ILLUSTRATIONS
THE LIFE OF
CLARA BARTON
CHAPTER I
HER FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF THE RED CROSS
When in 1869 Clara Barton went to Europe in quest of health, she had never so much as heard of the Red Cross. That organization had been in existence in Europe for more than five years, but the number of people in America who knew anything about it was exceedingly small. The United States was not then a member of the international organization which recognized the Red Cross, nor did it become a member for many years thereafter. This was not because the United States Government did not know about it, but because this country had no purpose or desire to join in an organization established in Europe for purposes in which it was generally believed this country had no occasion to participate.
It is necessary to be explicit on this subject. The meeting which gave the Red Cross to the world took place at Geneva, Switzerland, on February 29, 1863. At the call of a committee, which already had behind it the formal endorsement of eleven national governments, the international organization was formed in Geneva on August 22, 1864. At this meeting the cross of red upon a white ground was adopted as the insignia of the convention. Twenty-two governments promptly gave their adherence to this convention. The United States was not among them, although it had been formally invited to be present.
The Red Cross did not lack for an advocate in America in that early day. The Reverend Henry W. Bellows, D.D., chairman of the Sanitary Commission of the United States, earnestly desired that America should have been among the original nations adhering to the treaty; but his pleadings were met with indifference and with pronounced opposition. Mr. George P. Fogg, United States Minister to Switzerland, and Mr. Charles S. P. Bowles, European Agent of the Sanitary Commission, were informally present at the Geneva Convention. The Secretary of State authorized Mr. Fogg “to attend the meeting in an informal manner, for the purpose of giving or receiving such suggestions as you may think likely to promote the humane ends which have prompted it.” He added that Mr. Fogg was not to attend if any emissary of the Confederate Government was allowed to be there.
It is interesting and gratifying to know that Mr. Bowles was able to report to the convention concerning the important work done in America by the Sanitary Commission. But neither Mr. Fogg nor Mr. Bowles could give any assurance that the United States would do anything toward the formal endorsement of the Red Cross, or become a member of the convention.
Dr. Bellows exhausted all his efforts to secure some recognition of the movement in America, and finally gave it up in despair. From February 9, 1863, when the movement began in Geneva, until May 20, 1881, when James G. Blaine wrote to Clara Barton that President Garfield would recommend to Congress the adoption of the international treaty, was a period of eighteen years, during which time the United States of America turned a deaf ear to every entreaty to participate in the work of the Red Cross. That the United States even at that late date came to be a participant in the results of the Geneva Convention was due to the untiring faith, devotion, and perseverance of Clara Barton.
She was not one among many good women working for this common end. She was not a member of a committee or other organization beginning feebly, but gradually gaining strength until the object was accomplished. Alone she learned of the Red Cross; alone she brought tidings of it back to her own country; alone she wrote of it, talked of it, brought it to the attention of distinguished men, carried her faith in it from desk to desk in Washington, and cherished the hope of it through long years, until just before the assassination of President Garfield, she received from him, through his Secretary of State, the assurance that the United States would accept the treaty which thirty-one national governments had previously adopted.
In September, 1869, Clara Barton went abroad in quest of health. For several months following the loss of her voice on the platform she had been fighting nervous prostration in America, and had found that she must turn her back on everything that suggested work. Acting under medical advice, she sailed in September, and, after a short sojourn in Scotland with no more than a look at London and Paris, she came to Geneva in Switzerland, bearing letters of introduction from the Swiss Minister in Washington, the Honorable John Hitz, to the American Consul and the American Ambassador. It was there Clara Barton learned of the Red Cross.
Had she but known it, a Red Cross Society had actually been formed in the United States in 1866, but had died without securing national recognition or attracting public attention. Of that organization we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. It was called “The American Association for the Relief of the Misery of Battlefields.” Information concerning it is preserved in a letter of the Reverend Henry W. Bellows, D.D., President, to Monsieur J. Henri Dunant, Secrétaire du “Comité International de Secours aux Militaires Blessés.” The few people who knew of this organization in 1866 had very nearly forgotten about it by 1869, and its great-hearted organizer, Dr. Bellows, had become completely discouraged with respect to any recognition of the movement in America. How Clara Barton came into touch with this organization as it existed abroad she told in a lecture which she prepared and delivered in a number of places on her return from Europe at the close of the Franco-Prussian War. As during this period her health was so poor that her diary was kept with great irregularity, this lecture gives us our best account of her journey and succeeding events:
Most of you, I presume, know of me only as connected with our own war, and probably little of that, and, unless I give a word of explanation, it will remain a mystery to you how I ever came near a war in another country, and, in military parlance, we must connect the two by a “pontoon bridge,” and get ourselves across on it.
Our war closed in the spring of ’65. Almost four years longer I worked among the débris, gathering up the wrecks, and sometimes, during the lecture season, telling a few simple war-stories to the people over the country, in their halls and churches.
One early winter evening in ’68 I stood on the platform of one of the finest new opera houses in the East, filled to repletion, it seemed to me, with the most charming audience I had ever beheld,—plumed and jeweled ladies, stalwart youths, reverend white-haired men. Gradually, and to my horror, I felt my voice giving out, leaving me; the next moment I opened my mouth, but no sound followed. Again, and again, and again I attempted it, with no result. It was finished! Nervous prostration had declared itself. I went to my home in Washington, lay helpless all winter. Finally, by my physicians I was ordered to Europe, and in early September, ’69, I was able to go.
I came in time to Geneva, when, while we were waiting, anticipating and settling ourselves, one day there was announced a visit from a body of Geneva gentlemen, having some business with me.
They introduced themselves as the officers of a society known as the International Convention of Geneva,—more familiarly, the Red Cross,—having for its object the amelioration of the sufferings of war, the succor and nursing of the wounded and sick in battle, the relief of prisoners, the guarding against famine and pestilence, and whatever may befall a people, under the scourge of war.
