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

by William E. Barton

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.”

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.

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 unofficially 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