Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

Ulysses Simpson Grant

April 27, 1822, was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, who by an error of which you will hear later had his name changed to Ulysses Simpson Grant. His father was Jesse Grant, an Ohio tanner. Grant’s ancestors had settled in New England in the seventeenth century and some had served in the French and Indian War and some had served in the Revolution, so he was of good American stock.

When Ulysses was about ten years old, his father moved to Georgetown, Ohio, about forty miles from Cincinnati. There he prospered and became the owner of a farm as well as a tannery. Ulysses was not specially fond of books, but his father was resolved that he should have a good education. The boy was sent regularly to school and was a faithful student. He had work to do at home too—sometimes in the tannery which he disliked, sometimes on the farm, which he liked better. He was fond of horses and learned to ride and drive well.

From the time he was eleven till he was seventeen, he did the plowing and hauling on his father’s farm. His father who seems to have been more ambitious for his son than the boy was for himself, secured an appointment to West Point. Ulysses did not wish to go and feared he could not pass the entrance examinations. But his father’s word was the law of the family and so the sandy-haired, blue-eyed lad of seventeen left his Ohio home to go to West Point. He lingered on the way to see the sights in Philadelphia and other places.

Two weeks after he left home, he reached West Point, in May, 1839. He passed the dreaded examinations and was enrolled among the cadets. The Congressman who had secured the appointment for him forgot his name and filled in the application for Ulysses Simpson Grant, and by that name he was called. The boys nicknamed him “Uncle Sam” and called him “Sam Grant.” He got on well in his studies, especially in mathematics which had always been his favorite. He was more famous as a horseman, however, than as a student. At West Point there is still shown the place where he made a famous leap of six feet, three inches, on a big horse named York. Except for his horsemanship the young Ohioan, quiet in manner and careless in dress, was not much noted one way or another. He was graduated, June, 1843, twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine.

In 1846 came war with Mexico which Grant then and forty years later thought “one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” He had hoped for a place in the cavalry, but was sent in the infantry as second lieutenant.

He took part in many battles and distinguished himself by his coolness and courage under fire. In the battle of Monterey his regiment lacked ammunition and Lieutenant Grant volunteered to go for it to headquarters, four miles away. The route he had to travel was exposed to the enemy’s fire. He hung his foot on the saddle and held on to his horse’s mane; thus swinging on the horse’s side he galloped off and carried the message, returning unharmed.

In Mexico served many men and officers with and against whom he fought in the War between the States. He said afterwards that the knowledge of their character and methods which he gained during the campaign in Mexico was very useful. In the battle of Chapultepec, Grant, with the help of some comrades, dragged a small cannon up into the belfry of a church and used the place as a fort with great advantage. Major Robert E. Lee, in his report of the battle, commended the young lieutenant, saying that “Second Lieutenant Grant behaved with distinguished gallantry.” In 1848 Grant returned home and that year he was married.

Soon after, his regiment was ordered to California and Oregon. Unwilling to be separated from his family, in 1854 he resigned and came home. From his pay he had not been able to lay aside enough to defray his expenses home and these were paid by his father.

At thirty-two he had to begin the world with a wife and children to support. He moved to Missouri to a small tract of land belonging to his wife. Here he cut and hauled logs and split shingles and built a cabin. He named the place Hardscrabble, because, he said, life there was a “hard scrabble.” He worked diligently raising corn, wheat, and potatoes and cutting cord-wood for sale to help out his expenses, but he did not succeed as a farmer. At the end of three years, he was two thousand dollars in debt. Then he tried the real estate business but at that too he failed.

“Grant did not seem to be just calculated for business, but a more honest, generous man never lived,” said one who knew him in those days. “I don’t believe he knew what dishonor was.”

At last he gave up the struggle in Missouri and went to Galena, Illinois, where his brothers were carrying on a leather business. He began work in their shop as a clerk at six hundred dollars a year.