And this, in its international character, extends not alone to its own, but to all nations within the compact.
This society had been formed in 1865, at the instance of Dr. Louis Appia,—there present,—a noted surgeon in the Italian wars of Napoleon III, who had at that date called a convention composed of delegates from the civilized nations of the whole world, formed their laws for international neutral action in all wars extending to all peoples, framed their treaty and presented it for signature, through the delegates present, to the nations which they respectively represented. In less than two years this compact had been signed and entered into by twenty-five distinct governments comprising all the civilized and some semi-civilized nations of the globe.
With your kind permission, I will depart for a few moments from my narrative and speak of the nature of the international compact, which may not be familiar to you.
This treaty, consisting of ten articles, and making material changes in the articles of war governing the medical and hospital departments of all armies, provided among other things for entire neutrality concerning all hospitals for the care of sick and wounded men; that they should not be subject to capture; that not only the sick and wounded themselves, but the persons in attendance upon them, as surgeons, hospital stewards, and nurses should be held neutral, and free from capture; that surgeons, chaplains, and nurses, in attendance upon the wounded of a battle-field at the time of its surrender, should be regarded as non-combatants, not subject to capture, and left unmolested to care for the wounded so long as any remained upon the field, and, when no longer needed for this, be safely escorted to their own lines, and given up; that soldiers too badly wounded to be capable of again bearing arms should not be carried away as prisoners, but offered to their own army if in retreat it could take them. They must be placed in hospitals and cared for, side by side with the wounded of the enemy; that all convoys of wounded or evacuations of posts should be protected by absolute neutrality; that all supplies designed for the use of the sick or wounded should be held as neutral and entirely exempt from capture by either belligerent army; that it should be the duty of both generals in command to apprise the inhabitants, in the vicinity of a battle about to take place, of the fact that any house which should take in and entertain the wounded of either side would be placed under military protection, and remain so as long as any wounded remained therein, and that they would be also exempt from the quartering of troops and ordinary contributions of war, thus literally converting every house in the vicinity of a battle into a furnished hospital and making nurses of its inmates.
In order to carry into effect these great changes, it would be needful to have some one distinctive sign, a badge by which all these neutral peoples and stores could be designated. There must be but one hospital flag among all nations within the treaty, and this same sign must mark all persons and things belonging to it. The convention studied diligently for this sign; at length it got so far as to decide that a cross would be acceptable to nearly all peoples. They next said, “We represent here the great war-making monarchy of the world.”
This little Republic of Switzerland, so small that one of us could crush her between our thumb and finger, has had the courage to invite us here to consider our cruelties and call upon us for some better system of kindness and humanity than we have heretofore practiced. For this brave lesson she deserves something of us. We cannot take her flag; she has fought a thousand years for that, and will not give it up; but if she permits, we will reverse its colors—a white cross upon a red ground—and make a red cross on a white ground the one distinctive sign of humanity in war, the world over. The consent was given and this committee of gentlemen who had called the convention, with Monsieur Gustave Moynier as its president, was reëlected by all the nations as the international medium and head of war relief throughout the civilized world. To anticipate a little, I would say here that our adhesion to this treaty in 1882 has changed our articles of war; our military hospital flag. We have no longer the old faded yellow flag, but a bright red cross at every post, and the same sign to be worn by all military surgeons and attendants, if the orders of the War Department have as yet reached them, for we are to-day, you will be glad to know, not only in full accord with this International Treaty of Geneva, but are considered one of the strongest pledged nations within it.
There were at this time thirty-one nations in this great compact, comprising all the civilized and even some of the semi-civilized nations of the globe, all with one great and incomprehensible exception, the United States of America.
It had been three times presented to our Government; once at its formation during our war and twice since, without success, and without any reason, which, to the members of the convention, seemed sufficient or intelligent.
And it was to ask of me the real nature of the grounds of this declination that the interview had been sought.
If there were something objectionable in their articles, they might be modified to meet our laws, or even our prejudices—that some clue might be gained, which they could understand. They had thought of everything. If it had originated in a monarchical government, they could see some justifiable caution, but a sister Republic older than our own—and yet all monarchies had signed it. In their perplexity they had come to me for a solution of the problem. What could I say? What could each or any of you have said, if confronted with this question?
Simply that you did not know anything about it, and you were sure the American people did not know anything about it, or ever had heard of it. That the Government, or rather some officer of the Government, to whom the matter had been assigned, had decided upon and declined it individually, and it had never been considered in the national councils, nor in any way made known to the people.
I knew it must be so: that it had simply gone by default with no real objection; that our Government was too rushing to attend to details outside of political influence.
I could only answer these gentlemen that I feared the matter was not sufficiently understood, being in a foreign language, and I hoped it could be better presented at some future time. I need not say that this committee of seven members and myself became friends.
I read their Articles of Convention, their published bulletins and all reports, and, as we progress, we shall see if, in the dark days that followed, I found reason to respect the cause and appreciate the work of the Geneva Convention.
On Miss Barton’s arrival in Switzerland she made her home with the Golay family, father and mother of Jules Golay whom she had befriended in America, and who extended to her every possible courtesy while she was in their home and in their country.
Switzerland is beautiful in summer and early autumn, but in winter it is no improvement on New England. The beginning of cold weather found Miss Barton in discomfort. She celebrated Thanksgiving, and soon afterward left Switzerland for a milder climate.
She had a cordial invitation to spend the winter in London, but declined the opportunity. London fogs are inhospitable even to Londoners, and, to any one in Clara Barton’s condition of health, they are most depressing. She determined instead to go to the Island of Corsica.
Corsica did not agree with Clara Barton. The mild weather was favorable, but she found that she needed as much quinine there as she had required in the South. In the spring she returned to Switzerland, where her home was at the United States Consulate with Mr. and Mrs. Upton, and where she resided from March until the 26th of May. Then she went to Berne for the sake of some baths which had been highly recommended to her. While there, an event occurred which caused her to forget that she was an invalid in search of health.
