated as he expected he must be,
 and the world is shocked by the tales of his rashness and procedure
 contrary to orders. He cannot speak; he is a subordinate officer and
 must remain silent; the thousands with him know it, but _they_
 must not speak; Congress does _not_ know it, and refuses to be
 informed; and the doomed one is condemned and the guilty one asks
 for his reward, and the admiring world claims it for him. He has had
 a battle and _only lost_ two thousand men and gained nothing.
 Surely, this deserved something. And still the world moves on. No
 wonder it looks dark, though, to those who do not wear the tinsel. And
 so my day has been weary with these thoughts, and my heart heavy and I
 cannot raise it--I doubt the justice of _almost_ all I see.

 Evening. At eight Mr. Wilson called. I asked him if the investigation
 was closed. He replied yes, and that General Seymour would leave the
 Department in disgrace. This was too much for my fretted soul, and I
 poured out the vials of my indignation in no stinted measure. I told
 him the facts, and what I thought of a Committee that was too imbecile
 to listen to the truth when it was presented to them; that they had
 made themselves a laughing-stock for even the privates in the service
 by their stupendous inactivity and gullibility; that they were all
 a set of dupes, not to say knaves, for I knew Gray of New York had
 been on using all his blarney with them that was possible to wipe
 over them. When I had freed my mind, and it was some time, he looked
 amazed and called for a written statement. I promised it. He left. I
 was anxious to possess myself of the most reliable facts in existence
 and decide to go to New York and see Colonel Hall and Dr. Marsh again;
 make my toilet ready, write some letters, and at three o’clock retired.

From all of this it will appear that Clara Barton had a rather gloomy
time of it after her return to Washington. Old friends called on her
and she was amid pleasant surroundings, but she was ill at ease. The
Army of the Potomac had failed to hold its old position north of
the Rappahannock. She anticipated the same old round which she had
witnessed, marching and counter-marching with ineffective fighting,
great suffering, and no permanent results. Nor did she see how she
was henceforth to be of much assistance. The Sanitary and Christian
Commissions were doing increasingly effective work in the gathering and
distribution of supplies. The hospitals were approaching what ought to
have been a state of efficiency. There seemed little place for her. She
went to the War Department to obtain blanket passes, permitting herself
and friend to go wherever she might deem it wise to go, and to have
transportation for their supplies. She could hardly ask for anything
less if she were to ask for anything, but it was a larger request than
Secretary Stanton was at that time ready to grant. Her attempts to
secure what she deemed necessary through the Medical Department were
unavailing. The Medical Department thought itself competent to manage
its own affairs. But she knew that there was desperate need of the kind
of service which she could render.

For a time she questioned seriously whether she should not give up
the whole attempt to return to the front. She even considered the
possibility of asking for her old desk at the Patent Office, and
letting the doctors and nurses take care of the wounded in the way they
thought best.

The national conventions were approaching. A woman in Ohio who had
worked with her on the battle-field wrote asking Miss Barton for whom
she intended to vote. She replied at considerable length. She intended
to vote for the Republican candidate whoever he might be, because in so
doing she would vote for the Union. She would not vote for McClellan
nor for any other candidate nominated by his party. For three years
she had been voting for Abraham Lincoln. She thought she still would
vote for him; she trusted him and believed in him. But still if the
Republicans should nominate Frémont, she would not withhold her
approval. There was in Washington and in the army so much incompetence,
so much rascality, it was possible that another President--especially
one with military experience--would push the war to a speedier finish,
and rout out some of the rascality she saw in Washington. She thought
that Frémont might possibly have some advantage over Lincoln in this
respect. But she rather hoped Lincoln would be renominated. He was so
worthy, so honest, so kind, and the people could trust him. Though the
abuses which had grown up under his administration were great, they
were mostly inevitable. And so she rather thought she would vote for
Lincoln, even in preference to the very popular hero, Frémont. Frémont
had, indeed, seen, sooner than Lincoln, the necessity of abolition,
and she thought would have a stronger grip on military affairs. But her
heart was with Lincoln.

While she was waiting for a new call to service and was busy every day
with a multitude of cares, she heard a lecture by the Reverend George
Thompson, which is of interest because it enables us to discover how
she now had come to feel about “Old John Brown.” It will be remembered
that she had not wholly approved the John Brown raid, nor shared in
the public demonstrations that followed his execution. She had come,
however, to a very different feeling with regard to him. On April 6,
1864, George Thompson, the abolitionist, gave an address in Washington.
The address was delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives,
and the President and Cabinet were among those who attended. Clara
Barton was present, and close beside her in the gallery sat John
Brown’s brother.

For a few days previous she had been reading “No Name,” by Wilkie
Collins. She compared his style to that of Dickens with some
discriminating comments on the literary work of each. But she
discontinued “No Name” when near the end of it, in order to read in
preparation for the lecture by George Thompson. It will be well to
quote her entry in her diary for the 5th and 6th of April:

 _Washington, April 5th, 1864, Tuesday._ Rained all day just as if
 it had not rained every other day for almost two weeks, and I read as
 steadily indoors as it rained out; am nearly through with “No Name.”
 Until 4 o’clock P.M. I had no disturbance, and then a most
 pleasant one. Mr. Brown came in to bring me letters from Mary Norton
 and Julia, and next to ask me to mend a little clothing, and next to
 present me a beautiful scrapbook designed for _my own_ articles.
 It is a very beautiful article and I prize it much. Then my friend,
 Mr. Parker, called for a chat, and I read to him some two hours, in
 order to prepare his mind for George Thompson’s lecture which is to
 occur to-morrow night. Then a call from Senator W., and next Dr.
 Elliott which lasted till just now, and it is almost eleven o’clock,
 and I have set my fire out and apparently passed the day to little
 purpose; still, I think it has glided away very innocently, and with a
 few minutes’ preparation I shall retire with a grateful heart for the
 even, pleasant days which run so smoothly in my course.

 _Washington, April 6th, 1864, Wednesday._ There are signs of
 clear weather, although it is by no means an established fact yet. I
 laid my reading aside, and took up my pen to address a letter to Mr.
 Wilson. I wrote at greater length than I had expected and occupied
 quite a portion of the day. The subject woke up the recollection of
 a train of ills and wrongs submitted to and borne so long that I
 suffered intensely in the reproduction of them, but I did reproduce,
 whether to any purpose or not time will reveal. It is not to be
 supposed that any decided revolution is to follow, as this is never
 to be looked for in my case. I have done expecting it, and done, I
 trust, with my efforts in behalf of others. I must take the little
 remnant of life that may remain to me as my own special property, and
 appropriate it accordingly. I had asked an appointment, as before
 referred to. I find I cannot make the use of it I had desired, and
 I have asked to recall the application. I have said I could not
 afford to make it. This was the day preceding the night of Mr. George
 Thompson’s lecture in the Hall of Representatives. I went early
 with Mr. Brown. We went into the gallery and took a front seat in a
 side gallery. The House commenced to fill very rapidly with one of
 the finest-looking audiences that could be gathered in Washington.
 Conspicuous among them were Mr. Chase, Governor Sprague, Senator
 Wilson, Governor Boutwell and lady, Speaker Colfax, Thad. Stevens,
 and, to cap all, the brother of “Old John Brown” came and sat with us.
 At eight the orator of the evening entered the Hall in the same group
 with President Lincoln, Vice-President Hamlin, Rev. Mr. Pierpont, and
 others whom I did not recognize. Preliminary remarks were made by
 Mr. Pierpont. Next followed Mr. Hamlin, who introduced Mr. Thompson,
 who arose under so severe emotions that he could scarce utter a
 word. It seemed for a time that he would fall before the audience
 he had come to address. The contrast was evidently too great to be
 contemplated with composure; his sensitive mind reverted doubtless to
 his previous visits to this country, when he had seen himself hung
 and burnt in effigy, been mobbed, stoned, and assailed with “filthy
 missiles,” and now he stood, almost deafened with applause, in the
 Hall of Representatives of America, America “free” from the shackles
 of slavery, and to address the President, and great political heads
 of the Nation. No wonder he was overcome, no wonder that the air
 felt thick, and his words came feebly, and his body bent beneath
 the weight of the contrast, the glorious consummation of all he had
 so earnestly labored and so devoutly prayed for. But by degrees his
 strength returned, and the rich melody of his voice filled every inch
 of the vast hall, and delighted every loyal, truth-loving ear. It
 would be useless for me to attempt a description of his address--it
 is so far immortal as to be always found, I trust, among the records
 of the glorious doings and sayings of our country’s supporters. His
 endorsement of the President was one of the most touching and sublime
 things I have ever heard uttered, and the messages from England to him
 breathed a spirit of friendship which I was not prepared to listen
 to. Surely we are not to growl at and complain of England as jealous
 and hostile when her working-people, deprived of their daily labor
 and the support of their families through our difficulties, bid us
 Godspeed, and never to yield till our purpose has been accomplished,
 and congratulate us upon having achieved our independence in the War
 of the Revolution, and ask us now to go on and achieve a still greater
 independence, which shall embrace the whole civilized world. Surely
 these words show a nobler spirit in England than we had any reason or
 real right to expect. His remarks touching John Brown were strong,
 and, sitting as I was, watching the immediate effect upon the brother
 at my side, and when in a few minutes the band struck up the familiar
 air dedicated to him the world over, I truly felt that John Brown’s
 Soul _was_ marching on, and that the mouldering in the grave was
 of little account; the brother evidently felt the same. There was a
 glistening of the eye and a compression of the lip which spoke it all
 and more; he was evidently proud of the gallows rope that hung Old
 John Brown, “Old Hero Brown!”

 On leaving the Hall, Mr. Parker joined us, and we all took a cream at
 Simmod’s and returned, and I made good my escape to my room.

Since her return from Hilton Head, she had been furnished no passes.
Official Washington had forgotten her in her year of absence. But there
came a day when Clara Barton had no difficulty in obtaining passes, and
when all Washington was willing enough to have her go to the front.
That was when the battle of Spotsylvania occurred, May 8, 1864. It took
Washington a day or two to realize the gravity of the situation; and
Clara Barton was begging and imploring the opportunity to hasten at the
sound of the first gun. There was refusal and delay; then, when it was
realized that more than 2700 men had been killed and more than 13,000
wounded, her passes came. General Rucker, who had been endeavoring to
secure them for her, obtained them, and sent them in haste by special
messenger; and Clara Barton was back on the boat, landing, as so often
before, at Acquia Creek, and wading through the red mud to where the
wounded were.

They were everywhere; and most of all they were in wagons sunk to the
hub in mud, and stalled where they could not get out, while men groaned
and died and maggots crawled in their wounds. Bitterly she lamented the
lost hours while she had been clamoring for passes; but now she set
herself to work with such facilities as she could command, first for
the relief of the wounded men in wagons:

 The terrible slaughter of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania turned all
 pitying hearts and helping hands once more to Fredericksburg [she
 wrote afterward]. And no one who reached it by way of Belle Plain,
 while this latter constituted the base of supplies for General Grant’s
 army, can have forgotten the peculiar geographical location, and
 the consequent fearful condition of the country immediately about
 the landing, which consisted of a narrow ridge of high land on the
 left bank of the river. Along the right extended the river itself.
 On the left, the hills towered up almost to a mountain height. The
 same ridge of high land was in front at a quarter of a mile distant,
 through which a narrow defile formed the road leading out, and on to
 Fredericksburg, ten miles away, thus leaving a level space or basin of
 an area of a fourth of a mile, directly in front of the landing.

 Across this small plain all transportation to and from the army must
 necessarily pass. The soil was red clay. The ten thousand wheels
 and hoofs had ground it to a powder, and a sudden rain upon the
 surrounding hills had converted the entire basin into one vast
 mortar-bed, smooth and glassy as a lake, and much the color of light
 brick dust.

 The poor, mutilated, starving sufferers of the Wilderness were pouring
 into Fredericksburg by thousands--all to be taken away in army wagons
 across ten miles of alternate hills, and hollows, stumps, roots, and
 mud!

 The boats from Washington to Belle Plain were loaded down with fresh
 troops, while the wagons from Fredericksburg to Belle Plain were
 loaded with wounded men and went back with supplies. The exchange was
 transacted on this narrow ridge, called the landing.

 I arrived from Washington with such supplies as I could take. It
 was still raining. Some members of the Christian Commission had
 reached an earlier boat, and, being unable to obtain transportation
 to Fredericksburg, had erected a tent or two on the ridge and were
 evidently considering what to do next.

 To nearly or quite all of them the experience and scene were entirely
 new. Most of them were clergymen, who had left at a day’s notice, by
 request of the distracted fathers and mothers who could not go to the
 relief of the dear ones stricken down by thousands, and thus begged
 those in whom they had the most confidence to go for them. They went
 willingly, but it was no easy task they had undertaken. It was hard
 enough for old workers who commenced early and were inured to the life
 and its work.

 I shall never forget the scene which met my eye as I stepped from the
 boat to the top of the ridge. Standing in this plain of mortar-mud
 were at least two hundred six-mule army wagons, crowded full of
 wounded men waiting to be taken upon the boats for Washington. They
 had driven from Fredericksburg that morning. Each driver had gotten
 his wagon as far as he could, for those in front of and about him had
 stopped.

 Of the depth of the mud, the best judgment was formed from the fact
 that no entire hub of a wheel was in sight, and you saw nothing of
 any animal below its knees and the mass of mud all settled into place
 perfectly smooth and glassy.

 As I contemplated the scene, a young, intelligent, delicate gentleman,
 evidently a clergyman, approached me, and said anxiously, but almost
 timidly: “Madam, do you think those wagons are filled with wounded
 men?”

 I replied that they undoubtedly were, and waiting to be placed on the
 boats then unloading.

 “How long must they wait?” he asked.

 I said that, judging from the capacity of the boats, I thought they
 could not be ready to leave much before night.

 “What can we do for them?” he asked, still more anxiously.

 “They are hungry and must be fed,” I replied.

 For a moment his countenance brightened, then fell again as he
 exclaimed: “What a pity; we have a great deal of clothing and reading
 matter, but no food in any quantity, excepting crackers.”

 I told him that I had coffee and that between us I thought we could
 arrange to give them all hot coffee and crackers.

 “But where shall we make our coffee?” he inquired, gazing wistfully
 about the bare wet hillside.

 I pointed to a little hollow beside a stump. “There is a good place
 for a fire,” I explained, “and any of this loose brush will do.”

 “Just here?” he asked.

 “Just here, sir.”

 He gathered the brush manfully and very soon we had some fire and a
 great deal of smoke, two crotched sticks and a crane, if you please,
 and presently a dozen camp-kettles of steaming hot coffee. My helper’s
 pale face grew almost as bright as the flames and the smutty brands
 looked blacker than ever in his slim white fingers.

 Suddenly a new difficulty met him. “Our crackers are in barrels, and
 we have neither basket nor box. How can we carry them?”