But he did not finish out the first year. The War between the States began. Grant helped to raise a company of soldiers in Galena and drilled them. As Colonel Grant, he was put in charge of the twenty-first Illinois regiment which he made the best regiment in the state. A little later he was made brigadier-general. After several skirmishes in the border states of Missouri and Kentucky, he went, in February, 1862, with seventeen thousand men and a fleet of gunboats to attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. Fort Henry was taken by the fleet before the army reached it, and then the land and water forces made ready to attack Fort Donelson. General Buckner, who had been with Grant in Mexico, wrote asking Grant for terms of surrender. “No terms other than an immediate and unconditional surrender can be accepted,” Grant replied. “I propose to move immediately upon your works.” As Buckner was unable to hold the fort, he had to surrender on these terms. Grant was now made major-general.

His next plan was to attack and break the base of Confederate railroad communications in northern Mississippi. For this purpose he marched towards Corinth. The Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston, instead of waiting to be attacked, threw his forces gallantly against the Federal army. The battle raged the whole day, without decisive results. That night General Buell brought Grant heavy reinforcements, and in the next day’s battle General Johnston was killed. The Confederates were forced back to Corinth, contending for every inch of ground.

Grant’s third move was to divide the Confederacy by getting command of the posts along the Mississippi River, thus cutting off the western base of supplies. The fleet under Farragut had tried to carry out this scheme. But Vicksburg and Port Hudson were both held by the Confederates, and between these they controlled the river and brought supplies from the west. Vicksburg, called “the Gibraltar of the Mississippi,” was strongly situated. In five battles Grant drove back the Confederate forces and in May, 1863, besieged Vicksburg, resolved to starve it into surrender. Many said that this was a foolish attempt and tried to persuade Lincoln to remove Grant, but Lincoln resolved to give him a chance. Grant closed in on the Confederates and cut off their line of supplies. In July General Pemberton asked for terms and received this answer: “The unconditional surrender of the city and the garrison. I have no terms other than these.” The taking of Vicksburg was a great victory for the Federals. President Lincoln wrote Grant a personal letter: “My dear General, I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.... When you turned northward, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln.” Those who had tried to get Grant removed saw that they too were wrong, but they lacked the president’s manly frankness and did not confess it.

Grant was given command of all the armies in the West. He went to Tennessee to relieve the division of the Union army under Rosecrans which the Confederates had hemmed up in Chattanooga. It was shut in by the Tennessee river on the north and by mountains on all other sides. Grant, with Sherman, Sheridan and other brave generals aiding him, marched up the mountain and fought a great battle on Lookout Mountain “above the clouds,” by which the troops in Chattanooga were relieved.

The title of Lieutenant-General, which Washington had borne, was revived for Grant, and he went to Washington in March, 1864, to receive his commission from Lincoln. The president said in giving it, “As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, will it sustain you.”

Lincoln had now found the general that he had been looking for, the man able to lead the magnificent Federal army of seven hundred thousand men. Grant went to Virginia, the battle-field of the Confederacy, where for three years Lee had held his own and defeated four generals sent with large armies against him. Grant resolved to break the Confederate lines and to capture Richmond. He thought that one cause of the lack of Federal success had been that the parts of the great army had not worked well together; he tried to make them move like the parts of a well-ordered machine. General Sherman was sent southward on a march to Savannah to lay the country waste so that no help could be sent to Lee’s troops. Sherman’s army covered a track of country sixty miles wide, in which railroads, bridges, houses, and provisions were destroyed.

It took Grant a year and it cost many lives to carry out his plan of overcoming Lee, but he never wavered. The two great generals fought one great battle after another. “I shall fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,” General Grant wrote after the battle at Spottsylvania Court House. Then came the desperate battle of Cold Harbor. After these battles the Federals received reinforcements to repair their losses, but none came to the southern army. There were none to come; even the old men and the boys were already in the field. On the second of April, 1865, the Confederates were forced to abandon Petersburg. Lee endeavored to withdraw his array but Grant followed close in the rear. After retreating seventy-five miles, the shattered, starving remnant of the Confederate army was surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.