CHAPTER II
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR
While Miss Barton was at Berne, in the villa of a friend, the Franco-Prussian War broke suddenly upon Europe. Nothing that happens in France or Germany fails to register influence at once on Switzerland. While she was there she received a call from Louise, the Grand Duchess of Baden, who, having learned of the presence there of an American woman so distinguished in war relief, invited her to go to Strassburg, which was in a state of siege, and prepare for the relief which already had become necessary and soon would be urgent. The baths were not so complete a tonic as this call to service. Yet it did not seem to her that she was strong enough to undertake this work.
Only a little later she had another invitation from Dr. Louis Appia, who had been one of the movers in the Geneva Convention. This was her opportunity to witness the actual work of the organization of which she had heard:
On the 15th of July, 1870, France declared war against Prussia. Within three days a band of agents from the International Committee of Geneva, headed by Dr. Louis Appia (one of the prime movers of the convention), equipped for work and en route for the seat of war, stood at the door of my villa inviting me to go with them and take such part as I had taken in our own war. I had not strength to trust for that, and declined with thanks, promising to follow in my own time and way, and I did follow within a week. No shot had been fired—no man had fallen. Yet this organized, powerful commission was on its way, with its skilled agents, ready to receive, direct, and dispense the charities and accumulations which the generous sympathies of twenty-two nations, if applied to, might place at its disposal. These men had treaty power to go directly on to any field, and work unmolested in full cooperation with the military and commanders-in-chief; their supplies held sacred and their efforts recognized and seconded in every direction by either belligerent army. Not a man could lie uncared for nor unfed. I thought of the Peninsula in McClellan’s campaign, of Pittsburg Landing, Cedar Mountain, and second Bull Run, Antietam, Old Fredericksburg, with its acres of snow-covered and gun-covered glacée, and its fourth-day flag of truce; of its dead, and starving wounded, frozen to the ground, and our commission and their supplies in Washington, with no effective organization to get beyond; of the Petersburg mine, with its four thousand dead and wounded and no flag of truce, the wounded broiling in a July sun, dying and rotting where they fell. I remembered our prisons, crowded with starving men whom all the powers and pities of the world could not reach even with a bit of bread. I thought of the widows’ weeds still fresh and dark through all the land, north and south, from the pine to the palm; the shadows on the hearths and hearts over all my country. Sore, broken hearts, ruined, desolate homes! Was this a people to decline a humanity in war? Was this a country to reject a treaty for the help of wounded soldiers? Were these the women and men to stand aloof and consider? I believed, if these people knew that the last cloud of war had forever passed from their horizon, the tender, painful, deathless memories of what had been would bring them in with a force no power could resist. They needed only to know.
Soon Clara Barton was on her way to the front. She went, not to Strassburg, but to Basle, where she witnessed with great satisfaction the efficiency of the Red Cross system. Basle is in Switzerland, just at the German border, but there representatives of both belligerent nations had their headquarters for purposes of relief of suffering. The Red Cross, protected by international agreement, had its base of supplies in neutral territory, and the agents of both armies organized their relief forces without molestation from each other. Wherever a battle occurred, relief could be and was provided in many cases before the first drop of blood was shed. Miss Barton’s admiration for the work of this society grew as she contrasted its efficiency with the unpreparedness and deadly delay which she had known all too well through the Civil War:
As I journeyed on and saw the work of these Red Cross societies in the field, accomplishing in four months under their systematic organization what we failed to accomplish in four years without it—no mistakes, no needless suffering, no starving, no lack of care, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and comfort wherever that little flag made its way, a whole continent marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross—as I saw all this, and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that I said to myself, “If I live to return to my country, I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that treaty.” But I did more than resolve, I promised other nations I would do it, and other reasons pressed me to remember my promise. The Franco-Prussian War and the war of the Commune were both enormous in the extent of their operations and in the suffering of individuals. This great modern international impulse of charity went out everywhere to meet and alleviate its miseries. The small, poor countries gave of their poverty and the rich nations poured out abundantly of their vast resources. The contributions of those under the Red Cross went quietly, promptly through international responsible channels, were thoughtfully and carefully distributed through well-known agents; returns, accurate to a franc, were made and duly published to the credit of the contributing nations, and the object aimed at was accomplished.
France, Germany, and Switzerland had been in the international compact for years past, all organized, every town and city with its Red Cross Relief Committee, its well-filled workrooms like our relief societies in our war, but all prepared in times of peace and plenty, awaiting the emergency.
The Swiss headquarters were at Basle, bordering on both France and Germany; and there all the supplies were to be sent and held on call from the hundreds of workers at the fields, for the use of the sick and wounded of either side indiscriminately wherever the need was found greatest. The belligerent nations had each its own headquarters; that of Germany at Berlin, with the Empress Augusta at its head; that of France, at Paris, under the auspices of its lovely Empress.
But you will understand that the international feature of this requires that all contributions from other nations be sent through the international headquarters; hence, no people within the compact, except the belligerents, could send direct to either France or Germany, but must correspond with the Central Committee at Geneva, and learn from it the place of greatest need and the proper agents on the spot to whom the consignment should be made. This wise provision both marked and sustained their neutrality.
Up to this moment, no point beyond Basle had been reached. This was, then, the great central dépôt of the International Red Cross, and it was worth something to have seen it as I saw it in less than two weeks after the sudden declaration, a declaration as unexpected as if some nation should declare war against us to-morrow.
My first steps were to the storehouses, and to my amazement I found there a larger supply than I had ever seen at any one time in readiness for the field at our own Sanitary Commission rooms in Washington, even in the fourth year of the war; and the trains were loaded with boxes and barrels pouring in from every city, town, and hamlet in Switzerland, even from Austria and northern Italy, and the trained, educated nurses stood awaiting their appointments, each with this badge upon the arm or breast, and every box, package, or barrel with a broad bright scarlet cross, which rendered it as safe and sacred from molestation (one might almost say) as the bread and wine before the altar.
