Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian / Founder of the American Red Cross Society, Author of the American Amendment to the International Red Cross Convention of Geneva, Founder of the National First Aid Association of America

by Charles Sumner Young

FELL DEAD ON THE GROUND BESIDE HER

The first time Clara Barton visited in New Haven, she wore a gray dress that had bullet holes in it—received in caring for the wounded at Fredericksburg. In describing the battle scene Clara Barton said: “Over into that City of Death; its roofs riddled by shells, 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!”

At Fredericksburg

They rated blood as water,

And all the slope shone red,

Past Valor’s call

By bristling wall;

Defeat linked arms with slaughter

Astride the blue-robed dead.

As Miss Barton was being assisted off the bridge by an officer, an exploding shell hissed between them, passing below their arms as they were upraised, carrying away both the skirts of his coat and her dress. A moment later, on his horse, the gallant officer was struck by a solid shot from the enemy; the horse bounded in the air and the officer fell to the ground dead, not thirty feet in the rear.

In her usual modest manner, in relating war incidents, she described the experience to a lady friend and said: “I never mended that dress. I wonder whether or not a soldier ever mends a bullet hole in his clothes.”