 I suggested that aprons would be better than either, and, getting
 something as near the size and shape of a common tablecloth as I could
 find, tied one about him and one about me, fastened all four of the
 corners to the waist, and pinned the sides, thus leaving one hand for
 a kettle of coffee and one free, to administer it.

 Thus equipped we moved down the slope. Twenty steps brought us to the
 abrupt edge which joined the mud, much as the bank of a canal does the
 black line of water beside it.

 But here came the crowning obstacle of all. So completely had the
 man been engrossed in his work, so delighted as one difficulty after
 another vanished and success became more and more apparent, that he
 entirely lost sight of the distance and difficulties between himself
 and the objects to be served.

 If you could have seen the expression of consternation and dismay
 depicted in every feature of his fine face, as he imploringly
 exclaimed, “How are we to get to them?”

 “There is no way but to walk,” I answered.

 He gave me one more look as much as to say, “Are you going to step
 in there?” I allowed no time for the question, but, in spite of all
 the solemnity of the occasion, and the terribleness of the scene
 before me, I found myself striving hard to keep the muscles of my
 face all straight. As it was, the corners of my mouth would draw into
 wickedness, as with a backward glance I saw the good man tighten his
 grasp upon his apron and take his first step into military life.

 But thank God, it was not his last.

 I believe it is recorded in heaven--the faithful work performed by
 that Christian Commission minister through long weary months of rain
 and dust and summer suns and winter snows. The sick soldier blessed
 and the dying prayed for him, as through many a dreadful day he stood
 fearless and firm among fire and smoke (not made of brush), and walked
 calmly and unquestioningly through something redder and thicker than
 the mud of Belle Plain.

 No one has forgotten the heart-sickness which spread over the entire
 country as the busy wires flashed the dire tidings of the terrible
 destitution and suffering of the wounded of the Wilderness whom I
 attended as they lay in Fredericksburg. But you may never have known
 how many hundredfold of these ills were augmented by the conduct of
 improper, heartless, unfaithful officers in the immediate command of
 the city and upon whose actions and indecisions depended entirely the
 care, food, shelter, comfort, and lives of that whole city of wounded
 men. One of the highest officers there has since been convicted a
 traitor. And another, a little dapper captain quartered with the
 owners of one of the finest mansions in the town, boasted that he had
 changed his opinion since entering the city the day before; that it
 was in fact a pretty hard thing for refined people like the people of
 Fredericksburg to be compelled to open their homes and admit “these
 dirty, lousy, common soldiers,” and that he was not going to compel it.

 This I heard him say, and waited until I saw him make his words good,
 till I saw, crowded into one old sunken hotel, lying helpless upon
 its bare, wet, bloody floors, five hundred fainting men hold up their
 cold, bloodless, dingy hands, as I passed, and beg me in Heaven’s name
 for a cracker to keep them from starving (and I had none); or to give
 them a cup that they might have something to drink water from, if
 they could get it (and I had no cup and could get none); till I saw
 two hundred six-mule army wagons in a line, ranged down the street
 to headquarters, and reaching so far out on the Wilderness road that
 I never found the end of it; every wagon crowded with wounded men,
 stopped, standing in the rain and mud, wrenched back and forth by the
 restless, hungry animals all night from four o’clock in the afternoon
 till eight next morning and how much longer I know not. The dark spot
 in the mud under many a wagon, told only too plainly where some poor
 fellow’s life had dripped out in those dreadful hours.

 I remembered one man who would set it right, if he knew it, who
 possessed the power and who would believe me if I told him [says
 Miss Barton in describing this experience]. I commanded immediate
 conveyance back to Belle Plain. With difficulty I obtained it, and
 four stout horses with a light army wagon took me ten miles at an
 unbroken gallop, through field and swamp and stumps and mud to Belle
 Plain and a steam tug at once to Washington. Landing at dusk I sent
 for Henry Wilson, chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate. A
 messenger brought him at eight, saddened and appalled like every other
 patriot in that fearful hour, at the weight of woe under which the
 Nation staggered, groaned, and wept.

 He listened to the story of suffering and faithlessness, and hurried
 from my presence, with lips compressed and face like ashes. At ten he
 stood in the War Department. They could not credit his report. He must
 have been deceived by some frightened villain. No official report of
 unusual suffering had reached them. Nothing had been called for by the
 military authorities commanding Fredericksburg.

 Mr. Wilson assured them that the officers in trust there were not to
 be relied upon. They were faithless, overcome by the blandishments
 of the wily inhabitants. Still the Department doubted. It was then
 that he proved that my confidence in his firmness was not misplaced,
 as, facing his doubters he replies: “One of two things will have
 to be done--either you will send some one to-night with the power
 to investigate and correct the abuses of our wounded men at
 Fredericksburg, or the Senate will send some one to-morrow.”

 This threat recalled their scattered senses.

 At two o’clock in the morning the Quartermaster-General and staff
 galloped to the 6th Street wharf under orders; at ten they were in
 Fredericksburg. At noon the wounded men were fed from the food of the
 city and the houses were opened to the “_dirty, lousy_ soldiers”
 of the Union Army.

 Both railroad and canal were opened. In three days I returned with
 carloads of supplies.

 No more jolting in army wagons! And every man who left Fredericksburg
 by boat or by car owes it to the firm decision of one man that his
 grating bones were not dragged ten miles across the country or left to
 bleach in the sands of that city.

Yes, they owed it all to Senator Wilson. And he owed it to Clara Barton.

Why was there such neglect, and why did no one else report it?

The surgeons on the front were busy, and they did not see it. The
surgeons and nurses in the base hospitals were busy, and they knew
nothing of it. Military commanders only knew that the roads were bad,
and that it was difficult to move troops to the front or wounded
men back to the rear, but supposed that the best was being made of
a bad matter. But Clara Barton knew that, if some one in authority
could realize that thousands of men were suffering needless agony and
hundreds were dying who might be saved, something would be done.

Something was done; and many a soldier who lived and regained his
health had reason, without knowing it, to bless the name of Clara
Barton.

At the close of the Wilderness campaign, Clara Barton found time to
answer some letters and acknowledge some remittances. In one of these
letters she answered the question why, being as she was in close
touch and entire sympathy with the work of the Sanitary and Christian
Commissions, she still continued to do her work independently. It is a
thoroughly characteristic letter:

  May 30, 1864

 ... The question would naturally arise with strangers, why I, feeling
 so in unison with the Commission and among whose members I number my
 best friends, should maintain a separated organization. To those who
 know me it is obvious. Long before either commission was in the field,
 or had even an existence, I was laboring by myself for the little I
 might be able to accomplish and, gathering such helpers about me as
 I was best able to do, toiled in the front of our armies wherever I
 could reach, and thus I have labored on up to the present time. Death
 has sometimes laid his hand upon the active forces of my co-workers
 and stilled the steps most useful to me, but others have risen up to
 supply the place, and now it does not seem wise or desirable, after
 all this time, to change my course. If I have by practice acquired
 any skill, it belongs to me to use untrammeled, and I might not work
 as efficiently, or labor as happily, under the direction of those
 of less experience than myself. It is simply just to all parties
 that I retain my present position, and through all up to the present
 time I have been always able to meet my own demands with such little
 supplies as came voluntarily from my circle of personal friends,
 which fortunately was not small. But the necessities of the present
 campaign were well-nigh overwhelming, and my duty required that I
 gather all I could, even if I shouted aloud to strangers for those
 who lay fainting and speechless by the wayside or moaning in this
 wilderness. I did so and such responses as yours have been the reply.
 Dearly do I think God poured his blessing on my little work, for the
 friends He has raised up to aid me, for the uninterrupted health and
 unfailing strength He has given me, and more and more with each day’s
 observation do I stand overawed by the great lessons He is teaching
 us His children, grand and stern as the earthquake’s shock, judgments
 soft and terrible as the lightning stroke. He is leading us back to
 a sense of justice and duty and humanity, while our thousand guns
 flash freedom and our martyrs die. It is a terrible sacrifice which
 He requires at our hands and in obedience the Nation has builded its
 altar and uplifted its arm of faith and the knife gleams above the
 child. He who commands it alone knows when His angel shall call from
 heaven to stay our hands and bid us no longer slay our own. Then may
 we find hidden in the peaceful thicket the appropriate sacrifice that
 in blessing He may bless us, that our young men return together, that
 our seed shall possess the gates of our enemies, and that all the
 nations of the earth be blessed.




CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE END OF THE WAR


At the end of May, 1864, Clara Barton was in Washington. She wrote to
her brother David informing him of her return to the city on the night
of May 24. There had been, she told him, a series of terrible battles;
she doubted if history had ever known men to be mowed down in regiments
as in these battles. Victory had been won, but it was incomplete, and
the cost had been terrible. She had seen nine thousand Confederate
prisoners.

As to her future plans, she thought she would not go out from
Washington a great deal during the excessively hot weather. She
remembered her sickness of the previous summer, and did not wish to
repeat it. But as for keeping her away in case there should be a
battle, she would not count a kindness on anybody’s part to attempt
that. She said: “I suppose I should feel about as much benefited as
my goldfish would if some kind-hearted person should take him out of
his vase where he looked so wet and cold, and wrap him up in warm, dry
flannel. We can’t live out of our natural element, can we? I’ll keep
quiet when the war is over.”

She was not permitted to stay in Washington and guard her health. She
was appointed Superintendent of the Department of Nurses for the Army
of the James. She was under the authority of Surgeon McCormack, Chief
Medical Director. The army was commanded by General B. F. Butler. She
entered this new field of service June 18, 1864. We have a letter which
she wrote concerning a celebration, such as it was, of the 4th of July.

  POINT OF ROCKS, VA., July 5, 1864
  General Butler’s Department

  MY MOST ESTEEMED AND DEAR FRIEND:

 Here in the sunshine and dust and toil and confusion of camp life,
 the mercury above a hundred, the atmosphere and everything about
 black with flies, the dust rolling away in clouds as far as the
 eye can penetrate, the ashy ground covered with scores of hospital
 tents shielding nearly all conceivable maladies that _soldier_
 “flesh” is heir to, and stretching on beyond the miles of
 bristling fortifications, entrenchments, and batteries encircling
 Petersburg,--all ready to _blaze_,--just here in the midst of all
 this your refreshing letter dropped in upon me.

 NEW YORK! It seemed to me that in the very postmark I could
 see pictured nice Venetian blinds, darkened rooms where never a fly
 dared enter, shady yards with cool fountains throwing their spray
 almost in at the open windows, watered streets flecked with the
 changing shadows of waving trees, bubbling soda fountains and water
 ices and grottoes and pony gallops in Central Park and cool drives
 at evening, and much more I have not time to enumerate, and for an
 instant I fear human selfishness triumphed, and, before I was aware,
 the mind had instinctively drawn a contrast, and the sun’s rays glowed
 hotter and fiercer, and the dust rolled heavier, and my wayward heart
 complained to me that I was ever in the sun or dust or mud or frost,
 and impatiently asked if all the years of my life should pass and I
 never know again a season of quiet rest; and I confess it with shame.
 I trust that the suddenness with which it was rebuked may atone for
 its wickedness in some degree, and when I remembered the thousands who
 would so gladly come and share the toils with us, if only they could
 be free to do so, I gave thanks anew for my great privileges, and
 broke the seal of the welcome missive.

 And you find hot weather even there, and have time among all the
 business of that driving city to remember the worn-out sufferers who
 are lying so helpless about us, many of whom have fought the last
 fight, kept the last watch, and, standing at the outer post, only wait
 to be relieved. The march has been toilsome, but the relief comes
 speedily at last--sometimes almost before we are aware. Yesterday in
 passing through a ward (if wards they might be termed) filled mostly
 from the U.S. Colored Regiments I stopped beside a sergeant who had
 appeared weak all day, but made no complaint, and asked how he was
 feeling then. Looking up in my face, he replied, “Thank you, Miss,
 a little better, I hope.” “Can I do anything for you?” I asked. “A
 little water, if you please.” I turned to get it, and that instant he
 gasped and was gone. Men frequently reach us at noon and have passed
 away before night. For such we can only grieve, for there is little
 opportunity to labor in their cases. I find a large number of colored
 people, mostly women and children, left in this vicinity, the stronger
 having been taken by their owners “up country.” In all cases they are
 destitute, having stood the sack of two opposing armies--what one army
 left them, the other has taken.

 On the plantation which forms the site of this hospital is a colored
 woman, the house servant of the former owner, with thirteen children,
 eight with her and five of her oldest taken away. The rebel troops had
 taken her bedding and clothing and ours had taken her money, forty
 dollars in gold, which she had saved, she said, and I do not doubt
 her statement in the least. I gave her all the food I had that was
 suitable for her and her children and shall try to find employment for
 her.

 For the last few days we have been constantly meeting and caring for
 the wounded and broken-down from Wilson’s cavalry raid; they have
 endured more than could be expected of men, and are still brave and
 cheerful under their sufferings.

 I hope I shall not surprise you by the information that we celebrated
 the Fourth (yesterday) by giving an extra dinner. We invited in the
 lame, the halt, and the blind to the number of some two hundred or
 more to partake of roast beef, new potatoes, squash, blancmange,
 cake, etc., etc. We had music, not by the band, but from the
 vicinity of Petersburg, and, if not so sweet and perfectly timed as
 that discoursed by some of your excellent city bands, it must be
 acknowledged as both startling and thrilling, and was received with
 repeated “_bursts_.”

 I thank you much for your kind solicitude for my health. I beg to
 assure you that I am perfectly well at present and, with the blessing
 of Heaven, I hope to remain so.

 Of the length of the campaign I have no adequate idea, and can form
 none. I should be happy to write you pages of events as they transpire
 every day, but duty must not be neglected for mere gratification.

 Thus far I have remained at the Corps (which is, in this instance,
 only an overburdened and well-conducted field) hospital. This point,
 from its peculiar location, is peculiarly adapted to this double
 duty service, situated as it is at one terminus of the line of
 entrenchments.

This part of Clara Barton’s war experience is least known of all that
she performed. Her diaries were unkept and as her war lectures were
mostly occupied with her earlier service in the field, they make almost
no reference to this important part of her work. It is through her
letters that we know something of what she experienced and accomplished
in the closing months of 1864, and the early months of 1865. There
is less material here of the kind that makes good newspaper copy or
lecture material than was afforded by her earlier work in the open
field, and it is probably on this account that this period has fallen
so much into the shadow of forgetfulness that it has sometimes been
said that Clara Barton retired from active service after the Wilderness
campaign. Two letters, one to Frances Childs Vassall, and the other
to Annie Childs, give somewhat intimate pictures of her life in this
period, and may be selected out of her correspondence for that purpose.