You will conclude that quiet old historic Basle was, by this time, a busy city. It was frightened out of its senses. Bordering on both France and Germany, it lay directly on the possible march of either army on its way to the other; and the moment Switzerland shall allow this crossing, her neutrality will be declared broken, and not only Basle, but all Switzerland, will be held in a state of actual war and become common battleground for both.
I passed a week in that city among this work, to learn it more thoroughly, to be able to judge it in its practical bearings, its merits and demerits, so far as I could, before giving my qualifications and endorsement. You will not wonder that Basle felt her responsibility and trembled for both her own safety and the safety of the State!
Not very long did she remain in Basle. Soon a dispatch was received from Mülhausen, and Clara Barton, no longer an invalid, set out again for the front. She was not alone; accompanying her was a young woman who thenceforth became her companion, and who some years later followed her to America, Miss Antoinette Margot. Accompanied by this devoted girl, she set forth as she had done nine years before, for the relief of suffering on the battle-field. She told the story of it in an address which she gave afterward, which was little more than a transcript of her diary:
A mile from Basle, we met the pickets, but passed without serious interruption for the first six miles, when the detentions became longer, and the road lined with fugitives fleeing to Switzerland, entire families, carrying such articles as were possible: the better classes in family and public carriages; the next, in farmer and peasant wagons, drawn by horses, oxen, cows, and often the animals of the family accompanying the wagon which contained the most useful articles for an emergency—kettles, beds, and clothing.
Those who could not afford this style of removal were wearily but hastily trudging along on foot, carrying in their arms such as their strength would allow, and the tired children plodding along on behind, or drawn in little carts, with bundles of clothing and bits of bread.
Sometimes a family was fortunate to have a cow or a goat with them when they had no wagon. Sometimes, after the Bernese custom, a large dog drew the wagon of luggage. But in some manner all were making on, often in tears, and always with grief in their faces. All day we saw but two carriages going in our direction. But all whom we met looked at us in astonishment. “The Prussians are coming,” or, “There has been a terrible battle and everybody is being killed. Turn back, turn back!”
Sometimes one would be so earnest as to come to the heads of our horses, to urge us to return, and it was not always easy to keep our driver in heart.
At —— we were met and stopped by a large body of people, the mayor at the head, and our destination inquired, and at the same time informed that it was exceedingly hazardous to proceed, as great battles were going on at a short distance from Mülhausen, and that the Prussians were crossing the Rhine in great force. But when to all this we replied that we were aware of the state of things, and that was the reason of our going, that we went to care for the wounded of the battles, they all cried with one voice, “Mon Dieu—God bless you,” and the old white-haired mayor led the way to the side of our carriage, to take our hands, exclaiming, “God preserve and be with you, my children, and He is with you, or you would not be here on this mission.” And the crowd that jostled in the street, one after another, followed his example, with the tears falling over their faces, even to the little children to whom we reached down our hands to reach theirs, or to touch them as they were held up to us.
No wonder they wept! Their fathers, sons, and brothers would be in the bloody carnage so soon to follow. Already they had bade to God only knows how many the last farewell.
At length they let go our bridles and we passed on, and, with such scenes every moment in some form occurring, we performed the remainder of our journey to Mülhausen.
We made our way directly to the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross of Mülhausen, Monsieur August Dolfus.
A dispatch had just been received from the International Committee of the Red Cross at Mülhausen, France, inviting me to come there. Dr. Appia and his noble band of pioneers had evidently passed that way. This would be in a direct line to Strassburg, and the field of Weissenburg, and I decided to leave by the earliest train next morning.
As good fortune would have it, there came to me at this moment a kind-featured, gentle-toned, intelligent Swiss girl, who had left the canter de vaud to go alone to care for the wounded. The society introduced her to me.
Perhaps it would be well to anticipate so far as to speak of this young lady more fully, for all through you will know her as my faithful Antoinette—Antoinette Margot, Swiss by birth, French by cultivation, education, and habit. The two national characteristics met and joined in her. The enthusiasm of the one, the fidelity of the other, were so perfectly blended and balanced in her, that one could never determine which prevailed. No matter, as both were unquenchable, unconquerable. She was raised in the city of Lyons, France, an only daughter, and at that age an artist of great note, even in the schools of artistic France. Fair-haired, playful, bright, and confiding, she spoke English as learned from books, and selected her forms of expression by inference. One day she made the remark that something was “unpretty.” Observing a smile on my face, she asked if that were not correct. I replied that we do not say “unpretty” in English. “No. But you say unwise, unselfish, unkind, and ungrateful—why not unpretty?” “I do not know,” I answered. I didn’t either.
There was something in that face to be drawn to “at sight,” and to her astonishment and delight I told her she might accompany me.
Scarce was this arrangement completed when breathless messengers rushed to tell us that the French still fled before the troops of the Prince Royal, that the Prussians were marching direct upon the Rhine, if indeed it were not already crossed, and that the French had destroyed their railroad to Strassburg, that the rolling-stock of the road had been run off to save it, and that even the station was closed.
This was after dark—the news was not of a nature to favor delay. Instead of five o’clock by train next morning, I would start at daybreak by private carriage.
At length a cochère was found who would undertake the journey—the task of driving to Mülhausen for a consideration which, under the circumstances, it was quite possible for him to obtain. At the appointed hour, with some small satchels, the requisite supply of shawls and waterproofs, with my quiet, sensible young companion, I set off once more, shall I say—for “the front”? That expression was very strange after a lapse of five years, and I had thought never to hear it again in connection with myself.
Arriving at Mülhausen, Miss Barton found there was no present need of her services. She determined to set forth for Strassburg. With great difficulty she made her way thither. Through rain and mud, with conveyance almost impossible to obtain, she finally arrived, a distance of seventy-two miles, which journey she completed in a single day.