Instead of being detained as prisoners, the Confederate soldiers were released on parole and they were allowed to retain their horses.

“They will need them for their plowing and spring work,” said Grant with kindly wisdom.

“General,” said Lee earnestly, “there is nothing you could have done to accomplish more good either for them or for the government.”

To honor Grant for his services, Congress created for him the rank of general, a higher title than even Washington held. The joy of the North at Lee’s surrender was turned to mourning by the assassination of President Lincoln. This was an even greater calamity for the South than for the North. Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and there followed a period of grave mismanagement,—especially of southern affairs. At one time Johnson was impeached—that is, tried for misconduct in office—and he lacked only one vote of being convicted.

Johnson wished to have Lee arrested and punished as a traitor. Grant said that “he had accepted Lee’s surrender and he and his soldiers were prisoners under parole and were not to be punished so long as they obeyed the laws to which they had sworn allegiance.”

In 1868 Grant was elected president as the candidate of the Republican party by a vote of two hundred and fourteen to eighty. He tried to withdraw the national government more and more from the South and to leave the state governments in control. He was re-elected in 1872 by two hundred and eighty-six votes, showing the people’s approval of his administration. A noteworthy act of his second term was his vetoing the bill for the inflation of the currency, making paper money legally equal to gold and silver.

People wanted him to serve a third term but he refused, and in 1877 started on a tour of the world. He visited Europe and Asia and was everywhere received with honor,—as the guest of Queen Victoria, the kings of Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, the Czar of Russia, and other rulers. Having received royal honors in many lands, he returned in 1880 to California where he had served thirty years before as an obscure young soldier.

His last years were burdened by business misfortunes and physical suffering. He had invested his money in a banking business which failed and involved him in ruin. With poverty came illness, a painful throat disease which was to end in death.

From his sickroom in answer to words of sympathy which came from all parts of the country, indeed of the world he sent this message: “I am very much touched and grateful for the sympathy and interest manifested in me by my friends and by those who have not hitherto been regarded as my friends. I desire the good will of all, whether heretofore friends or not.”

To make provision for his family, he set about writing his “Memoirs,” the story of his life and battles. In pain and illness, he toiled on and held death at bay till this work was finished, July 1, 1885. A few days later, he died on July 23. He was laid to rest beside the Hudson and over his remains was erected a magnificent marble tomb; over the doorway of this is inscribed his noble words, “Let us have peace.”

Robert E. Lee
The Leader of the Confederate Armies

More and more, Americans are coming to realize that in the great War between the States men on both sides were animated by a sense of duty and devotion to what they thought right. On the one side, brave, loyal-hearted men upheld the Union; on the other, men as brave and loyal upheld the supremacy of the state. You have read how Grant, the victor, won the love and reverence of his countrymen; no less loved and reverenced was his defeated opponent, the great Confederate leader, Lee.

Robert Edward Lee was born January 19, 1807, at Stratford, a handsome old country home in Virginia. His father, General Henry Lee, was the famous “Light Horse Harry” of the Revolution. When Robert was only four years old, General Lee moved to Alexandria in order to give his children the benefit of better schools. From childhood Robert was an apt and faithful student, careful to do his best at any task which he undertook. His childhood was darkened by the illness and death of his father. Robert cared tenderly for his invalid mother who said, “He is both son and daughter to me.”