  TENTH ARMY CORPS HOSPITAL
  September 3rd, 1864

  MY DARLING SIS FANNIE:

 It is almost midnight, and I ought to go to bed this minute, and I
 want to speak to you first, and I am going to indulge my inclination
 just a little minute till this page is down, if no more; but it will
 be all egotism, so be prepared, and don’t blame me. I know you are
 doing well and living just as quietly and happily as you deserve to
 do. I hear from no one, and indeed I scarce write at all; and no one
 would wonder if they could look in upon my family and know besides
 that we had _moved_ this week--yes, _moved_ a family of
 fifteen hundred sick men, and had to keep our housekeeping up all the
 time; and no one to be ready at hand and ask us to take tea the first
 night either.

 I have never told you how I returned--well, safely, and got off from
 City Point and my goods off its dock _just in time_ to avoid that
 terrible catastrophe. I was not blown to atoms, but might have been
 and no one the wiser. I found my “sick family” somewhat magnified on
 my return, and soon the Corps (10th) was ordered to cross the James,
 and make a feint while the Weldon Railroad was captured, and this
 move threw all the sick in Regimental Hospital into our hospital,
 five hundred in one night. Only think of such an addition to a family
 between supper and breakfast and no preparation; and just that morning
 our old cook John and his assistant Peter both came down sick, one
 with inflammation of the lungs and the other with fever. It was
 all the surgeons, stewards, and clerks could do to keep the names
 straight and manage the official portion of the reception; and, would
 you believe it, I stepped into the gap and assumed the responsibility
 of the kitchen and feeding of our twelve hundred, and I held it and
 kept it straight till I selected a new boss cook and got him regularly
 installed and then helped him all the time up to the present day. I
 wish I had some of my bills of fare preserved as they read for the
 day. The variety is by no means so striking as the quantity. Say for
 breakfast seven hundred loaves of bread, one hundred and seventy
 gallons of hot coffee, two large wash-boilers full of tea, one barrel
 of apple sauce, one barrel of sliced boiled pork, or thirty hams, one
 half barrel of corn-starch blancmange, five hundred slices of butter
 toast, one hundred slices of broiled steak, and one hundred and fifty
 patients, to be served with chicken gruel, boiled eggs, etc. For
 dinner we have over two hundred gallons of soup, or boiled dinner of
 three barrels of potatoes, two barrels of turnips, two barrels of
 onions, two barrels of squash, one hundred gallons of minute pudding,
 one wash-boiler full of whiskey sauce for it, or a large washtub full
 of codfish nicely picked, and stirred in a batter to make one hundred
 and fifty gallons of nice home codfish, and the Yankee soldiers cry
 when they taste it (I prepared it just the old home way, and so I
 have everything cooked), and the same toasts and corn starch as for
 breakfast. And then for supper two hundred gallons of rice, and twenty
 gallons of sauce for it, two hundred gallons of tea, toast for a
 thousand, and some days I have made with my own hands ninety apple
 pies. This would make a pie for some six hundred poor fellows who had
 not tasted pie for months, it might be years, sick and could not eat
 much. I save all the broken loaves of bread from transportation and
 make bread puddings in large milk pans; about forty at once will do.
 The patients asked for _gingerbread_, and I got extra flour and
 molasses and make it by the score. I have all the grease preserved
 and clarified, and to-morrow, if our new milk comes, we are to
 commence to make doughnuts. I have a barrel of nice lard ready (they
 had always burned it before to get it out of the way).

 Last Saturday night we learned that we were to change with the
 Eighteenth Corps, and go up in front of Petersburg, and their first
 loads of sick came with the order. At dark I commenced to cook
 puddings and gingerbread, as I could carry them best. At two o’clock
 A.M. I had as many of these as I could carry in an ambulance,
 and packed my own things in an hour, and at three A.M. in the
 dark, started over the pontoon bridge across the Appomattox to our new
 base, about four miles. Got there a little before day, and got some
 breakfast ready about 8.30 for four hundred men that had crossed the
 night previous, nearly one hundred officers. The balance followed, and
 in eighteen hours from the receipt of the order we were all moved--but
 a poor change for us. Since dark forty wounded men have been brought
 in, many of which will prove mortal, one with the shoulder gone, a
 number of legs off, one with both arms gone, some blown up with shells
 and terribly burned, some in the breast. By request of the surgeons,
 I made a pail full of nice thick eggnog (eggs beaten separately and
 seasoned with brandy), and carried all among them, to sleep on, and
 chicken broth, and I have left them all falling asleep, and I have
 stolen away to my tent, which is as bare as a cuckoo’s nest--dirt
 floor, just like the street, a narrow bed of straw, and a three-legged
 stand made of old cracker boxes, and a wash dish. A hospital tent
 without any fly constitutes my apartment and furnishing. And here it
 is one o’clock, damp and cold, one little fellow from the 11th Maine
 dying, whose groans have echoed through the camp for hours. Another
 noble Swiss boy, I fear mortally wounded, who thinks he shall not live
 till morning, and has gained a promise from me that I will see him
 and be with him when he dies (I have still hopes of his recovery).
 Oh, what a volume it would make if I could only write you what I have
 seen, known, heard, and done since I first came to this department,
 June 18th. The most surprising of all of which is (tell Sally) that I
 should have _turned cook_. Who would have “thunk it”?

 I am writing on bits of paper for want of whole sheets. I am entirely
 out. My dresses are equal to the occasion; the skirt is finished, but
 not worn yet. I am choice of it. The striped print gets soiled and
 washes nicely, all just right, and I have plenty, and I bless you
 every day for it. I want so to write Annie a good long letter, but how
 can I get time? Please give her from this, if you please, an idea of
 what I am doing, and she will not blame me so much.

 Tell Sally that our purchases of tinware were just the thing, and but
 for them this hospital could not be kept comfortable a single day,
 not a meal. I wish I had as much more, and a nice stove of my own,
 with suitable stove furniture besides. And I think I could do as much
 good with it as some missionaries are supposed to do. Our spices and
 flavorings were Godsends when I got them here. I wish I had boxes of
 them. I need to use so much in my big cooking. There, I said it would
 be all egotism, but I am too stupid to think of anybody but myself, so
 forgive me. Give my love to all and write your loving Sis,

  CLARA


From letters such as this we are able to rescue from oblivion a full
year of war service of Clara Barton. Contrary to all her previous
intent, she was a head-nurse, in charge of the hospitals of an entire
army corps. Not only so, but she was on occasion chief cook and
purveyor of pie and gingerbread, and picked codfish and New England
boiled dinners so like what the soldiers loved at home that they
sometimes cried for joy. But she did not relinquish her purpose to be
at the front. The front was very near to her. Another of her letters
must be quoted:

  BASE HOSPITAL, 10TH ARMY CORPS
  BROADWAY LANDING, VA.
  Sept. 14th, 1864

  MY DEAR SIS ANNIE:

 Your excellent and comforting letter reached me some time ago, and,
 like its one or two abused predecessors, has vainly waited a reply.
 I cannot tell how badly I have wanted to write you, how impossible I
 found it to get the time. But often enough an attack of illness has
 brought me a leisure hour, and I am almost glad that I can make it
 seem right for me to sit down in daylight and pen a letter.

 For once in my life I am at a loss where to commence. I have been your
 debtor so long, and am so full of unsaid things, that I don’t know
 which idea to let loose first. Perhaps I might as well speak of the
 weather. Well, it _rains_, and that is good for my conscience
 again, for I couldn’t get out in that if I were well enough. Rain
 here means mud, you must understand, but I am sheltered. Why, I have
 a _whole_ house of my own, first and second floors, two rooms
 and a flight of stairs, and a great big fireplace, a bright fire
 burning, a west window below, a south one above, an east door, with
 a soldier-built frame arbor of cedar, twelve feet in front of it and
 all around it, so close and green that a cat couldn’t look in, unless
 at my side opening. It was the negro house for the plantation, and
 was dirty, of course, but ten men with brooms and fifty barrels of
 water made it all right, and they moved me into it one night when I
 was sick, and here I have lain and the winds have blown and the rains
 descended and beat upon my house, and it fell not, and for hours in
 the dark night I have listened to the guy ropes snapping and the tent
 flies flapping in the wind and rain, and thunder and lightning. All
 about me are the frail habitations of my less fortunate neighbors.
 One night I remembered a darling little Massachusetts boy, sick of
 fever and chronic diarrhœa, a mere skeleton, and I knew he was lying
 at the very edge of his ward, tents, of course,--delicate little
 fellow, about fifteen,--and I couldn’t withstand the desire to shield
 him, and sent through the storm and had him brought, bed and all,
 and stored in my lower room, and there he lay like a little kitten,
 so happy, till about noon the next day, when his father, one of the
 wealthy merchants of Suffolk, came for him. He had just heard of his
 illness, had searched through the damp tents for him and finally
 traced him to me. The unexpected sight of his little boy, sheltered,
 warm, and fed, nearly deprived him of speech, but when those pale lips
 said, “Auntie--father--this is _my_ Auntie; doesn’t she look like
 mother?” It was _too much_. Women’s and children’s tears amount
 to little, but the convulsive sobs of a strong man are not forgotten
 in an hour.

 Well, I have made a queer beginning of this letter. One would have
 supposed I should have made it my first duty to speak of the nice
 _box_ that came to me, from you, by Mrs. Rich, and how choice I
 was of it, and did not take it with me the first time I went for fear
 I might not find the most profitable spot to use it in just then till
 I had found my field. As good luck would have it, it did not take long
 to find my field of operations; and nothing but want of time to write
 has prevented me from acknowledging the box many times, and expressing
 the desire that others might follow it. I can form no estimate of what
 I would and should have made use of during the campaign thus far, if
 I had had it to use. I doubt if you at home could _realize_ the
 necessities if I could describe every one accurately, and now the cold
 weather approaches, they will increase in some respects. The army
 is filling up with new troops to a great degree and the nights are
 getting cold....

 I was rejoiced to hear from Lieutenant Hitchcock and that he is
 doing well. You are favored in so pleasant a correspondent as I know
 he must be, and what a comfort to his wife to have him home so soon.
 I hope his wound will not disable him very much. Please give my love
 and congratulations to them when you write. Poor fellows! how sorry
 I was to see them lying there under the trees, so cut and mangled.
 Poor Captain Clark! Do you know if he is alive? the surgeons told me
 he couldn’t survive. I went up again to see them, a day or two after
 they all left. Colonel Gould had gone the day before. Yes! I lost one
 friend. Poor Gardner! He fought bravely and died well, they said, and
 laid his mangled body at the _feet of his foe_. I feel sad when I
 think of it all. “Tired a little”--not tired of the war, but tired of
 our sacrifices.

 I passed a most pleasant hour with Lieutenant Hitchcock. It seemed so
 comfortable and withal so quaint and strange to sit down under the
 sighing pines of Virginia away out in the woods in the war of the
 guns and talk of _you_. I have asked a great many times for Mr.
 Chamberlain and only heard twice--he was well each time, but this
 was not lately. I shall surely go to him if I get near the dear old
 regiment (21st regiment)--that is more than I ever said of any other
 regiment in the service. I am a stranger to them now, I know, after
 all their changes; few of them ever heard of me, and yet the very
 mention of the number calls up all the old-time love and pride I ever
 had. I would divide the last half of my last loaf with any soldier in
 that regiment, though I had never seen him. I honor him for joining
 it, be he who he may; for he knew well if he marched and fought with
 _that_ regiment he had undertaken no child’s play, and those who
 measured steel with them knew it as well.

 The Oxford ladies at work for me again!! I am very glad if they have
 the confidence to do so. I had thought, perhaps, my style of labor
 was not approved by them; but I could not help it. I knew it was
 _rough_, but I thought it none the less necessary. If they do
 so far approve as to send me the proceeds of some of their valuable
 labors, it will be an additional stimulant to me to persevere.

 Do you know I am thinking seriously of remaining “out” the winter
 unless the campaign should come to a sudden and decisive stand, and
 nothing be done and no one exposed.

 _You_ know that my range here is very extended; this department
 is large, and I am invited by General Butler to visit every part of
 it, and all medical and other officers within the department are
 directed to afford me every facility in their power. But so little
 inclination do they display to thwart me that I have _never_
 shown my “pass and order” to an officer since I have been in the
 department. I have had but one trouble since I came, and that has been
 to extend my labor without having the point that I leave miss me.

 We have now in the 10th Corps two main hospitals and no regimental
 hospital; the “base,” where I am at present, about four miles from the
 extreme front, and the “Flying” Hospital three miles farther up--in
 the rear of the front line of works. The most skillful operators
 are always here, and all the surgeons at that post are my old-time
 personal friends. Dr. Barlow I worked with at Cedar Mountain and
 through Pope’s retreat, and again on Morris Island; and he says, if
 I am going to desert my old friends _now_, _just say so_,
 that’s all. And I have stood by Dr. Porter all summer, and Porter says
 he will share me some with the upper hospital, but I must not leave
 the Corps on any condition whatever. And yet the surgeon in charge of
 one of the largest corps in General Grant’s army at City Point came
 for me one day last week and would hardly be denied; wanted me to help
 him “run” his hospital--“not to touch a bit of the work.” I begin to
 think I can “keep a hotel,” but I didn’t think so a year ago. Well, I
 have told you all this to show you how probable it is that I shall
 find it difficult to get off the field this fall or even winter.

 And thank you many times for your sisterly invitation to spend some
 portion of the winter with you. I should be most happy to do so, but
 it is a little doubtful if I get north of Washington this winter,
 unless the war ends suddenly, and I am beginning to study _my
 duty_ closely. I can go to the Flying Hospital, and be just along
 with the active army; and then, if I had a sufficient quantity of
 good suitable supplies, I could keep the needy portion of a whole
 corps comfortably supplied; and being connected with the hospital and
 convalescent camp, conversant with the men, surgeons, and nurses, I
 could meet their wants more timely and surely than any stranger or
 outside organization of men could do. And ladies, most of the summer
 workers, will draw off, with the cool nights; men who have been
 accustomed to feather beds, will seek them if they can when the frost
 comes. Nevertheless the troops will need the same care--good warm
 shirts, socks, drawers, and mittens, and the sick will need the same
 good, well-cooked diet that they did in summer; and yet it would try
 me dreadfully to be among them in the cold and nothing comfortable
 to give them. And this corps especially never passed a winter north
 of South Carolina and they _will nearly freeze_, I fear. I have
 scraped together and given already the last warm article I have just
 for the few frosty nights we have had. I haven’t a pair of socks
 or shirts or drawers for a soldier in my possession. I shall look
 with great anxiety now for anything to reach me, for I shall require
 it both on account of the increased severity of the weather and my
 proposed extended field of labor. I have the 4th Massachusetts Cavalry
 on hand, and they have a hospital of their own and a good many sick.
 I gave them, one day last week, the last delicacy I possessed; it
 was but little--some New York and New Jersey fruits; nothing from
 Massachusetts for them. I was sorry; I wish I had. If I go to the
 Flying Hospital it will be entirely destitute of all but soldier’s
 blankets and rations, not a bedsack or pillow, sheet or pillowcase,
 or stove or tin dishes, except cups and plates. Now, I should want
 some of all these things, and if I go I must write to some of the
 friends of the soldiers the wants I see, and if they are disposed
 they can place it in my power to make them comfortable, independent
 of army regulations. You know this front hospital is for operations
 in time of battle, and subject to move at an hour’s notice, or when
 the shot might reach it, or the enemy press too near, and must not
 be encumbered with baggage. Ask Lieutenant Hitchcock to explain it
 to you, and he will also tell you how useful a _private_ supply
 connected with it might be, what comfort there would be in it, and how
 I could distribute from such a point to the troops along the front.
 Now, with my best regards to the good ladies of Oxford, I am done
 about soldiers and hospitals.