She was received with honor at Strassburg. The United States Consul and Vice-Consul were both Germans, but both had fought in the Civil War on the side of the Union, and they both knew of Clara Barton. The Consul had been a surgeon and the Vice-Consul a chaplain. Both welcomed her to the Consulate and to their homes.
But Strassburg was about to undergo bombardment. The city was then under French rule, but its population was mixed. It contained besides its own proper inhabitants many German-Americans just then eager to get out of Alsace. The Consul got an omnibus full of them, with Clara Barton in the van, and set out to place them inside the German lines. He took them as far as he was allowed to go, and turned back on horseback. Clara Barton and her omnibus full of people moved on. They carried the American flag. Part of the way it served to enable them to pass the sentries. But when they reached the German outposts, it ceased to afford them safe passage:
We had the United States flag at our front, and the first sentry halted us to learn what it was. When informed, he promptly disputed it. He had been in Mexico, and Guatemala and Australia and the Sandwich Islands, and it was not the American flag at all. Reference to a chart of flags convinced him, and we passed. But this made us aware of a great mistake we had committed.
In our hurry of getting off in the rain and darkness of the early morning, we had forgotten our International Red Cross Flag, and all our insignia. There was no return—as well seek to go back through the gates of death. We must trust to luck.
At the demand for the Red Cross insignia by the keen, acute sentry, Miss Barton retired, seized the bow of red ribbon, without which color she was seldom seen, and twisted it into a red cross which, with the thread and needle taken from her pocket, she sewed upon her arm.
The next sentinel, about a league from Strassburg, recognized our flag, saluted it, and did not even halt us.
These were the conditions under which, for the first time, Clara Barton wore the insignia which, in America, was destined to be forever associated with her name.
The outer German sentinels were now safely passed; but before she was permitted to enter the lines of the German army she was informed that if she entered she must remain. She might return if she wished within the French lines, or she might make her way again into Switzerland, but if she entered the German lines she must be willing to remain there until the termination of the war. She had no desire to go back to Strassburg and submit to the bombardment. She did not now desire to return to neutral territory. She entered the German lines and made her way to Carlsruhe, where she was a guest in the home of the Duke of Baden. She and the Grand Duchess Louise became devoted friends. The last letter Clara Barton wrote before her death, and with the knowledge that she had but a few hours to live, was written to the Grand Duchess Louise. Among the tributes that lay upon the grave of Clara Barton when the earth closed over her was a beautiful laurel wreath from the Grand Duchess Louise.
It was an accident that put Clara Barton inside the German lines. She had planned it otherwise when she went to Strassburg. She had rather expected that her work would be to the wounded French, but the fortunes of war put her within the opposing lines, and to her it mattered little. Her interests were not those of a belligerent. She was ready to minister to the suffering of either army.
Again Clara Barton was on the battle-field. From Carlsruhe she visited in succession several of the bloody fields. But when Strassburg fell, as it did September 28, 1870, she turned her back upon the comforts of the grand ducal palace, and entered the city where a few weeks before she had been the honored guest of the United States Consul. Thousands of its inhabitants were homeless and in danger of starvation. She organized a workroom where she set two hundred and fifty poor women to work. For forty days she and Antoinette Margot did their work amid the ruins of this distressed city. At first there was nothing to do but to give relief on application. There lie before the writer some of the original meal tickets which were issued at this time. But before long she saw that this plan if continued, would pauperize the women. She devised the plan by which they were to work and be paid for it whenever they were able to work. She wrote a letter to Count Bismarck, being introduced to him by the Grand Duchess Louise, and which obtained official recognition for her type of work:
Count Bismarck
Governor-General of Alsace
Honored Count:
Through the politeness of your adjutant and his amiable lady, I learn that Your Highness will kindly permit me to communicate with you in reference to the work I am endeavoring to perform among the destitute people who are so fortunate as to fall under your protecting care. But speaking no German, lacking confidence to attempt a conversation in French, and fearing that English may not be familiar to you, I decide to write, subject to translation, the little explanation I would make of my work, its origin, progress, and design.
I entered Strassburg the second day after its fall, and, observing both the distress of its inhabitants and their bitterness toward their captors, who must always remain their neighbors, I deemed it wise, while they should receive the charity so much needed, that something of it be presented by German hands. In this view I was most cordially met by that noblest of ladies, the Grand Duchess of Baden, to whom I am also indebted for this introduction to you, and immediately, under her generous patronage, I returned with an assistant to do what we could in the name of Germany. At first, we could only give indiscriminately to the hundreds who thronged our doors. But, directly, I perceived that a prolonged continuance of this system would be productive of greater disaster to the moral condition of the people than the bombardment had been to their physical; that in a city, comprising less than eighty thousand inhabitants, there would shortly be twenty thousand confirmed beggars. Only a small proportion of these families had been accustomed to receive charity, but one winter of common beggary would reduce the larger part to a state of careless degradation from which they would scarcely again emerge. It seemed morally indispensable that remunerative employment in some form should be given them. Again I consulted Her Royal Highness, who kindly approved, generously making the first contribution of materials, and we opened our present “Work-rooms for Women” in the month of October. To say that the results have surpassed my most sanguine expectation is little, the facts are much more; but a stranger both to people and language, it is not singular that my work, which depends entirely upon public patronage, has often lacked the necessary means to attain the full measure of success.
My original design was to aid not only the inhabitants of Strassburg, but those in other portions of Alsace who are equally destitute. I thought that to be just to all and produce the best moral influence, the employment, and the payment, should be given to Strassburg, thus making of the inhabitants workers, instead of beggars, but that the warm garments made by them should be sent to the half-naked peasants of the villages, and little country homes where the harvest has been lost, and neither money nor clothing comes within reach. And to the extent of my means I have done this. The peasants have heard of the rooms, and often walk two and three leagues to ask for garments, and the clergymen from around the old battle-fields, and from Bitch, are making appeals in behalf of their half-naked and shivering people. Both my sympathy and my judgment would favor the hearing of these appeals so far as possible. This population must always be the neighbors, if not a part, of the German people; it will be most desirable that they should be also friends; they are in distress—their hearts can never be better reached than now; the little seed sown to-day may have in it the germs of future peace or war.