ROBERT E. LEE

From the school at Alexandria Robert went to West Point, where at the end of four years he was graduated second in his class. Two years after leaving West Point, he married Mary Randolph Custis, the daughter of Washington’s adopted son, Washington Parke Curtis. Lieutenant Lee and his wife made their home at Arlington, a stately mansion on the Potomac River, in sight of the city of Washington. Here he passed a few happy months. But a soldier cannot choose his post of duty, and Lee was summoned from home to engineer work in the West. Then came the war with Mexico in which he took part. In this war served as privates or officers many others destined to fame in the War between the States—Johnston, McClellan, Pickett, Grant, Jackson. Among his brave and able comrades, Lee made a distinguished record. In the advance on the city of Mexico, he explored and made a road over a pathless lava field across which he guided troops; then he rode back alone in the darkness and rain to report to his commanding officer. General Scott said that this midnight journey was the greatest deed of the war, and Lee “the greatest military genius in America.”

After the war with Mexico was over, Captain Lee made a visit home. In 1852 he was made superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. Thence he was sent to Texas to fight against the Indians. He was in Virginia in 1859 and he was sent to suppress John Brown’s raid. He performed his duty at Harper’s Ferry in soldierly fashion, treated his prisoners kindly, and turned them over to the civil authorities to be punished for breaking the laws. In 1860 he was again in Texas, but the next spring he returned to Virginia. The period of disunion and secession was a sad one for Colonel Lee. He loved dearly the Union which his father had aided to establish. He had entered its army expecting to devote his life to its service. He believed, indeed, in the supreme authority of the state, but he thought secession unwise and was confident that in the Union the vexing questions about slavery and the tariff could be settled.

“If the four million slaves in the South were mine,” he said, “I would give them all up to keep the Union.”

But dearly as he loved the Union he thought that his first duty was to his native state, Virginia, his second to the Union of which he was a part. When Lincoln issued his call for troops, by General Scott’s advice the command of the Union army was offered to Lee. He declined, resigned his commission in the army, and accepted the command of the Virginia forces. It was a sad day when he and his family left beautiful Arlington which was never again to be a home. It fell into the hands of the Union soldiers and is now the site of a great national cemetery.

Lee fought at first in western Virginia; then he was sent to aid in fortifying the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. Afterwards he was put in charge of the army in Virginia, and there he remained, as general and commander-in-chief of the southern army until the end of the war. The southern army was small but it was commanded by brave and able generals. Lee’s “right hand” was Stonewall Jackson, a fearless soldier and earnest Christian, one of the greatest military leaders the world has ever known. A famous cavalry-leader was J. E. B. Stuart, a dashing cavalier who loved battle as a boy loves play. Both Jackson and Stuart were killed before the war was over.

As you have been told, it was the great aim of the northern armies to capture Richmond; it was the aim of Lee and his little army to defend the city. Lee led his soldiers with masterly skill in the Seven Days’ Fight about Richmond. Then he marched north; having defeated Pope at the second battle of Manassas, he advanced into Maryland and fought a great drawn battle at Antietam, or Sharpsburg. Lee then returned to Virginia. He fought at Fredericksburg against Burnside who had supplanted McClellan in command. The next spring “Fighting Joe” Hooker was defeated at Chancellorsville, but in the death of Jackson, the Confederates sustained a greater loss than that of many battles.

Lee marched north again, and a great battle was fought at Gettysburg. General Longstreet failed to advance as ordered, the Confederates who had charged fell unsupported, and the day was lost. General Lee led his crippled army back to Virginia. At Gettysburg the tide had turned against the Confederates. From that day defeat and surrender were but a question of time. For a long time Lee’s little army held its own in defence of Richmond. Grant, the victor of the West, was sent against it. It cost him a month and sixty thousand men to march seventy-five miles. With masterly skill, Lee opposed him in the great battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor, but the Confederate line was broken at last.

Forced to give up the defense of Richmond, General Lee endeavored to withdraw his army, but Grant followed, and the little army was surrendered at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865. As Lee bade farewell to his soldiers, they sobbed aloud and tears were in his eyes. He said with a broken voice, “Men, we have fought the war together. I have done my best for you. My heart is too full to say more.”