 Oh, if I had time to write! I have material enough, “dear knows,” but
 I cannot get time to half acknowledge favors received. If some one
 would come and act as scribe for me, I might be the means of relating
 some interesting incidents; but I have not even a cook or orderly,
 not to say a clerk. I do not mean that I cannot have the two former,
 but I do not use them myself at all when I hold them in detail. I
 immediately get them at work for some one who I think needs them more.
 I am glad you see my Worcester friends. You visited at Mr. Newton’s, I
 suppose. I hope they are well. Please give my love to them....

 We are firing a salute for something at this minute, don’t yet know
 what. We fired one over the fall of Atlanta; solid shot and shell
 with the guns pointed toward Petersburg. Funny salutes we get up
 here. Yesterday morn we had terrible firing along the whole line, but
 it amounted to only an artillery duel. Yet it brought us fourteen
 wounded, three or four mortally. What a long letter I have written
 you and I am not going to apologize and I know _you_ are not
 tired even if it is long, you are glad of it, and so am I, although it
 is not very interesting.

 Please give my kindly and high regards to Miss Sanford and Mrs.
 Burleigh, Colonel De Witt, also, and all inquiring friends and write
 soon to your affectionate

  Sis

  CLARA


This letter was copied by Annie Childs, and bears this note in the
handwriting of Annie Childs:

 I have my friend Clara’s permission to show any portion of her “poor
 scrawls” that I think would interest the excellent ladies who are
 laboring so faithfully for the good and comfort of the soldiers, and
 trust to their charity to overlook imperfections. Many portions of the
 above are copied for the benefit of persons in Worcester and other
 places, as I could not get time to write many copies like this, which
 is three fourths of my letter from her.

  ANNIE E. CHILDS


It must have been something of a relief to Clara Barton to be working
in a definite sphere under military authority, and not as a volunteer
worker. Not that she regretted for a moment the method of her previous
activity. She would never have worked cheerfully as a part of the
organization commanded by Miss Dix. She had too clear ideas of her own,
and saw the possibilities of too large a work for her to be content
with any sort of long-range supervision. All the women who really
achieved large success at the front were individualists. “Mother”
Bickerdyke, for instance, took no orders from any one. General Sherman
was accustomed to say of her that she ranked him. But Miss Barton’s
field for volunteer service was now limited. The war was closing
in, and nearing its end. Clara Barton wisely accepted a definite
appointment and took up her work with the army of General Butler. How
highly he esteemed her service is shown by his lifelong friendship
for her, and his appointment of her to be matron of the Massachusetts
Reformatory for Women.

Clara Barton knew, before she went to the Army of the James, how
impossible it was to obtain ideal conditions in a military hospital.
She must have been very glad that she had refused to criticize the
hospitals at Hilton Head, even when she knew that things were going
wrong. She had her own experience with headstrong surgeons and
incompetent nurses. But on the whole her experience in the closing days
of the war was satisfactory.

One incident which she had looked forward to with eager longing, and
had almost given up, occurred while she was with the Army of the James.
Her brother Stephen was rescued.

It was a pathetic rescue. He was captured by the Union army, and robbed
of a considerable sum of money which had been in his possession. When
he was brought within the Union lines, he was sick, and he suffered
ill treatment after his capture. The date of his capture was September
25, 1864. It was some days before Miss Barton learned about it. She
then reported the matter to General Butler, and it was at once ordered
that Stephen be brought to his headquarters with all papers and other
property in his possession at the time of his capture. The prisoner
was sent and such papers as had been preserved, but the money was
not recovered. Two long letters, written by Stephen Barton from the
hospital, tell the story of his life within the Confederate lines, and
it is a pathetic story.

Stephen Barton was treated with great kindness while he remained in
the hospital at Point of Rock. He was there during the assault on
Petersburg, and well toward the end of the campaign against Richmond.
Then he was removed to Washington, where, on March 10, 1865, he died.
Miss Barton had the satisfaction of ministering to him during those
painful days, and she afterward wrote down her recollection of a prayer
he offered one night after a battle in front of Richmond:

 An hour with my dear noble brother Stephen, during a night after a
 battle in front of Richmond.

  CLARA BARTON

 _My brother Stephen, when with me in front of Richmond_

 Hearing a voice I crept softly down my little confiscated stairway
 and waited in the shadows near his bedside. He had turned his face
 partly into his pillow and, resting it upon his hands, was at prayer.
 The first words which my ear caught distinctly were, “O God, whose
 children we all are, look down with thine eye of justice and mercy
 upon this terrible conflict, and weaken the wrong and strengthen the
 right till this unequal contest close. O God, save my Country. Bless
 Abraham Lincoln and his armies.” A sob from me revealed my presence.
 He started, and, raising his giant 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 those 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.” I could not speak the words that would so shock his sensitive
 nature, but could only stand before him humbled 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, and every previous expression of his face intensifying
 tenfold, 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 raising himself fully upright and clasping his
 bony hands, he broke forth in tones that will never leave me. “O 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 the lightning and
 bid them proclaim, through the sacrifices of a 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 darkling shadows of the smoky rafters of an old negro hut by
 the rude chimney where the dusky form of the bondman had crouched for
 years, on the ground trodden hard by the foot of the slave, I knelt
 beside that rough couch of boards and sobbed “Amen” to the patriot
 prayer that rose above me.

        *       *       *       *       *

 The stolen money was never restored. Stephen struggled on a few
 weeks longer, alternating, hoping, and despairing, suffering from
 the physical abuse he had received, crushed in spirit, battling with
 disease and weakness as only a brave man can, worrying over his
 unprotected property and his debts in the old home he never reached,
 watching the war, and praying for the success of the Union armies,
 and died without knowing--and God be praised for this--that the
 reckless torches of that same Union army would lay in ashes and ruins
 the result of the hard labor of his own worn-out life and wreck the
 fortunes of his only child.

 Although doubting and fearing, we had never despaired of his recovery,
 until the morning when he commenced to sink and we saw him rapidly
 passing away. He was at once aware of his condition and spoke of his
 business, desiring that, first of all, when his property could be
 reached, his debts should be faithfully paid. A few little minutes
 more and there lay before us, still and pitiful, all that remained to
 tell of that hard life’s struggle and battle, which had failed most
 of all through a great-hearted love for humanity, his faithfulness to
 what he conceived to be his duty, and his readiness to do more for
 mankind than it was willing to do for itself.

Clara Barton did not long continue in hospital service after the
immediate need was passed. With the firing of the last gun she returned
to Washington. One chapter in her career was closed. Another and
important work was about to open, and she already had it in mind. But
the work she had done was memorable, and its essential character must
not be forgotten.

Clara Barton was more and other than a hospital nurse. She was not
simply one of a large number of women who nursed sick soldiers. She did
that, hastening to assist them at the news of the very first bloodshed,
and continuing until Richmond had fallen. Hers was the distinction of
doing her work upon the actual field of battle; of following the cannon
so as to be on the ground when the need began; of not waiting for the
wounded soldier to be brought to the hospital, but of conveying the
hospital to the wounded soldier. Others followed her in this good work;
others accompanied her and were her faithful associates, but she was,
in a very real sense, the soul and inspiration of the movement which
carried comfort to wounded men while the battle was still in progress.
She was not, in any narrow sense, a hospital nurse; she was, as she has
justly been called, “the angel of the battle-field.”

One characteristic of Clara Barton during these four years deserves
mention and emphasis because her independent position might have made
it easy for her to assume a critical attitude toward those who worked
under the regular organization or through different channels. In all
her letters, in all the entries in her diaries, there is found no
hint of jealousy toward any of the women who worked as nurses in the
hospitals, or under the Sanitary or Christian Commission.

Clara Barton from her childhood was given to versifying. She was once
called upon to respond to a toast to the women who went to the front.
She did it in rhyme as follows:


TOAST

“THE WOMEN WHO WENT TO THE FIELD”

  The women who went to the field, you say,
  The _women_ who went to the field; and pray
  What did they go for? just to be in the way!--
  They’d not know the difference betwixt work and play,
  What did they know about _war_ anyway?
  What could they _do_?--of what _use_ could they be?
  They would scream at the sight of a gun, don’t you see?
  Just fancy them round where the bugle notes play,
  And the long roll is bidding us on to the fray.
  Imagine their skirts ’mong artillery wheels,
  And watch for their flutter as they flee ’cross the fields
  When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;--
  They never will wait for the answering shot.
  They would faint at the first drop of blood, in their sight.
  What fun for us boys,--(ere we enter the fight;)
  They might pick some lint, and tear up some sheets,
  And make us some jellies, and send on their sweets,
  And knit some soft socks for Uncle Sam’s shoes,
  And write us some letters, and tell us the news.
  And thus it was settled by common consent,
  That husbands, or brothers, or whoever went,
  That the place for the women was in their own homes,
  There to patiently wait until victory comes.
  But later, it chanced, just how no one knew,
  That the lines slipped a bit, and some ’gan to crowd through;
  And they went,--where did they go?--Ah; where did they not?
  Show us the battle,--the field,--or the spot
  Where the groans of the wounded rang out on the air
  That her ear caught it not, and her hand was not there,
  Who wiped the death sweat from the cold clammy brow,
  And sent home the message;--“’Tis well with him now”?
  Who watched in the tents, whilst the fever fires burned,
  And the pain-tossing limbs in agony turned,
  And wet the parched tongue, calmed delirium’s strife
  Till the dying lips murmured, “My Mother,” “My Wife”!
  And who were they all?--They were many, my men;
  Their record was kept by no tabular pen:
  They exist in traditions from father to son.
  Who recalls, in dim memory, now here and there one.--
  A few names were writ, and by chance live to-day;
  But’s a perishing record fast fading away.
  Of those we recall, there are scarcely a score,
  Dix, Dame, Bickerdyke,--Edson, Harvey, and Moore,
  Fales, Whittenmeyer, Gilson, Safford and Lee,
  And poor Cutter dead in the sands of the sea;
  And Frances D. Gage, our “Aunt Fanny” of old,
  Whose voice rang for freedom when freedom was sold.
  And Husband, and Etheridge, and Harlan and Case,
  Livermore, Alcott, Hancock, and Chase,
  And Turner, and Hawley, and Potter, and Hall.
  Ah! the list grows apace, as they come at the call:
  Did these women quail at the sight of a gun?
  Will some soldier tell us of one he saw run?
  Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,
  At Pittsburg and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?
  And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,
  And her calm, stately presence gave strength to his men.
  And _Marie of Logan_; she went with them too;
  A bride, scarcely more than a sweetheart, ’tis true.
  Her young cheek grows pale when the bold troopers ride.
  Where the “Black Eagle” soars, she is close at his side,
  She staunches his blood, cools the fever-burnt breath,
  And the wave of her hand stays the Angel of Death;
  She nurses him back, and restores once again
  To both army and state the brave leader of men.

  She has smoothed his black plumes and laid them to sleep,
  Whilst the angels above them their high vigils keep:
  And she sits here _alone_, with the snow on her brow--
  Your cheers for her comrades! Three cheers for her now.
  And these were the women who went to the war:
  The women of question; what _did_ they go for?
  Because in their hearts God had planted the seed
  Of pity for woe, and help for its need;
  They saw, in high purpose, a duty to do,
  And the armor of right broke the barriers through.
  Uninvited, unaided, unsanctioned ofttimes,
  With pass, or without it, they pressed on the lines;
  They pressed, they implored, till they ran the lines through,
  And _this_ was the “running” the men saw them do.
  ’Twas a hampered work, its worth largely lost;
  ’Twas hindrance, and pain, and effort, and cost:
  But through these came knowledge,--knowledge is power.--
  And never again in the deadliest hour
  Of war or of peace, shall we be so beset
  To accomplish the purpose our spirits have met.
  And what would they do if war came again?
  The _scarlet cross floats_ where all was blank then.
  They would bind on their “_brassards_” and march to the fray,
  And the man liveth not who could say to them nay;
  They would stand with you now, as they stood with you then,
  The nurses, consolers, and saviors of men.




CHAPTER XIX

ANDERSONVILLE AND AFTER


Clara Barton’s name continued on the roll of clerks in the Patent
Office until August, 1865. She drew her salary as a clerk throughout
the period of the Civil War, and it was the only salary that she drew
during that time. Out of it she paid the clerk who took her place
during the latter months of her employment, and also the rent of the
room in Washington, where she stored her supplies and now and then
slept. When she was at the front, she shared the rations of the army.
Most of the time her food was the food of the officers of the division
where she was at work. Much of the time it was the humble fare of
the common soldier. Mouldy and even wormy hardtack grew to be quite
familiar to her, and was eaten without complaint.

As the end of the war drew near, she discovered a field of service in
which her aid was greatly needed. Every battle in the Civil War had, in
addition to its list of known dead and wounded, a list of “missing.”
Some of these missing soldiers were killed and their bodies not found
or identified. Of the 315,555 graves of Northern troops, only 172,400
were identified. Almost half of the soldiers buried in graves known
to the quartermaster of the Federal army were unidentified; 143,155
were buried in graves known to be the graves of soldiers, but with no
soldier’s name to mark them. Besides these there were 43,973 recorded
deaths over and above the number of graves. The total of deaths
recorded was 359,528, while the number of graves, as already stated,
was 315,555. As a mere matter of statistics, this may not seem to mean
very much, but it actually means that nearly two hundred thousand homes
received tidings of the death of a father, son, or brother, and did not
know where that loved one was buried. This added to grief the element
of uncertainty, and in many cases of futile hope.

Moreover, there were many other thousands of men reported missing
of whom no certain knowledge could be obtained at the close of the
Civil War. Some were deserters, some were bounty-jumpers, some were
prisoners, some were dead. Clara Barton received countless letters of
inquiry. From all over the country letters came asking whether in any
hospital she had seen such and such a soldier.