But pardon my boldness, Honored Count; I am neither a diplomatist nor political counselor; I am only a maker of garments for the poor.
I have objected to the purchasing of materials for my work from magazines, believing that, if the attention of some large manufacturers of stuffs were called to the subject, materials could be supplied in a much better manner.
Other noble societies, I rejoice to say, have sprung up later, all of which I believe will confine their praiseworthy efforts to the city of Strassburg, and in every respect but that of affording employment will, I trust, prove sufficient for the necessities. My little work has been the pioneer, that ploughed through the earliest and deepest drifts, and which, though often weary and disheartened, still seeks to push beyond the beaten track, over the fields, and along the hillsides, and gather the sufferers out of the storm.
After this, I fear too lengthy, explanation, will Your Highness kindly permit me, for the sake of perspicuity, to arrange under two or three distinct heads the prominent features of my work.
1st, I desire to give employment, and payment therefor at the usual rates, to some portion of the destitute families of Strassburg.
2d, To distribute the garments made by them among the people of the surrounding districts which have been reduced by the calamities of the war.
3d, That, beyond this, I design to make no appropriations of charities, but to refer all such applicants residing within the city to the various societies and committees of the same.
4th, To attain this object and carry on the work is required, material, in warm stuffs of both wool and cotton, suitable for clothing for working-men, women, and children.
5th, Money to pay the workers,—sufficient for the number employed.
Strassburg, Dec. 9th, 1870
Miss Barton also sent an appeal to America for assistance in the purchase of material. Her letter to the New York “Tribune” brought her prompt response, and she was not without means for the support of her work. She used the money which was sent to her in such fashion as to make it do double duty. She bought material and had it made into garments largely by the women who needed those garments for themselves or their families. She paid them for their work in vouchers—two francs a day, which was good pay; and she sold them the products of their work at low prices. They received good wages for their labor and good value for their wages, but, wherever they were able, they had to work for the vouchers they got, and pay for the clothing they obtained.
I have some of the odd little two-franc vouchers which she required the women to give. She was not held to any system of accounting, and when there was need she spent money without vouchers; but wherever it was feasible, she did her business in a business-like way, and she taught the women to be business-like. In her final accounting, only a surprisingly small fraction of her money had been expended without vouchers.
On Christmas Day of 1870, her forty-ninth birthday, she wrote to Mrs. Frances Childs Vassall a letter in which she gave an account of her own work and also passed a distinctly unfavorable judgment upon the French as they appeared to her at that time:
“Women’s Workroom”
Strassburg, Alsace, Dec. 25, 1870
My dear Fannie:
With your usual sagacity you timed your letter just to the moment. It was Christmas Eve, five o’clock, cold as Greenland. I had sent my assistants home the day before to enjoy a few days of leisure with their friends. I sat writing at the farthest end of my large room, from which only a range of white curtains separated and enclosed me in my little “counting-room.” The postman’s rap at the door caused me to look up, and through the curtains I could discern a singular glimmer of lights like stars, but moving from point to point, as if the firmament were not satisfied with the arrangement of its luminaries, and sought the opportunity to rearrange. Startled at first, I rose from my seat to rush out, but suddenly remembering the evening and the occasion it occurred to me that my presence at that especial instant might not be desirable and I reseated. After a minute more of shifting and fluttering, my little domestic Emily appeared between the curtains, “Here are two letters, and will you please to walk out.” The letters were from you and Fannie Atwater, and the walking out revealed a Christmas tree in full blaze all for myself. It had been arranged and left by my good ladies before they had departed, with instructions to the domestics to produce and light it at five o’clock in the evening. It abounded in fruit and flowers and mosses, and some little nice things which their good hearts had dictated for my comfort. And so, in the delicate shadows falling like tracery upon the snow which spread beneath its branches, I sat me down and read your dear, welcome letter. Although you did not intend a word of sentiment in it, nor a touching sentence, I could not truly say that my hand did not sometimes brush across my eyes as I read; it was so like old times to receive a whole letter from you, all from you, and all for me. I knew I did not deserve it. I have been so remiss in writing, and I don’t know how it happens. I can only account for it on your own grounds, that when we are occupied and feel that there is something to say there is no time to say it, and when unoccupied we become listless and there seems to be nothing to say. I am always disgusted at this state of things in the human economy, but I can neither reconstruct nor mend it. It is a little more than a week since I posted a long letter to Sally all about myself, selfish as could be, and I must not inflict a similar chapter on you, as you will be compelled to go over that when it arrives. I am rejoiced to hear from yourself that you are better than when I left.
The greatest obstacle I meet in the way of a full restoration of strength is the utter inability to get sleep enough; an average of five hours is the maximum. If I by chance succeed in getting a half-hour beyond this one night, I have it “docked off” the next. When I was stronger this would do me; I could run my machine at full speed all day upon this power, and did it for years; but now the belts are slack and the wheels slip and I lose so much power that my pond is all drawn off. I should be so glad if I could adopt your plan of a nap in the afternoon, but I cannot get it unless by mere accident once in a great while. But I, too, am so much better than when we last saw each other that I feel I should never mention the subject of health and strength again while they are as good as at present.