Great as had been Lee’s work in war, it was no less great in peace. Bravely and uncomplainingly he accepted the results of defeat, and endured the horrors of the reconstruction days. No word of bitterness was ever heard to pass his lips. Nor would he in their hour of woe and poverty desert his people. Wealth and position were offered him abroad, and at home he might have had affluence by lending his name to business enterprises. But he steadfastly refused all such offers. “I think it better to do right,” he said, “even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.”

He set himself to aid in the upbuilding and restoring of the South. At a salary of a few hundred dollars, he became president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia. Wisely and conscientiously he performed his duties until the autumn of 1870. One evening at tea his voice failed as he was about to ask a blessing and he sank back in his chair. After lingering a few days, he died October 12, 1870.

David G. Farragut
Our First Admiral

David Glasgow Farragut, the first admiral of the American navy, was born near Knoxville, Tennessee, July 5, 1801. He was the son of a Spaniard, a native of the island of Minorca, who came to America in 1776 and after helping the country fight for its rights settled here to enjoy them. At the end of the eighteenth century, Tennessee was a sparsely-settled region, occupied by a few hardy pioneers and by roaming Indians. One day when Mrs. Farragut was alone at home with her two little sons a band of Indians attacked the cabin. The brave mother sent her children to hide in the loft and guarded the door with an ax till help came.

When David was about seven, Mr. Farragut was put in charge of a gunboat on the Mississippi. His family moved near New Orleans, and there Mrs. Farragut died of yellow fever about a year later. Just before her illness, a stranger, an old man who had had a sunstroke, had been taken into her home and cared for. This stranger was the father of Commodore David Porter. The grateful naval officer offered to adopt and educate one of the Farragut boys. After the mother’s death, this offer was accepted for David. The little fellow was sent to school and at the age of ten he became a midshipman in the navy. He was very small for his age, and once when he went ashore a group of idlers gathered around and made sport of “the baby officer.” One waggish fellow sprinkled him with water from a watering pot to “make him grow.” This led to a fight between David’s tormentors and the sailors in which David took active part. After it was over, someone remarked that “the baby officer was three pounds of uniform and seventy pounds of fight.”

In October, 1812, David sailed with Captain Porter on the Essex. Captain Porter was ordered to join the squadron in the Atlantic if he could: if not, to use his own discretion. He cruised about the Atlantic several months, capturing several British merchant-vessels, but not finding the American squadron. He then decided to make a cruise in the Pacific. There he captured several British vessels and gave timely warning to American ships that had not heard of the war. At one time provisions were scarce, and David, like the others, was on a short allowance of bread and water. In May, 1813, David, then twelve years old, was put in charge of a captured English vessel to take it to port. The English captain was very angry at having to take orders from the “baby commodore,” as Farragut was often called, but Farragut executed his orders with exactness and dignity.

In March, 1814, the Essex, off the coast of South America, was attacked by two English vessels and captured after a desperate fight in which the Americans lost one hundred and twenty-four men. Farragut was “a man on occasions,” and Captain Porter commended his battery in this action. The American sailors were made prisoners on parole and they were exchanged only a few weeks before the treaty of peace was made. The time was improved by Farragut in attending school. Between his cruises he was generally at school studying diligently, and at eighteen he stood the examinations required for a lieutenant, though he did not receive his promotion till several years later.

In 1822 Farragut went with his friend, Commodore Porter, to fight against the pirates which thronged the West Indian waters. The American fleet was composed of small fast-sailing vessels and of boats called the “mosquito fleet.” They had some exciting adventures and encounters with the pirates, whom they succeeded in driving from most of their haunts. A more formidable foe than the pirates was yellow fever. Twenty-five officers were attacked and of those twenty-three died; Farragut was one of the two who recovered. Soon after his return to America, Lieutenant Farragut was put in charge of the Brandywine to carry Lafayette to France.