Clearly foreseeing that the end of the war was in sight, Clara Barton,
who had gone from City Point, where she was serving with General
Butler’s army, to Washington, where she witnessed the death of her
brother Stephen, brought to the attention of President Lincoln the
necessity of instituting some agency for the finding of missing
soldiers. She knew what her own family had suffered in the anxious
months when Stephen was immured within the Confederate lines, and his
relatives did not know whether he was living or dead. President Lincoln
at once approved her plan, and issued a letter advising the friends of
missing soldiers to communicate with Miss Barton at Annapolis, where
she established her headquarters. President Lincoln’s letter was dated
March 11, 1865, the day following the death of her brother Stephen.
This was followed, March 25, by a letter from General Hitchcock:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., March 25, 1865

  FOR THE COMMANDING OFFICER AT ANNAPOLIS, MD.

  SIR:

 The notice, which you have doubtless seen, over the name of Miss
 Barton, of Massachusetts, proffering her services in answering
 inquiries with respect to Union officers and soldiers who have been
 prisoners of war (or who remain so), was made by my authority under
 the written sanction of His Excellency the President.

 The purpose is so humane and so interesting in itself that I beg
 to recommend Miss Barton to your kind civilities, and to say that
 any facilities which you may have it in your power to extend to her
 would be properly bestowed, and duly appreciated, not only by the
 lady herself, but by the whole country which is interested in her
 self-appointed mission.

  With great resp. your obt. servant

  (Signed) E. A. HITCHCOCK
  Maj. Gen’l. Vols.


Although she was backed by the authority of the President, it took
the War Department two months to establish Clara Barton in her work
at Annapolis with the title “General Correspondent for the Friends
of Paroled Prisoners.” A tent was assigned her, with furniture,
stationery, clerks, and a modest fund for postage. By the time she
was established at Annapolis, she found bushels of mail awaiting her,
and letters of inquiry came in at the rate of a hundred a day. To
bring order out of this chaos, and establish a system by which missing
soldiers and their relatives could be brought into communication with
each other, called for swift action and no little organizing skill. For
a time difficulties seemed to increase. Discharged prisoners returned
from the South by thousands. In some cases there was no record, in
others the record was defective. Inquiries came in much faster than
information in response to them.

Notwithstanding all the difficulties, Clara Barton had a long list of
missing men ready for publication by the end of May. Then the question
rose how she was to get it published. It was not wholly a matter of
expense, though this was an important item. There was only one printing
office in Washington which had type enough, and especially capitals
enough, to set up such a roll as at that time she had ready. In this
emergency she appealed directly to the President of the United States,
asking that the roll be printed at the Government Printing Office. Her
original letter to President Johnson is in existence, together with a
series of endorsements, the last of them by Andrew Johnson himself.
General Rucker was the first official to endorse it, Major-General
Hitchcock added his commendation, General Hoffman followed, then came
General Grant, and last of all the President:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., May 31st, 1865

  HIS EXCELLENCY
  PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  SIR:

 May I venture to enclose for perusal the within circular in the hope
 that it may to a certain extent explain the object of the work in
 which I am engaged. The undertaking having at its first inception
 received the cordial and written sanction of our late beloved
 President, I would most respectfully ask for it the favor of his
 honored successor.

 The work is indeed a large one; but I have a settled confidence that
 I shall be able to accomplish it. The fate of the unfortunate men
 failing to appear under the search which I shall institute is likely
 to remain forever unrevealed.

 My rolls are now ready for the press; but their size exceeds the
 capacity of any private establishment in this city, no printer in
 Washington having forms of sufficient size or a sufficient number of
 capitals to print so many names.

 It will be both inconvenient and expensive to go with my rolls to some
 distant city each time they are to be revised. In view of this fact I
 am constrained to ask our honored President, when he shall approve my
 work, as I must believe he will, to direct that the printing may be
 done at the Government Printing Office.

 I may be permitted to say in this connection that the enclosed
 printed circular appealing for pecuniary aid did not originate in
 any suggestion of mine, but in the solicitude of personal friends,
 and that thus far, in whatever I may have done, I have received no
 assistance either from the Government or from individuals. A time
 may come when it will be necessary for me to appeal directly to the
 American People for help, and in that event, such appeal will be made
 with infinitely greater confidence and effect, if my undertaking shall
 receive the approval and patronage of Your Excellency.

 I have the honor to be, Sir

  Most respectfully

  Your obedient servant

  CLARA BARTON


_Official endorsements on back of her letter_

  CHIEF QUARTERMASTER’S OFFICE
  DEPOT OF WASHINGTON

  June 2, 1865

 I most heartily concur in the recommendations on this paper. I have
 known Miss Barton for a long time and it gives me great pleasure to
 aid her in her good works.

  F. H. RUCKER
  Brig. Gen’l & Chf. Q.M.


[Illustration: [Facsimile]

LETTER TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON]

 The undersigned, with a full understanding of the benevolent purpose
 of Miss Barton and of its deep interest for the public, most cordially
 commends it to the approval of the President of the United States.

  E. A. HITCHCOCK
  Maj. Gen. Vol.


  June 2, 1865

 I most heartily concur in the foregoing recommendations.

  W. HOFFMAN

  Com. Gen’l Pris.


 Respectfully recommended that the printing asked for be authorized at
 the Government Printing Office. The object being a charitable one,
 to look up and ascertain the fate of officers and soldiers who have
 fallen into the hands of the enemy and have never been restored to
 their families and friends, is one which Government can well aid.

  U. S. GRANT

  L.G.

  June 2d, 1865.


  June 3d, 1865

 Let this printing be done as speedily as possible consistently with
 the public interest.

  ANDREW JOHNSON
  Prest. U.S.

  TO MR. DEFREES

  Supt. Pub. Printing

[Illustration: [Facsimile]

ENDORSEMENTS ON MISS BARTON’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON]


On the same date, June 2, 1865, Miss Barton received a pass from
General Grant commending her to the kind consideration of all officers
and instructing them to give her all facilities that might be necessary
in the prosecution of her mission. By General Grant’s order, there was
also issued to her transportation for herself and two assistants on all
Government railroads and transports:

  HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES

  WASHINGTON, D.C., June 2d, 1865

 The bearer hereof, _Miss Clara Barton_, who is engaged in making
 inquiries concerning the fate of soldiers reported as missing in
 action, is commended to the kind consideration of all officers of the
 military service, and she will be afforded by commanders and others
 such facilities in the prosecution of her charitable mission as can
 properly be extended to her.

  U. S. GRANT
  Lieut. General Comdg.


  HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES

  WASHINGTON, D.C., June 2nd, 1865

 Miss _Clara Barton_, engaged in making inquiries for soldiers
 reported as missing in action, will be allowed, until further orders,
 with her assistants, not to exceed two in number, free transportation
 on all Government railroads and transports.

  By Command of Lieut.-General Grant

  T. S. BRECK
  Asst. Adjt. Gen’l.


Clara Barton had learned the value of publicity. She knew that the
Press could be counted upon to assist an undertaking so near to the
hearts of all readers of the papers. She therefore arranged her lists
by States, and sent the list of each State to every newspaper in the
State with the request for its free publication. Before long she had
established definite connections with scores of newspapers which
responded favorably to her request. No one read these lists more
eagerly than recently discharged men, including prisoners and men
released from hospitals. In innumerable instances these men wrote to
her to give information of the death or survival, with location, of
some comrade whose name had been published in one of her lists.

Sometimes she succeeded not only beyond her own expectation, but beyond
the desire of the man who was sought. Occasionally a soldier who went
into voluntary obscurity at the end of the war found himself unable
to remain in as modest a situation as he had chosen for himself. A
few letters are found of men who indignantly remonstrated against
being discovered by their relatives. One such case will serve as an
illustration. The first of the following letters is from the sister of
a missing soldier. The second, six months later, is a protest from the
no longer missing man, and the third is Clara’s indignant reply to him:

  LOCKPORT, N.Y., April 17th, 1865

  MISS CLARA BARTON
  DEAR MADAM:

 Seeing a notice in one of our village papers stating that you can
 give information concerning soldiers in the army or navy, you will
 sincerely oblige me if you can give any intelligence of my brother,
 Joseph H. H----, who was engaged in the 2nd Maryland Regiment under
 General Goldsborough, and from whom we have not heard in nearly two
 years. His mother died last winter, to whom his silent absence was, I
 assure you, a _great grief_, and to whom I promised to make all
 inquiries in my power, so that I might if possible learn my brother’s
 fate. I would most willingly remunerate you for all trouble.

  Yours respectfully

  E---- H----


  SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., Oct. 16, 1865

  MISS CLARA BARTON,
  Washington, D.C.

  MADAM:

 I have seen my name on a sheet of paper somewhat to my mortification,
 for I would like to know what I have done, so that I am worthy to have
 my name _blazoned_ all over the country. If my friends in New
 York _wish_ to know where I am, let them wait _until_ I see
 fit to write them. As you are anxious of my welfare, I would say that
 I am just from New Orleans, discharged, on my way North, but unluckily
 taken with _chills_ and _fever_ and could proceed no farther
 for some time at least. I shall remain here for a month.

  Respectfully, your obt. servt.

  J---- H. H----


  MR. J---- H. H----

  SIR:--

 I enclose copies of two letters in my possession. The writer of the
 first I suppose to be your sister. The lady for whose death the letter
 was draped in mourning I suppose to have been _your mother_. Can
 it be possible that you were aware of that fact when you wrote that
 letter? _Could_ you have spoken thus, knowing all?

 The cause of your name having been “blazoned all over the country”
 was your unnatural concealment from your nearest relatives, and the
 great distress it caused them. “What you have done” to render this
 necessary _I_ certainly _do not_ know. It seems to have been
 the misfortune of your family to think more of you than you did of
 them, and probably more than you deserve from the manner in which you
 treat them. They had already waited until a son and brother possessing
 common humanity would have “seen fit” to write them. _Your mother
 died waiting_, and the result of your sister’s faithful efforts
 to comply with her dying request “_mortify_” you. I cannot
 apologize for the part I have taken. You are mistaken in supposing
 that I am “anxious for your welfare.” I assure you I have no interest
 in it, but your accomplished sister, for whom I entertain the deepest
 respect and sympathy, I shall inform of your existence lest you should
 not “see fit” to do so yourself.

  I have the honor to be, sir

  CLARA BARTON


Such letters as the foregoing remind us that not all the cases of
missing soldiers were purely accidental. There were instances where
men went to war vowing loyalty to the girls they left behind them, and
who formed other ties. There were cases where men formed wholly new
associations and deliberately chose to begin anew and let the past be
buried. But there were thousands of instances in which the work of
Clara Barton brought her enduring gratitude. In very large proportion
these missing men were dead. The testimony of a comrade who had
witnessed the death on the battle-field or in prison set at rest any
suspicion of desertion or any other form of dishonor. In other cases,
where the soldier was alive, but had grown careless about writing, her
timely reminder secured a prompt reunion and saved a long period of
anxiety. Letters like the following came to her to the end of her life:

  GREENFIELD, MASS., Sept. 25, 1911

  MISS CLARA BARTON
  Oxford, Mass.

  MY DEAR MISS BARTON:

 I am a stranger to you, but you are far from being a stranger to me.
 As a member of the old Vermont Brigade through the entire struggle,
 I was familiar with your unselfish work at the front through those
 years when we were trying to restore a broken Union, and being a
 prisoner of war at Andersonville at its close, my mother, not knowing
 whether I was alive, appealed to you for information.

 Two letters bearing your signature (from Annapolis, Maryland) are in
 my possession, the pathos of one bearing no tidings, and the glad
 report of my arrival about the middle of May, 1865.

 The thankful heart that received them has long been stilled, but the
 letters have been preserved as sacred relics.

 I also have a very vivid recollection of your earnest appeal to us to
 notify our friends of our arrival by first mail for their sake.

 If to enjoy the gratitude of a single heart be a pleasure, to enjoy
 the benediction of a grateful world must be sweet to one’s declining
 years. To have earned it makes it sublime.

 I have also another tie which makes Oxford seem near to me. An old
 tent-mate, a member of our regimental quartette, a superb soldier
 and a very warm friend, lies mouldering there these many years. He
 survived, I think, more than thirty battles only to die of consumption
 in January, 1870. Whenever I can I run down from Worcester to lay a
 flower on George H. Amidon’s grave.

 I write not to tax you with a reply, but simply to wish for you all
 manner of blessings.

  Yours truly

  F. J. HOSMER
  Co. I, 4th Vt.


Her headquarters at this time was theoretically at Arlington where she
had a tent. Arlington was the headquarters receiving and discharging
returned prisoners. But much of her work was in Washington, and the
constant journeys back and forth caused her to ask for a conveyance.
She made her application to General William Hoffman, Commissary-General
of prisoners, on June 16, 1865. Her request went the official rounds,
and by the 25th of October a horse was promised as soon as a suitable
one could be found. It is to be hoped that within a year or two a horse
either with sidesaddle or attached to a wheeled conveyance was found
tethered in front of her bare lodging on the third floor of No. 488½
7th Street, between D and E:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., June 16th, 1865

  BRIG.-GEN’L. WM. HOFFMAN
  COMMSY. GEN’L OF PRISONERS

  GENERAL:

 It would not appear so necessary to explain to you the nature of my
 wants, as to apologize for imposing them upon you, but your great
 kindness to me has taught me not to fear the abuse of it in any
 request which seems needful.

 If I say that in my present undertaking I find the duties of each
 day quite equal to my strength, and often of a character which some
 suitable mode of conveyance at my own command like the daily use of a
 Government wagon would materially lighten, I feel confident that you
 would both comprehend and believe me, but if I were to desire you to
 represent my wishes to the proper authorities and aid in obtaining
 such a facility for me, I may have carried my request to a troublesome
 length and could only beg your kind pardon for the liberty taken which
 I would most humbly and cheerfully do.

  With grateful respect,

  I am, General

  Very truly yours

  CLARA BARTON


  HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON

  WASHINGTON, D.C., October 25, 1865

  MISS CLARA BARTON:

 I have conferred with General Wadsworth on the subject of obtaining a
 horse for your use, and he has directed that I place a horse at your
 disposal as soon as a suitable one can be found.

  Very respectfully

  Yr. Obt. Svt.

  JOHN P. SHERBURNE

  Asst. Adjt. Gen’l.


For four years Clara Barton carried on this important work for missing
soldiers. She spared neither her time nor her purse. At the outset
there was no appropriation that covered the necessary expenses of such
a quest, and the work was of a character that would not wait. From
the beginning of the year 1865 to the end of 1868 she sent out 63,182
letters of inquiry. She mailed printed circulars of advice in reply to
correspondents to 58,693 persons. She wrote or caused to be written
41,855 personal letters. She distributed to be posted on bulletin
boards and in public places 99,057 slips containing printed rolls.
According to her estimate at the end of this heavy task, she succeeded
in bringing information, not otherwise obtainable, to not less than
22,000 families of soldiers.