I thank you for mentioning to me Mrs. Livermore’s lectures. I know she was a favorite in Worcester; you know she was always a favorite with me, although I never met her. Madame de Gasparin’s appeal for peace has found a warm and strong advocate in Mrs. Howe. I hope some good may come of it. All that you say upon the subject is true, and it is no small amount of “picking up” that women have to do in consequence of these reckless fellows; from boyhood to manhood and from manhood to age, it is all the same. I can never see a poor mutilated wreck blown to pieces with powder and lead without wondering if visions of such an end ever flitted before his mother’s mind when she washed and dressed her fair-skinned baby. Woman should certainly have some voice in the matter of war, either affirmative or negative, and the fact that she has not this should not be made the ground on which to deprive her of other privileges. She shan’t say there will be no war, and she shan’t take any part in it when there is one, and because she doesn’t take part in war she mustn’t vote, and because she can’t vote she has no voice in her government, and because she has no voice in her government she isn’t a citizen, and because she isn’t a citizen she has no rights, and because she has no rights she must submit to wrongs, and because she submits to wrongs she isn’t anybody. What does she know about war? Because she doesn’t know anything about it, she mustn’t say or do anything about it. “Three blind mice—cut off their heads with a carving knife—three blind mice.”
I pray for peace, and all that may promote it, and if there be a power on earth which can right the wrongs for which nations go to war, I pray that it may be made manifest, but when I think I fear. How supreme an international court must it have been to be able to induce the Southerners to liberate their slaves or to convince them that the “mudsills” and “greasy mechanics” and “horned Yankees” were a people entitled to sufficient respect to be treated on fair international ground! And how much legislation would it have taken to convince the world what a worthless bubble of assumption was France, so utterly unworthy the leadership she assumed, and to have laid her in all respects so open before the world that it should with one voice repudiate her leadership and refuse to follow her as heretofore in frivolity, immorality, folly, fashion, vice, and crime! She seems to me to have been only one great balloon, and now that the bayonets and bombs have pierced it full of holes it sends out tens of thousands of little balloons in its collapse. It is bad for France, but I am not certain but the lesson will be beneficial to the rest of the world. I don’t know if we may always trust councils—we had one at Rome not half a year ago that voted a dogma which turned backward the progress of enlightened thought two centuries, and how great a power of legislation would have been required to overthrow that decision! But I suspect the fear of Victor Emmanuel’s bayonets have seriously interfered with it. Oh, I don’t know; it is such a mystery, and mankind the greatest mystery of all! I shall never get it right in this world, whatever may happen in the one that sets this right. But how prosy I am—and it all comes of that five hours’ sleep. You know Beecher says, “If the preacher doesn’t sleep, his hearers will.” I hope you reserved the reading of this till you were ready for your nap.
Soon after the fall of Paris, Miss Barton determined to make her way thither, but before leaving Strassburg she placed before the authorities of that city her views of the kind of organization which should be permanently established there for the relief of those who were suffering by reason of the war. That letter shows how thoroughly she understood the problem of administering relief without pauperizing the beneficiaries:
Monsieur Bergmann
Membre du Comité de Secours Strasbourgeois
Monsieur:
Your very courteous request, that I would present something of my ideas in reference to the subject of employment for the poor of your stricken city, demands, perhaps, that I explain, first, the reason and origin of my own presence here. A long and familiar acquaintance with the calamities of war led me to direct my steps to the gates of your besieged city the first day that it was possible to enter, viz., September 29th. Not as a matter of curiosity, for bombarded cities had long ceased to possess any novelty for me, but to ascertain if there were any service I could render.
My earliest visit was to your civil hospital, and its wards of wounded women, which were indeed a novelty in the history of the world. Seeing no better way of serving them, I took a written account of each woman at her bedside, what she had suffered, and what she had lost, and, carrying the sad record, placed it personally in the hand of Her Royal Highness, the Grand Duchess of Baden, which, I trust, contributed a little toward directing to your afflicted city the immediate and active sympathy of that Court and Capital.
This accomplished, I returned with my present excellent and efficient assistant, Miss Zimmermann, to learn what further could be done. A few days’ observation convinced me that, in the majority of instances, the actual loss of property which had been sustained by the class of persons who came to demand charity was of less real importance to them than the total loss of their customary remunerative occupation; that while the first merely reduced them to want, the latter would make of them permanent beggars and vagrants, thus doing for their moral, all that the bombardment had done for their physical, condition.
With the somewhat forlorn hope of being able to arrest in a few individual instances these disastrous consequences, I at once commenced the system of work-giving, in which occupation you have found me, and concerning which you have done me the honor to ask some opinions and recommendations.
If I might be so bold as to make a single recommendation, in reference to this unhappy population under their present calamitous circumstances, it would be that of the most immediate promotion of honest industry; that at the earliest moment labor be made to walk hand in hand, and step by step with charity, and, wherever it is possible, to precede the charity that gives without return; to open every possible avenue of employment to all classes of individuals, especially the women and children, in view of the peculiar nature of the calamities of the present hour which have left so large a proportion of them without the husband and father of the family upon whose labor they must have been more or less accustomed to depend in former times.
A first step would certainly be the making of garments with which to keep themselves comfortable and wholesome, and, if I might be permitted to make a suggestion, it would be that strong, but cheap, colored material, either of wool or cotton, suitable for dresses, skirts, and sacques for women and girls, and pantaloons and blouses for men and boys, be purchased either from manufacturers or merchants (all of whom are suffering from the effects of the war) and, carefully fitted and arranged, be given to women to make up in their homes, after the manner which we have pursued with the thirty or more who are at present employed from these rooms.
True, every woman will not sew well at first, but we have found that nearly every one will learn, and have now no trouble with our workers, and the garments made by them are good enough to be placed in any ordinary clothing bazaar for sale.