In 1833 he went to Charleston under orders to uphold the revenue laws of the United States which South Carolina had threatened to nullify. The danger was averted and for the present he was not called upon to serve against his countrymen. During the years which followed he made many cruises but saw no active service. He was an excellent officer. One who knew him said, “Never was the crew of a man-of-war better disciplined or more contented and happy. The moment all hands were called and Farragut took the trumpet, every man under him was alive and eager for duty.”

In 1850 Farragut and three other officers were appointed to draw up a book of regulations for the navy. They devoted eighteen months of hard work to the task and made an excellent manual. A few years later the book appeared with a few changes; the names of the four men who had prepared it were omitted and the credit was given to men who had really done none of the work. The fair-minded and hard-working young officer was naturally indignant at this injustice.

Later, he was sent to California and spent four years establishing navy-yards near San Francisco. He was now captain, which was then the highest rank in the American navy. On his return to Washington in 1858, he was put in charge of a new vessel, the Brooklyn. This was very different from the old sailing-ships on which he had served, being one of the first steam war-vessels in our navy.

The clouds of the War between the States were now gathering over the country, greatly to Farragut’s distress. He was a southerner by birth but from boyhood he had been in the nation’s service and his strongest affections were for the American navy.

“God forbid that I should raise my hand against the South,” he said.

Yet when the war broke out he felt that he must choose the national cause. In January, 1862, he was sent in charge of a squadron to secure the Mississippi River for the Union. He was to capture Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip which defended New Orleans, then take the city, and afterwards sail up the river, subjecting the forts along the banks. He was in charge of the largest and best-equipped fleet that had ever been led by an American commander. It consisted of forty-eight vessels. An army of fifteen thousand soldiers under General Butler was sent to aid in the capture of New Orleans. Below the forts commanding the city, was a barricade of old vessels and logs fastened together with iron chains; above these was the Confederate fleet of fifteen vessels. For a week Captain Farragut’s mortar boats rained shells on the forts, then his gunboats broke the barricade. At four o’clock on the morning of April the twenty-fourth, his squadron passed the forts which had held back the British in 1815. Then they engaged in a desperate battle with the little Confederate fleet. Every vessel of it was captured or wrecked. Four days later the besieged forts surrendered, and on the first of May the Union troops under Butler took possession of New Orleans. Farragut was ordered to “pass or attack and capture” the Confederate forts between New Orleans and Memphis. He accordingly went to Vicksburg, but his expedition failed for lack of land-forces to support the attack. July 4, 1863, Vicksburg was taken by General Grant, and a few days later, Port Hudson was surrendered. This gave the Union forces entire control of the river. For his valiant and efficient service, Farragut was rewarded in 1862 with the rank of rear-admiral, created for his benefit. Thus he was the first admiral in the United States navy. Later he was made vice-admiral, and in 1866 he became admiral, each of the three ranks being created in his honor.

While Farragut’s squadron was striving to gain control of the Mississippi, a battle took place on the Atlantic coast which marked the beginning of a new era in naval warfare, the end of wooden war-ships and the use of iron vessels. The Confederates captured a United States vessel, the Merrimac, removed its masts, covered it with iron, and fitted it with an iron prow. This iron-clad vessel attacked and destroyed several Union vessels. It was attacked by the Monitor, an iron-covered vessel designed by Captain John Ericsson and commanded by Lieutenant Worden. It carried larger guns than had ever before been used on a vessel. A fierce battle was fought in which neither of the iron-clads was seriously injured, and the Merrimac finally withdrew.