How valuable this work was then believed to be is shown in the fact
that Congress, after an investigation by a committee which examined in
detail her method and its results and the vouchers she had preserved of
her expenses, appropriated to reimburse her the sum of $15,000.

It soon became evident that one of the most important fields for
investigation was such record as could be found of the Southern
prisons, especially Andersonville. To Andersonville her attention
was directed through a discharged prisoner, Dorence Atwater, of
Connecticut. He was in the first detachment transferred, the latter
part of February, 1864, to the then new prison of Andersonville, and
because of his skillful penmanship was detailed to keep a register of
deaths of the prisoners. He occupied a desk next to that of General
Wirz, the Confederate officer commanding the prison. Here, at the
beginning of 1865, he made up a list of nearly thirteen thousand Union
prisoners who died in that year, giving the full name, company and
regiment, date and cause of death. Besides the official list he made
another and duplicate list, which he secreted in the lining of his
coat, and was able to take with him on his discharge.

At the close of the war he returned to his home in Terryville,
Connecticut, where he was immediately stricken with diphtheria.
Weakened and emaciated by his imprisonment, he nearly died of this
acute attack. Before he was fully recovered, he was summoned to
Washington, and his rolls were demanded by the Government. He gave
them up and they were copied in Washington, but were not published. He
wrote to Clara Barton informing her of these rolls and affirmed that
by means of them he could identify almost every grave in Andersonville
Prison. Clara Barton was greatly interested, and proposed to Secretary
Stanton that she be sent to Andersonville and that Dorence Atwater
accompany her. She proposed that there should go with them a number of
men equipped with material for enclosing the cemetery with a fence, and
for the marking of each grave with a suitable headboard.

Secretary Stanton received this suggestion not only with approval, but
with enthusiasm. Miss Barton wrote the account of her interview with
him on some loose sheets for her diary. The sheets were at least three
in number, and only the second sheet is preserved. This sheet, however,
covers the personal interview with Secretary Stanton. It was written at
the time, and manifests his keen interest in her enterprise and desire
to carry it through promptly and effectively:

 On entering General Hardy’s room, he asked my business. I said, “I
 didn’t know, sir. I supposed I had some, as the Secretary sent for
 me.” “Oh,” he said, “you are Miss Barton. The Secretary is very
 anxious to see you,” and sent a messenger to announce me. Mr. Stanton
 met me halfway across the room with extended hand, and said he had
 taken the liberty to send for me to thank me for what I had done both
 in the past, and in my present work; that he greatly regretted that
 he had not known of me earlier, as from all he now learned he feared
 I had done many hard things which a little aid from him would have
 rendered comparatively easy, but that especially now he desired to
 thank me for helping him _to think_; that it was not possible
 for him to think of everything which was for the general good, and no
 one knew how grateful he was to the person who put forth, among all
 the impracticable, interested, wild, and selfish schemes which were
 continually crowded upon him, one good, sensible, practical, unselfish
 idea that he could take up and act upon with safety and credit. You
 may believe that by this time my astonishment had not decreased. In
 the course of the next twenty minutes he informed me that he had
 decided to invite me (for he could not order _me_) to accompany
 Captain Moore, with Atwater and his register, to Andersonville,
 and see my suggestions carried out to my entire satisfaction; that
 unlimited powers as quartermaster would be given Captain Moore to
 draw upon all officers of the Government in that vicinity for whatever
 would be desired; that a special boat would be sent with ourselves and
 corps of workmen, and to return only when the work was satisfactorily
 accomplished. To call the next day and consult with him farther in....

If Miss Barton’s horse, which she had asked for in June, had gotten to
her door more promptly than is customary in such matters of official
routine, he might have grown hungry waiting for her return. As we have
already noticed, permission to have the horse assigned was granted in
October, which left the summer free for the Andersonville expedition.
Fortunately, no long interval elapsed after Secretary Stanton’s
approval of the plan before the starting of the expedition. On July 8
the propeller Virginia, having on board headboards, fencing material,
clerks, painters, letterers, and a force of forty workmen, under
command of Captain James M. Moore, Quartermaster, left Washington for
Andersonville, by way of Savannah. On board also were Dorence Atwater
and Clara Barton. They reached Savannah on July 12, and remained there
seven days, arriving at Andersonville on July 25.

Her first impressions were wholly favorable. The cemetery was in much
better condition than she had been led to fear. As the bodies had been
buried in regular order, and Dorence Atwater’s lists were minute as to
date and serial number, the task of erecting a headboard giving each
soldier’s name, state, company, regiment, and date of death, appeared
not very difficult. On the second night of her stay in Andersonville
she wrote to Secretary Stanton of the success of the undertaking and
suggested that the grounds be made a national cemetery. She assured
him that for his prompt and humane action in ordering the marking of
these graves the American people would bless him through long years to
come. She was correct in her prediction. But for her proposal and Mr.
Stanton’s prompt coöperation and Dorence Atwater’s presence with the
list, hundreds if not thousands of graves now certainly are identified
at Andersonville which would have needed to be marked “Unknown”:

  HON. E. M. STANTON
  SEC’Y. OF WAR, UNITED STATES

  SIR:

 It affords me great pleasure to be able to report to you that we
 reached Andersonville safely at 1 o’clock P.M. yesterday,
 25th inst. Found the grounds undisturbed, the stockade and hospital
 quarters standing protected by order of General Wilson.

 We have encountered no serious obstacle, met with no accident, our
 entire party is well, and commenced work this morning. Any misgivings
 which might have been experienced are happily at an end; the original
 plan for identifying the graves is capable of being carried out to
 the letter. We can accomplish fully all that we came to accomplish,
 and the field is wide and ample for much more in the future. If
 _desirable_, the grounds of Andersonville can be made a National
 Cemetery of great beauty and interest. Be assured, Mr. Stanton, that
 for this prompt and humane action of yours, the American people will
 bless you long after your willing hands and mind have ceased to toil
 for them.

 With great respect,

  I have the honor to be, Sir

  Your very obedient servant

  CLARA BARTON

  ANDERSONVILLE, GA.

  July 26th, 1865


The remaining period of her work in Andersonville was fruitful in
the accomplishment of all the essential results for which she had
undertaken the expedition, but it resulted in strained relations
between one of the officers of the expedition and Dorence Atwater, and
Clara Barton came to the defense of Atwater. During her absence at
Andersonville, two letters were published in a Washington paper, over
her signature, alleged to have been written by her to her Uncle James.
She had no Uncle James, and wrote no such letters; and she attributed
the forgery, correctly or incorrectly, to this officer. Her official
report to the Secretary of War contains a severe arraignment of that
officer, whom she never regarded with any favor.

This is all that need be recorded of Clara Barton’s great work at
Andersonville, of which a volume might easily be made. She saw the
Union graves marked. Out of the almost thirteen thousand graves of
Union soldiers at Andersonville four hundred and forty were marked
“Unknown” when she finished her work, and they were unknown only
because the Confederate records were incomplete. She saw the grounds
enclosed and protected, and with her own hands she raised the United
States flag for the first time since their death above these men who
had died for it.

But this expedition involved trouble for Atwater. When he handed over
his rolls to the Government it was with the earnest request that steps
be taken immediately to mark these graves. His request and the rolls
had been pigeonholed. Then he had learned of Clara Barton’s great work
for missing soldiers and wrote her telling her that the list he had
made surreptitiously and preserved with such care was gathering dust,
while thirteen thousand graves were fast becoming unidentifiable. She
brought this knowledge to Secretary Stanton as has already been set
forth, and Stanton ordered the rolls to be produced and sent on this
expedition for Atwater’s use in identification.

Dorence Atwater had enlisted at the age of sixteen in the year 1862.
He was now under twenty, but he was resolute in his determination that
the lists which he had now recovered should not again be taken from
him. On his return from Andersonville the rolls which he had made
containing the names of missing soldiers disappeared. He was arrested
and questioned, and replied that the rolls were his own property. He
was sent to prison in the Old Capital, was tried by a court-martial,
adjudged guilty of larceny, and sentenced to be confined for eighteen
months at hard labor in the State Prison at Auburn, New York, fined
three hundred dollars, and ordered to stand committed until the rolls
were returned.

Atwater made no defense, but issued a statement which Clara Barton
probably prepared for him:

 I am charged with and convicted of theft, and sentenced to eighteen
 months’ imprisonment, and after that time until I shall have paid my
 Government three hundred dollars. I have called no witnesses, made no
 appeal, adduced no evidence. A soldier, a prisoner, an orphan, and
 a minor, I have little with which to employ counsel to oppose the
 Government of the United States.

 Whatever I may have been convicted of, I deny the charge of theft. I
 took my rolls home with me that they might be preserved; I considered
 them mine; it had never been told or even hinted to me that they were
 not my own rightful, lawful property. I never denied having them, and
 I was not arrested for stealing my rolls, but for having declared my
 intention of appealing to higher authority for justice. I supposed
 this to be one of the privileges of an American citizen, one of
 the great principles of the Government for which we had fought and
 suffered; but I forgot that the soldier who sacrificed his comforts
 and risked his life to maintain these liberties was the only man in
 the country who would not be allowed to claim their protection.

 My offense consists in an attempt to make known to the relatives and
 friends the fate of the unfortunate men who died in Andersonville
 Prison, and if this be a crime I am guilty to the fullest extent of
 the law, for to accomplish it I have risked my life among my enemies
 and my liberty among my friends.

 Since my arrest I have seen it twice publicly announced that the
 record of the dead of Andersonville would be published very soon; one
 announcement apparently by the Government, and one by Captain James M.
 Moore, A.G.M. No such intimation was ever given until after my arrest,
 and if it prove that my imprisonment accomplishes that which my
 liberty could not, I ought, perhaps, to be satisfied. If this serves
 to bring out the information so long and so cruelly withheld from the
 people, I will not complain of my confinement, but when accomplished,
 I would earnestly plead for that liberty so dear to all, and to which
 I have been so long a stranger.

 I make this statement, which I would confirm by my oath if I were at
 liberty, not as appealing to public sympathy for relief, but for the
 sake of my name, my family, and my friends. I wish it to be known
 that I am not sentenced to a penitentiary as a common thief, but for
 attempting to appeal from the trickery of a clique of petty officers.

  DORENCE ATWATER


On September 25, 1865, just one month from the day when he returned
from Andersonville from the marking of the soldiers’ graves, Dorence
Atwater, as Clara Barton records, “was heavily ironed, and under
escort of a soldier and captain as guard, in open daylight, and in the
face of his acquaintances, taken through the streets of Washington
to the Baltimore depot, and placed upon the cars, a convict bound to
Auburn State Prison.”

Clara Barton had moved heaven and earth to save Dorence from
imprisonment; had done everything excepting to advise him to give up
the rolls. She knew so well what the publication of those names meant
to thirteen thousand anxious homes, she was willing to see Dorence go
to prison rather than that should fail. Secretary Stanton was out of
Washington when Dorence was arrested. She followed him to West Point
and had a personal interview, which she supplemented by a letter:

  ROE’S HOTEL, WEST POINT, September 5th, 1865

  HON. E. M. STANTON
  SEC’Y. OF WAR, U.S.A.

  MY HONORED FRIEND:

 Please permit me before leaving to reply to the one kind interrogatory
 made by you this morning, viz: “What do you desire me to do in the
 case?” Simply this, sir,--do nothing, believe nothing, sanction
 nothing in this present procedure against Dorence Atwater until all
 the facts with their antecedents and bearings shall have been placed
 before you, and this upon your return (if no one more worthy offer) I
 promise to do, with all the fairness, truthfulness, and judgment that
 in me lie.

 There is a noticeable haste manifested to dispose of the case in your
 absence which leads me to fear that there are those who, to gratify a
 jealous whim, or serve a personal ambition, would give little heed to
 the dangers of unmerited public criticism they might thus draw upon
 you, while young Atwater, honest and simple-hearted, both loving and
 trusting you, has more need of your protection than your censure.

 With the highest esteem, and unspeakable gratitude,

  I am, sir

  CLARA BARTON


Failing to secure the release of Dorence by appeal to Secretary
Stanton, who was not given to interference with military courts, Clara
Barton tried the effect of public opinion and also sought to arouse the
military authority of the State of Connecticut. Two letters of hers are
preserved addressed to friends in the newspaper world, but they did not
immediately accomplish the release of Dorence.

Clara Barton was not a woman to desist in an effort of this kind. She
had set about to procure the release of Dorence Atwater; she had the
support of Senator Henry Wilson and of General B. F. Butler, and she
labored day and night to enlarge the list of influential friends who
should finally secure his freedom. She surely would have succeeded.
While the Government saw no convenient way of issuing him a pardon
until he returned the missing rolls, public sentiment in his favor grew
steadily under her insistent propaganda. At the end of two months’
imprisonment, he was released under a general order which discharged
from prison all soldiers sentenced there by court-martial for crimes
less than murder. Even after the issue of the President’s general
order, Atwater was detained for a little time until Clara Barton made a
personal visit to Secretary Stanton and informed him that Dorence was
still in prison and secured the record of his trial for future use.

Then she set herself to work to secure the publication of his rolls.
He must copy them and rearrange them by States and in alphabetical
order, a task of no light weight, and must then arrange with some
responsible newspaper to undertake to secure their publication.
Moreover, this must be done quickly and quietly, for she believed that
Dorence still had an enemy who would thwart the effort if known.

The large task of copying the rolls and rearranging the names required
some weeks. When it was finished, Clara Barton, who had previously
thought of the New York “Times” as a possible medium of publicity on
account of an expression of interest which it had published, and even
had considered the unpractical idea of simultaneous publication in a
number of papers, turned instead to Horace Greeley. She wrote to him in
January, 1866, and then went to New York and conferred with him.

Greeley told her that the list was quite too long for publication in
the columns of any newspaper. The proper thing to do, as he assured
her, was to bring it out in pamphlet form at a low price, and, on the
day of publication, to exploit it as widely as possible through the
columns of the “Tribune.” To get the list in type, read the proof,
print the edition, and have it ready for delivery required some days if
not weeks. Valentine’s Day was fixed as that upon which the list was to
appear. On February 14, 1866, the publication occurred.

Horace Greeley was a good advertiser. All through the advertising
pages of the “Tribune” on that day appeared the word “ANDERSONVILLE”
in a single line of capitals, varied here and there by “ANDERSONVILLE;
See Advertisement on 8th page.” No one who read that day’s “Tribune”
could escape the word “Andersonville.” The editorial page contained the
following paragraph:

 We have just issued a carefully compiled _List of the Union
 Soldiers Buried at Andersonville_--arranged alphabetically under
 the names of their respective States, and containing every name that
 has been or can be recovered. Aside from the general and mournful
 interest felt in these martyrs personally, this list will be of great
 importance hereafter in the settlement of estates, etc. A copy should
 be preserved for reference in every library, however limited. It
 constitutes a roll of honor wherein our children’s children will point
 with pride to the names of their relatives who died that their country
 might live. See advertisement.

The eighth page contained a half-page article by Clara Barton, telling
in full of the marking of the Andersonville graves. This article was
hailed with nation-wide interest, and the pamphlet had an enormous
circulation, bringing comfort to thousands of grief-stricken homes.

Dorence Atwater never recovered from his treatment at the hands
of the United States Government. For many years the record of the
court-martial stood against him, and his status was that of a released
prisoner still unpardoned. His spirit became embittered, and he said
that the word “soldier” made him angry, and the sight of a uniform
caused him to froth at the mouth. The Government gave him a consulship
in the remote Seychelles Islands, and later transferred him to the
Society Islands in the South Pacific. He died in November, 1910, and
his monument is erected near Papeete on the Island of Tahiti.




CHAPTER XX

ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM


At the close of the Civil War, Clara Barton wanted to write a book.
Other women who had engaged in war work were writing books, and the
books were being well received. She had as much to tell as any other
one woman, and she thought she would like to tell it.

In this respect she was entirely different from Miss Dorothea Dix. She
met Miss Dix now and then during the war, and made note of the fact
in her diary, but either because these meetings occurred in periods
when she was too busy to make full record, or because nothing of large
importance transpired between them, she gives no extended account of
them. Miss Dix was superintendent of female nurses, and Miss Barton was
doing an independent work, so there was little occasion for them to
meet. But all her references to Miss Dix which show any indication of
her feeling manifest a spirit of very cordial appreciation of Dorothea
Dix’s work. Miss Dix managed her work in her own line, insisting that
nurses whom she appointed should be neither young nor good-looking, and
fighting her valiant battles with quite as much success as in general
could have been expected. But Dorothea Dix had no desire for publicity.
She shrank from giving to the world any details of her own life, partly
because of her unhappy childhood memories, and partly because she did
not believe in upholding in the mind of young women the successful
career of an unmarried woman. Accepting as she did her own lonely
career, and making it a great blessing to others, she did not desire
that young women should emulate it or consider it the ideal life. She
wished instead that they should find lovers, establish homes, and
become wives and mothers.

Clara Barton, too, had very high regard for the home, and she saw quite
enough of the folly of sentimental young women who were eager to rush
to the hospitals and nurse soldiers, but she did not share Miss Dix’s
fear of an attractive face, and she knew rather better than Miss Dix
the value of publicity. Timid as she was by nature, she had discovered
the power of the Press. She had succeeded in keeping up her supply of
comforts for wounded soldiers largely by the letters which she wrote to
personal friends and to local organizations of women in the North. She
made limited but effective use of the newspaper for like purposes. At
first she did not fully realize her own gift as a writer. Once or twice
she bemoaned in her diary the feebleness of her descriptive effort. If
she could only make people see what she had actually seen, she could
move their hearts, and the supply of bandages and delicacies for her
wounded men would be unfailing.

Her search for missing soldiers led her to a larger utilization of the
Press, and gave her added confidence in her own descriptive powers.
Her name was becoming more and more widely known, and she thought a
book by her, if she could procure means to publish it, would afford
her opportunity for self-expression and quite possibly be financially
profitable.

On this subject she wrote two letters to Senator Henry Wilson. They are
undated, and it is probable that she never sent either of them, but
they show what was in her heart. One of these reads as follows:

  MY ALWAYS GOOD FRIEND:

 Among all the little trials, necessities, and wants, real or
 imaginary, that I have from time to time brought and laid down at
 your feet, or even upon your shoulders, your patience has never once
 broken, or if it did your broad charity concealed the rent from me,
 and I come now in the hope that this may not prove to be the last
 feather. It is not so much that I want you to _do_ anything as to
 listen and advise, and it may be all the more trying as I desire the
 advice to be plain, candid, and honest even at the risk of wounding my
 pride.

 Perhaps no previous proposition of mine, however wild, has ever so
 completely astonished you as the present is liable to do. Well, to
 end suspense. _I am desirous of writing a book._ You will very
 naturally ask two questions--what for and what of. In reply to the
 first. The position which I have assumed before the public renders
 some general exposition necessary. They require to be made acquainted
 with me, or perhaps I might say they should either be made to know
 more of me or less. As it is, every one knows my name and something of
 what I am or have been doing, but not one in a thousand has any idea
 of the manner in which I propose to serve them. Out of six thousand
 letters lying by me, probably not two hundred show any tolerably clear
 idea of the writer as to what use I am to make of that very letter.
 People tell me the color of the hair and eyes of the friends they have
 lost, as if I were expected to go about the country and search them.
 They ask me to send them full lists of the lost men of the army; they
 tell me that they have looked all through my list of missing men and
 the name of their son or husband or somebody’s else is not on it, and
 desire to be informed why he is made an exception. They suppose me
 a part of the Government and it is my duty to do these things, or
 that I am carrying on the “business” as a means of revenue and ask
 my price, as if I hunted men at so much per head. But all suppose me
 either well paid or abundantly able to dispense with it; and these are
 only a few of the vague ideas which present themselves in my daily
 mail. A fair history of what I have done and desire to do, and a plain
 description of the practical working of my system, would convince
 people that I am neither sorceress nor spiritualist and would appall
 me with less of feverish hope and more of quiet, potent faith in the
 final result.

 Then there is all of Andersonville of which I have never written a
 word. I have not even contradicted the base forgeries which were
 perpetrated upon me in my absence. I need not tell you how foully I
 am being dealt by in this whole matter and the crime which has grown
 out of the wickedness which overshadows me. I need to tell some plain
 truths in a most inexpensive manner, that the whole country shall not
 be always duped and honest people sacrificed that the ambition of one
 man be gratified. I do not propose controversy, but I have a truth to
 speak; it belongs to the people of our country and I desire to offer
 it to them.

 And lastly, if a suitable work were completed and found salable and
 any share of proceeds fell to me, I need it in the prosecution of the
 work before me.

 Next--What of? The above explanation must have partially answered that
 I would give the eight months’ history of my present work, and I think
 I might be permitted by the writers to insert occasionally a letter
 sent me by some noble wife or mother, and there are no better or more
 touching letters written.

 I would show how the expedition to Andersonville grew out of this
 very work; how inseparably connected the two were; and how Dorence
 Atwater’s roll led directly to the whole work of identifying the
 graves of the thirteen thousand sleeping in that city of the dead.

 I would endeavor to insert my report of the expedition now with the
 Secretary. I have some materials from which engravings could be made,
 I think, of the most interesting features of Andersonville, and my
 experiences with the colored people while there I believe to have
 been of _exceeding_ interest. I would like to relate this. You
 recollect I have told you that they came from twenty miles around to
 see me to know if Abraham Lincoln was dead and if they were free.
 This, if well told, is a little book of itself. And if still I lack
 material I might go back a little and perhaps a few incidents might
 be gleaned from my last few years’ life which would not be entirely
 without interest. I think I could glean enough from this ground to eke
 out my work, which I would dedicate to the survivors of Andersonville
 and the friends of the missing men of the United States Army. I don’t
 know what title I would give it.

 Now, first, I want your yes or no. If the former, I want your advice
 still further. Who can help me do all this? I have sounded among my
 friends, and all are occupied; numbers can write well, but have no
 knowledge of _book_-making which I suppose to be a trade in
 itself and one of which I am entirely ignorant. I never attempted any
 such thing myself and have no conceit of my own ability as a writer.
 I _don’t think_ I can write, but I would try to do something at
 it; might do more if there were time, but this requires to be done
 at once. I want a truthful, easy, and I suppose touching rather than
 logical book, which it appears to me would sell among the class of
 persons to whom I should dedicate it, and their name is legion. Now,
 it is no wonder that I have found no one ready to take hold and help
 me carry this on when it is remembered that I have not ten thousand
 dollars to offer them in advance, but must ask that my helper wait
 and share his remuneration out of the profits. If he _knew me_,
 he would know that I would not be illiberal, especially as pecuniary
 profit is but a secondary consideration. It is of greater importance
 to me that I bring before the country and establish the facts that I
 desire than that I make a few thousand dollars out of it, but I would
 like to do both if I could, but the first if not the last. But I want
 to stand as the author and it must be my book, and it should be in
 very truth if I had the time to write it. I want no person to reap
 a laurel off it (dear knows I have had enough of that of late), but
 the man or woman who could and would take hold and work side by side
 with me in this matter, making it a heart interest, and having my
 interest at heart, be unselfish and noble with me as I think I would
 be with them, should reap pecuniary profit if there were any to reap.
 An experienced book-maker or publisher would understand if such a work
 would sell--it seems to me that it would.

 Now, can you point me to any person who could either help me do this
 or be so kind as to inform me that I must not attempt it?

It will be noted that in this letter she indicates her present lack of
means to publish such a book as she had in mind. She had not always
lacked means for such an object. While her salary as a teacher had
never been large, she had always saved money out of it. The habit
of New England thrift was strong upon her, and her investments were
carefully made so that her little fund continually augmented. Her
salary in the Patent Office was fourteen hundred dollars, and for a
time sixteen hundred dollars, and though she paid a part of it to
her substitute during the latter portion of the war, she was able to
keep up the rental of her lodging and meet her very modest personal
expenses without drawing upon her savings. The death of her father
brought to her a share in his estate, and this was invested in Oxford,
conservatively and profitably. When she began her search for missing
soldiers, therefore, she had quite a little money of her own. She began
that work of volunteer service, expecting it to be supported as her
work in the field had been supported, by the free gifts of those who
believed in the work. When a soldier or a soldier’s mother or widow
sent her a dollar, she invariably returned it.

As the work proceeded, she was led to believe that Congress would make
an appropriation to reimburse her for her past expenditures, and add a
sufficient appropriation for the continuance of the work. She had two
influential friends at court, Senator Henry Wilson, her intimate and
trusted friend, Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs of the
Senate, and General Benjamin F. Butler, with whose army she had last
served in the field.

She knew very well how laws were passed and official endorsements
secured. She frequently interceded with her friends in high places
on behalf of people or causes in whom she believed. She, in common
with Miss Dix, had altercations with army surgeons, yet her diary
shows her working hard to secure for them additional recognition and
remuneration. On Sunday, January 29, 1865, she attempted to attend
the third anniversary of the Christian Commission, but the House of
Representatives was packed; thousands, she says, were turned away. That
afternoon or evening Senator Wilson called on her and she talked with
him concerning army surgeons: “I spoke at length with Mr. Wilson on the
subject of army surgeons. I think their rank will be raised. I believe
I will see Dr. Crane in the morning and make an effort to bring Dr.
Buzzell here to help frame the bill.”

She did exactly what she believed she would do; saw Dr. Crane, got
her recommendation that Dr. Buzzell be allowed to come, and then went
to the Senate. The thing she labored for was accomplished, though it
called for considerable added effort.

About this same time she had a visit from a woman who was seeking to
obtain the passage of a special act for her own benefit. She shared
Clara Barton’s bed and board, with introduction to Senator Wilson
and other influential people, until the bill passed both houses, and
still as Miss Barton’s guest continued in almost frantic uncertainty,
awaiting the President’s signature. It happened at the very time Clara
Barton was very desirous of getting her work for missing soldiers under
way. The idea came to her in the night of February 19, 1865:

 Thought much during the night, and decided to invite Mr. Brown to
 accompany me to Annapolis and to offer my services to take charge of
 the correspondence between the country and the Government officials
 and prisoners at that point while they continued to arrive.

Mr. Brown called upon her that very day and they agreed to go to
Annapolis the next day, which they did. She nursed her brother Stephen,
accomplished a large day’s work, did her personal washing at nine
o’clock at night, and the next day went to Annapolis. There she met
Dorothea Dix; found a captain who deserved promotion, and resolved
to get it for him; assisted in welcoming four boatloads of returned
prisoners, and defined more clearly in her own mind the kind of work
that needed to be done.

The next Sunday Senator Wilson called on her again, and she told him
she had offered her services for this work, and wanted the President’s
endorsement in order that she might not be interfered with. Senator
Wilson offered to go with her to see President Lincoln, and they went
next day, but did not succeed in seeing him. She went again next day,
this time without Senator Wilson, for he was busy working on the bill
for the lady who was her guest, so she sought to obtain her interview
with President Lincoln through the Honorable E. B. Washburne, of
Illinois. Mr. Washburne agreed to meet her at the White House, and did
so, but the President was in a conference preceding a Cabinet meeting,
and the Cabinet meeting, which was to begin at noon, was likely to last
the rest of the day, so Mr. Washburne took her paper and said he would
see the President and obtain his endorsement. She saw Senator Wilson
that afternoon, and reported that her papers were still unendorsed,
and General Hitchcock was advising her to go on without any formal
authority. She was not disposed to do it, for she felt sure that she
would no sooner get established than Secretary Stanton would interfere.
The difficulty was to get at the President in those crowded days just
before his second inaugural, when events both in Washington and in the
field were crowding tremendously.

[Illustration: [_Facsimile_]

  Washington
  Feb. 28th, 1865.

  To President Lincoln

  Dear Sir,

  Miss Barton calls on you for a humane object and I hope you will grant
  her request. It will cost nothing. She has given three years to the
  cause of our soldiers and is worthy of entire confidence.

  Ever Yours

  H. Wilson

SENATOR HENRY WILSON’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN]

Senator Wilson was still interested in what she wanted to do, but was
preoccupied. “He had labored all night on Miss B.’s bill.” In fact
Clara Barton read the probable fate of her own endeavor. Senator Wilson
had given himself with such ardor to the cause of her guest that he
had no time to help her. She had borrowed a set of furs to wear when
she went to the President. She took them back that afternoon and wrote
in her diary: “Very tired; could not reconcile my poor success; I find
that some hand above mine rules and restrains my progress; I cannot
understand, but try to be patient, but still it is hard. I was never
more tempted to break down with disappointment.”

On Thursday, March 2, two days before the inauguration, she went again
to see the President. Just as she reached the White House in the rain,
she saw Secretary Stanton go in. She waited until 5.15, and Stanton did
not come out. She returned home “still more and more discouraged.” Her
guest, also, had been out in the rain, but was overjoyed. Her bill had
passed the Senate without opposition, and would go to the House next
day, if not that very night. Miss Barton wrote in her diary: “I do not
tell her how much I am inconvenienced by her using all my power. I have
no helper left, and I am discouraged. I could not restrain the tears,
and gave up to it.”

It is hardly to be wondered that she almost repented of her generosity
in loaning Senator Wilson to her friend when she herself had so much
need of him. Nor need she be blamed for lying awake and crying while
her guest slept happily on the pillow beside her. She did not often cry.

Just at this time she was doubly anxious, for Stephen, her brother, was
nearing his end, and Irving Vassall, her nephew, was having hemorrhages
and not long for this world, and her day’s journal shows a multiplicity
of cares crowding each day.