Leaving the Mississippi squadron in charge of Porter, who was also a rear-admiral now, Farragut went to the Atlantic coast. As soon as vessels could be refitted, he set forth in the summer of 1864 to capture Mobile, an important seaport of the South. With twenty-four war-ships and four iron-clads he entered Mobile Bay which was commanded by two strong forts. In order to overlook the fleet and direct its action, the admiral stationed himself in the rigging of his vessel, despite the protests of his men against his occupying a place of such danger. A submarine mine sunk one of his vessels with almost its entire crew; at this disaster the vessel which was leading the fleet stopped. Admiral Farragut ordered his own vessel, the Hartford, “full speed” in the van and led the way into the bay. The entire Confederate fleet was destroyed, and the forts were taken in a few days, thus giving the Federals control of the Gulf. Of the battle of Mobile Bay Farragut said, “It was one of the hardest-earned victories of my life, and the most desperate battle I ever fought since the days of the Essex.”

While Farragut was in the Gulf making ready to attack Mobile, in June, 1864, a brilliant naval battle was fought off the coast of France. This was between the Federal Kearsarge, commanded by Captain Winslow, and the Confederate Alabama under Captain Semmes. After an hour’s desperate battle, the Alabama was sunk.

A few months later, occurred one of the most daring deeds of the war. The Confederate vessel, the Albemarle, was destroyed at night by a torpedo from a little boat commanded by Lieutenant Cushing. Lieutenant Cushing had volunteered for the service, fully recognizing the danger to which he would be exposed. His boat was sunk, and only he and one of the crew escaped by swimming.

Clara Barton
The President of the American Red Cross Society

War at best brings with it terrible suffering, hardship and sickness, wounds and death. Gratitude is due those who labor to alleviate such sufferings. Among these, women have ever been foremost. During the Crimean War in Europe, Florence Nightingale and other noble Englishwomen went to the Crimea to nurse the sick and wounded soldiers.

In our War between the States a few years later, similar services were rendered by many self-sacrificing women, both North and South. Two great organizations, the Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commission, were formed in the North to collect supplies and forward them to the needy and suffering soldiers. Mary Livermore, who was at the head of the Sanitary Commission, wrote an interesting account of its work.

While these were busy at home, other women were at work in the hospitals and on the battle-fields, caring for sick and wounded soldiers. One of these nurses was Dorothea Dix. During the war, she was a superintendent of hospital nurses; after the war, she devoted herself to improving the conditions of prison life.

Another hospital nurse was Clara Barton, afterwards so prominently identified with the Red Cross movement. She was born in Massachusetts in 1830. In young womanhood she taught several years, then she secured a clerkship in Washington. At the beginning of the War between the States, she resigned her position to work in army-hospitals, where she was called “an angel of mercy.”

After the war, broken down in health, she went abroad. In Europe she became interested in the work of the Red Cross societies, which were doing a noble work and had already secured the co-operation of twenty-two nations. These organizations were due to the efforts of a Swiss gentleman who in 1859 visited the field of Solferino where, in a battle between the Austrians and the French, thousands of soldiers were killed and thousands were wounded. The medical aid at hand was pitifully inadequate; the sight of the sufferings of the wounded soldiers led this Swiss to plan the formation of societies for the relief of wounded soldiers. Such a society was formed at Geneva in 1864, and a badge, a red cross on a white ground, was adopted which was to be worn by those in its service.

By the efforts of Miss Barton, in 1881 the United States co-operated in this work. A Red Cross society was formed of which Miss Barton became president. In 1896 its members helped in the relief of the Armenians; they did noble work in the Spanish-American War in 1898, and in the Boer War the next year.

The work of the Red Cross society is not limited to the relief of the victims of war. In times of calamity and disaster, it takes speedy relief to those stricken by flood, famine, or pestilence. During the floods of 1884, Miss Barton in a relief-boat traveled thousands of miles up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, distributing food, clothing, and supplies. The Johnstown flood of 1889 left four thousand people dead and twenty thousand homeless. The Red Cross Society hastened to the relief of the sufferers. For five months its agents worked amid scenes of want and distress, distributing over two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of food, clothes, furniture, and other supplies. They did similar work at the great flood of Galveston in 1900, and are always ready to extend a helping hand where it is needed.