Stephen died Friday, March 10. She was with him when he died and
mourned for her “dear, noble brother.” She believed he had gone to
meet the loved ones on the other side, and she wondered whether her
mother was not the first to welcome him. His body was embalmed, and a
service was held in Washington, and another in Oxford. Between the time
of Stephen’s death and her departure with his body, she received her
papers with the President’s endorsement. General Hitchcock presented
them to her. She wrote:

 We had a most delightful interview. He aided me in drawing up a
 proper article to be published; said it would be hard, but I should
 be sustained through such a work, he felt, and that no person in the
 United States would oppose me in my work; he would stand between me
 and all harm. The President was there, too. I told him I could not
 commence just yet, and why, and he said, “Go bury your dead, and then
 care for others.” How kind he was!

President Johnson later endorsed the work and authorized the printing
of whatever matter she required at the Government Printing Office.
Her postage was largely provided by the franking privilege. Her work
was a great success and the time came in the following October, when
it seemed certain her department was to have official status with the
payment of all its necessary expenses by the Government. On Wednesday,
October 4, she wrote:

 Of all my days, this, I suspect, has been my greatest, and I hope my
 best. About six P.M. General Butler came quickly into my room
 to tell me that my business had been presented to both the President
 and Secretary of War, and fully approved by both; that it was to be
 made a part of the Adjutant-General’s department with its own clerks
 and expenses, and that I was to be at the head of it, exclusively
 myself; that he made that a _sine qua non_, on the ground that it
 was proper for parents to bring up their own children; that he wished
 me to make out my own programme of what would be required; and on his
 return he would overlook it and I could enter at once upon my labor.
 Who ever heard of anything like this--who but General Butler? He left
 at 7.30 for home. I don’t know how to comport me.

On that same night she had a very different call, and the only one
which the author has found referred to in all her diaries where any
man approached her with an improper suggestion. Mingling as she did
with men on the battle-field, living alone in a room that was open
to constant calls from both men and women, she seems to have passed
through the years with very little reason to think ill of the attitude
of men toward a self-respecting and unprotected woman. That evening she
had an unwelcome call, but she promptly turned her visitor out, went
straight to two friends and told them what had been said to her, and
wrote it down in her diary as a wholly exceptional incident, and with
this brief comment, “Oh, what a wicked man!”

The plan to make her department an independent bureau seemed humanly
certain to succeed. When, a few days later, General Butler left
Washington without calling to see her, she was surprised, but thought
it explained, a few days later, when the Boston “Journal” published
an editorial saying that General Butler was to be given a seat in the
Cabinet and to make his home in Washington.

But General Butler’s plans failed. He fell into disfavor, and all that
he had recommended and was still pending became anathema to the War
Department. The bureau was not created, and Clara Barton’s official
appointment did not come.

During all this time she had been supporting her work of correspondence
out of her own pocket. The time came when she invested in it the very
last dollar of her quick assets. Her old friend Colonel De Witt,
through whom she had obtained her first Government appointment, had
invested her Oxford money. At her request he sent her the last of
it, a check for $228. She wrote in her diary: “This is the last of
my invested money, but it is not the first time in my life that I
have gone to the bottom of my bag. I guess I shall die a pauper, but
I haven’t been either stingy or lazy, and if I starve I shall not be
alone; others have. Went to Mechanics’ Bank and got my check cashed.”

She certainly had not been lazy, and she never was stingy with any one
but herself. Keeping her own expenses at the minimum and living so
frugally that she was sometimes thought parsimonious, she saw her last
dollar of invested money disappear, and recorded a grim little joke
about her poverty and the possibility of starvation. But she shed no
tears. In the few times when she broke down and wept, the occasion was
not her own privation or personal disappointment, but the failure of
some plan through which she sought to be of service to others.

This is a rather long retrospect, but it explains why Clara Barton,
when she wanted to publish a book, contemplated the cost of it as an
item beyond her personal means. She could have published the book at
her own expense had it not been for the money she had spent for others.

Congress did not permit her to lose the money which she had expended.
In all her diary and correspondence no expression of fear has been
found as to her own remuneration. She thought it altogether likely she
could get her money back, but there is no hint that she would have
mourned, much less regretted what she had done, if she had never seen
her money again.

Sad days came for Clara Barton when she found that General Butler was
worse than powerless to aid her work. Heartily desirous of assisting
her as he was, his name was enough to kill any measure which he
sponsored. When Senator Wilson came to see her, just before Christmas,
and told her that the plan was hopeless, she was already prepared for
it. He suspected that she was nearly out of money, and tried to make
her a Christmas gift of twenty dollars, but she declined. She wakened,
on these mornings, “with the deepest feeling of depression and despair
that I remember to have known.” But this feeling gave place to another.
Waking in the night and thinking clearly, she was able to outline the
programme of the next day’s task so distinctly and unerringly that she
began to wonder whether the spirit of her noble brother Stephen was not
guiding her. She did not think she was a Spiritualist, but it seemed to
her that some influence which he was bringing to her from her mother
helped to shape her days aright. It was such a night’s meditation that
made plain to her that Dorence Atwater, released but not pardoned, must
get his list published immediately, and that he must do it without a
cent of compensation so that no one should ever be able to say that he
had stolen the list in order to profit by it. She found that she did
not need many hours’ sleep. If she could rest with an untroubled mind,
she could waken and think clearly.

Gradually, her plan to publish a book changed. Instead she would write
a lecture. She went to hear different women speakers, and was gratified
whenever she found a woman who could speak in public effectively. A
woman preacher came to Washington, and she listened to her. Even in the
pulpit a woman could speak acceptably. When she traveled on the train,
she was surprised and gratified to find how many people knew her, and
she came to believe that the lecture platform offered her a better
opportunity than the book.

There was one other consideration,--a book would cost money for its
publication and the getting of it back was a matter of uncertainty. But
the lecture platform promised to be immediately remunerative.

She conferred with John B. Gough. She read to him a lecture which
she prepared. Said he, “I never heard anything more touching, more
thrilling, in my life.” He encouraged her to proceed.

Thus encouraged, Clara Barton laid out her itinerary, and prepared for
three hundred nights upon the platform. Her rates were one hundred
dollars per night, excepting where she spoke under the auspices of the
Grand Army Post, when her charge was seventy-five.

She took Dorence Atwater with her to look after her baggage and see
to her comfort, and exhibit a box of relics which he had brought from
Andersonville. She paid his expenses and a salary besides. Sometimes
she thought he earned it, and sometimes she doubted it, for he was
still a boy and exhibited a boy’s limitations. But she cherished a very
sincere affection for him and to the end of her life counted him as one
of her own kin.

During this period she had abundant time to write in her diary;
for, while there were long journeys, the ordinary distance from one
engagement to another was not great. She lectured in the East in
various New England cities, in Cooper Institute in New York, and in
cities and moderate-sized towns through Indiana, Ohio, Illinois,
Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. She had time to record and did record all
the little incidents of her journey, together with the exact sum she
received for each lecture, with every dime which she expended for
travel, hotel accommodation, and incidental expenses. It was a hard
but varied and remunerative tour. It netted her some twelve thousand
dollars after deducting all expenses.

  A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers;
  There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears;
  But a comrade stood beside him, as the life-blood ebbed away,
  And bent with pitying glances to hear what he might say;
  The dying soldier faltered,--as he took that comrade’s hand,--
  And said, “I never more shall see my own--my native land.
  Take a message and a token to some distant friend of mine,
  For I was born at Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine.”

With this quotation from the familiar but effective poem of Mrs.
Norton, Clara Barton opened her first public lecture, which she
delivered at Poughkeepsie, on Thursday evening, October 25, 1866. The
lecture was an hour and a quarter in length as she read it aloud in
her room, but required about an hour and a half as she delivered it
before a public audience. It was, as she recorded in her diary, “my
first lecture,” and “the beginning of remunerative labor” after a long
period in which she had been without salary. She knew that it was her
first lecture, but the audience did not. She returned from it to the
house of Mr. John Mathews, where she was entertained, ate an ice-cream,
went to bed and slept well. She received her first fee of one hundred
dollars. On Saturday night she spoke in Schenectady, where she received
fifty dollars, and found, what many a lecturer has learned, that it
was not profitable to cut prices. A diminished fee means less local
advertising. The audience was smaller and less appreciative. On Monday
evening she spoke in Brooklyn. Theodore Tilton presided and introduced
her. There she had an ovation. Mr. Tilton accompanied her to her hotel
after the lecture, and she told him that she was just beginning, and
asked for his criticism. He told her the lecture contained no flaw for
him to mend. She went back to Washington enthusiastic over the success
of her new venture. She had spoken three times, and two of the lectures
had been a pronounced success. Her expenses had been less than fifty
dollars, and she was two hundred dollars to the good.

She found awaiting her in Washington a large number of requests to
lecture in different places, and she arranged a New England tour. She
began with Worcester and Oxford. She did this with many misgivings,
not forgetting the lack of honor for a prophet in his own country. She
spoke in Mechanic’s Hall in Worcester, before a full house. She got
her hundred dollars, but was not happy over the lecture. In Oxford,
however, things went differently. She had a good house, and “the
pleasantest lecture I shall ever deliver. Raced home all happy and at
rest. My best visit at home.” Here she refused to receive any fee,
placing the proceeds of the lecture in the hands of the overseers of
the poor.

She lectured at Salem, at Marlborough, and then at Newark, and again
returned to Washington convinced that her plan was a success.

Her next tour took her to Geneva and Lockport, New York, Cleveland and
Toledo, Ohio, Ypsilanti and Detroit, Michigan, and on the return trip
to Ashtabula, Ohio, Rochester and Dansville, New York. Her fee was a
hundred dollars in every place excepting Dansville, but her lecture at
this last place proved to be of importance. There she learned about
the water cure, which later was to have an important influence upon
her life. All these lectures on her third trip left a pleasant memory,
except the one at Ashtabula, which for some reason did not go well.

She now arranged for a much longer trip. She bought her ticket for
Chicago, stopping to lecture at Laporte, Indiana. She reshaped her
lecture somewhat for this trip, telling how her father had fought
near that town under “Mad” Anthony Wayne. She lectured in Milwaukee,
Evanston, Kalamazoo, Detroit, Flint, Galesburg, Des Moines, Rock
Island, Muscatine, Washington, Iowa, Dixon, Illinois, Decatur, and
Jacksonville. On her way north from Jacksonville, she was in a train
wreck in which several people were injured. She also had an experience
in an attempt to rob her, and she resolved never to travel by sleeper
again when she had to go alone. She was very nearly as good as her
word. Very rarely did she make use of a sleeping-car; she traveled by
day when she could, and, when unable to do so, sat up in a corner of
the seat and rested as best she could.

She lectured at Mount Vernon, Aurora, Belvidere, Rockford, and other
Illinois cities, and at Clinton, Iowa.

In most of these cities she was entertained in the homes of
distinguished people, Dorence Atwater sometimes staying at the hotel.

In Chicago she had good visits with John B. Gough and Theodore Tilton,
both of whom were on the lecture platform, and she herself lectured in
the Chicago Opera House.

Other lectures followed in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York,
and so on back to Washington. Then she took another tour through New
England. She lectured in New Haven and found the people unresponsive,
but she had a good time at Terryville, Connecticut. There Dorence
Atwater was at home. It was characteristic of Clara Barton that at this
lecture she insisted that Dorence should preside; not only so, but she
called it his lecture and gave him the entire proceeds of that and the
lecture at New Haven. It was a proud night for this young man, released
from his two imprisonments, and she records that he presided well. She
lectured again in Worcester and with better results than before, then
extended her tour all over New England.

After this she made other long tours through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
and States farther west. Now and then she records a disappointing
experience, but in the main the results were favorable. She had no
difficulty in making a return engagement; everywhere she was hailed
as the Florence Nightingale of America. The press comments were
enthusiastic; her bank account grew larger than it had ever been.

Clara Barton was now forty-seven years old. For eight years, beginning
with the outbreak of the Civil War, she had lived in rooms on the
third floor of a business block. The two flights of stairs and the
unpretentiousness of the surroundings had not kept her friends away.
Her daily list of callers was a long one, and her evenings brought her
so many friends that she spoke humorously of her “levees.” But she had
begun to long for a home of her own, which she now was well able to
afford. Since the appropriation of Congress of fifteen thousand dollars
and her earnings from her lectures, all of which she had carefully
invested, she possessed not less than thirty thousand dollars in good
interest-bearing securities. She had brought from Andersonville a
colored woman, Rosa, who now presided over her domestic affairs. She
spent a rather cheerless Christmas on her forty-seventh birthday in her
old room on 7th Street, and determined not to delay longer. She bought
a house. On the outside it looked old and shabby, but inside it was
comfortable. On Tuesday, December 29, 1868, she packed her belongings.
Next day she records:

 December 30, 1868, Wednesday. Moved. Mr. Budd came early with five
 men. Mr. Vassall, Sally, and myself all worked, and in the midst of
 a fearful snowstorm and a good deal of confusion, I broke away from
 my old rooking of eight years and launched out into the world all by
 myself. Took my first supper in my own whole house at the corner of
 Pennsylvania Avenue and Capitol Hill.

She had engaged her movers at a stipulated price of six dollars, but
she was so happy with the result that she paid them ten dollars, which
for a woman of Clara Barton’s careful habits indicated a very large
degree of satisfaction.

The next day, assisted by her colored woman Rosa and her negro man
Uncle Jarret, and with some help from two kindly neighbors, she set
things to rights. It was a stormy day and she was tired, but happy to
be in her home. She wrote in her diary: “This is the last day of the
year, and I sometimes think it may be my last year. I am not strong,
but God is good and kind.”

It is pathetic that the joy of her occupancy of her new home should
have been clouded by any forebodings of this character. Her premonition
that it might be her last year came very near to being true. Heavy
had been the strain upon her from the day when the war began, and the
events of the succeeding years had all drawn upon her vitality. What
occurred at the height of her success in Bordentown came again to her
at the height of her career upon the lecture platform. She rode one
night to address a crowded house, and she stood before them speechless.
Her voice utterly failed. Her physicians pronounced it nervous
prostration, prescribed three years of complete rest, and ordered her
to go to Europe.


END OF VOLUME I




Transcriber’s Notes

In a couple of places, obvious errors in punctuation have been
corrected and inconsistent hyphenization was standardized.

Illustrations have been relocated to more appropriate places in the
text and the list of illustrations has been updated accordingly.

Page 38: “but this brief vacational” changed to “but this brief
vocational”

Page 49: “were conscious charletans” changed to “were conscious
charlatans”

Page 57: “according to predecent” changed to “according to precedent”

Page 125: “our authority must be spected” changed to “our authority
must be respected”

Page 167: “Clara Barton had two large” changed to “Clara Barton had
too large”

Page 243: “in addiion to his own disability” changed to “in addition to
his own disability”

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON (VOL.
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