The immediate disposition to be made of this clothing when finished is still an important question. For the moral effect upon those who are to receive it, I would recommend that it be not given outright and entire, as this course still has the tendency to foster habits of beggary and vagrancy which it is so desirable to discourage. Receipt without return is ever demoralizing, and for this, it were better that the poor, even, pay something for what they receive, if it be only a small proportion of the original cost, and with this view, I would recommend the placing of the articles in a kind of bazaar connected with and forming a part of the present noble establishment of the “Comité” of which you are a member, and a price, more or less real, and more or less nominal, be placed upon them, such a price as will bring them within the reach of all excepting the most abject, who are forever, perhaps, to be treated after the ordinary modes of wholesale charity; but the effort should be always to reduce this class as much as possible, by lifting up out of it every family and individual that kindly encouragement, paid labor, and reasonable prices can elevate above it. One would soon find that a small sale room of this kind would not necessarily be confined to the few varieties which I have named, but shoes, stockings, and many articles of ordinary apparel, and perhaps, also, many articles useful in the family household would find their way into it, and thus, through the generous and protecting hands of the Comité, substantial aid and a first impetus be given to many a small but worthy and unfortunate artisan of your city who now finds no purchasers for his products, or no material to commence his work, and to the smaller merchants who find now no purchasers for their goods.
I would not have it supposed that I present this little idea as a permanent cure for existing ills, but as a momentary help in time of trouble until the hard season passes, and business has time to resume a little its ordinary course.
Care would have to be taken to guard against imposition, to see that persons did not buy to sell again. The same vigilance which is now exercised in regard to those demanding charity would be necessary here. One may beg to sell, as well as buy to sell. But it should not discourage the work that it is liable to abuse. God’s best gifts to man are hourly abused; shall we expect more for ours?
All articles would not find purchasers, it may be said. True, but what remains in hand will constitute the supply to be given in direct charity, and it is presumed that there will always remain a demand in this quarter equal to the supply, even under the best systems of distributive and protected labor.
It may be asked if this system will not operate against the merchants who deal in ready-made clothing. It should not in the least, as these people could never purchase a garment at full price and consequently could not become their customers.
In order that my suggestions should not seem merely theoretical, permit me to turn for a moment to the more practical details. It may be asked if garments can be made to fit women and girls without actual measurement? I would reply that, with a graduated scale of five or six sizes, we have found no more difficulty in fitting women than the tailor finds in fitting men and boys without actual measurement.
Again, will there not be much waste of material in cutting quantities of garments? Very little; literally none; in the graduated sizes, one garment cuts from the form left by the other, down to the smallest size, and of the pieces too small for these we have the custom of making caps for boys and mittens for the hands, so that no piece larger than the size of a child’s hand need be left unused.
It would be proper to mention among materials to be purchased the small articles necessary in the making-up of garments, such as thread, laces, buttons, agraffes, tapes, etc., etc., the sale of which would still benefit another class of small merchants.
I may have dwelt too strongly and too long upon the subject of putting a price upon charities, but if so, I can only ask to be excused upon the ground of the moral elevation I so ardently desire for the unhappy people of your city, and remind you that it is a simple thing to leave this idea untouched, as the giving of work by no means depends upon it, and this course alone pursued after the ordinary methods of charity will of itself place the name of the “Comité of Strassburg” high upon the roll of the active charitable institutions of the world.
With sentiments of the highest consideration both for yourself and your Honorable Comité, I remain, dear sir,
Very truly yours
Clara Barton
Strassburg, January 3d, 1871
By this time there were organized American agencies for the relief of suffering caused by the war. Clara Barton endeavored to establish relationships with one of these at Brussels or Antwerp, but without conspicuous success, as shown by her letter to General Burnside:
General Burnside
My Esteemed General:
I am sure that a word will suffice to remind you of our interview at Geneva, and its object; and perhaps you will recollect that I craved the privilege of personal introduction from you to the American Legation at Brussels where it seemed proper to locate the headquarters of the American organization for the relief of the French peasantry which I had then traveled half the length of Germany and the width of Switzerland in the rain and snows to effect. I saw then so clearly all which has since transpired that I could not repress the conscientious demand of duty to use every effort within my power to prepare for the safe receipt and faithful and wise distribution of the forthcoming gifts of our countrymen, although at that moment no societies assisted and no monies had been raised in America to my knowledge except by the French and Germans residing there. I had, like yourself, come fresh from the scenes of strife, want, and desolation, and was chilled and bewildered by the cool indifference of the Americans residing here to whom I referred in such warmth of confidence. Only yourself, of all I met, gave a word of hearty approval. You will remember as I was surrounded that I could not tell you this at that moment; neither had I words to tell you how grateful I was for your commendation of my plans. Even the names of those who knew me well were withheld from me, as it seemed to me to be exceedingly moderate and modest, proper, hesitating and haggling until after you had given yours; then they came, so much weak men need a leader. Then I hurried back to my post of duty at Strassburg, and on to Brussels, still in the rain, to be there on the “fifth day,” hoping to find and through you gain the more willing aid of the American representation there, and found something like American headquarters either there or at Antwerp; but to my excessive regret you had already passed out of town as I came in, and I stood alone in that strange city with my heavy, unfinished task. I called upon General Shetland, who very properly recommended me to his superior. I called upon him. He met me sharply and unkindly; informed me in a needlessly rude manner that he never heard of me before, and couldn’t understand what I wanted; that he saw no names on my paper which justified him in placing his there, and he should not do it. Of course I left his presence without a word. Genial General Shetland was hurt and offered his name “if it would do any good,” but I could not suffer him to place himself in unpleasant relations with his superior and declined it.
Still in the storm and mud, defeated and discouraged, sore and weak, I left Brussels and made Metz, which had that day opened its hungry gates. After a few hard days’ work among its famishing, fevered population I came once more to my work in Strassburg. I now saw clearly that I could effect nothing in the way of an organization to aid the work of our countrymen when they should see fit to commence it. I was grieved for the loss, through this account, to the suffering French and the loss of satisfaction to our countrymen eventually when the wiser ones should come to realize that they had not done their own work in their own name and manner, and with the best results. But I was only one woman alone, and had no power to move to action full-fed, sleek-coated, ease-loving, pleasure-seeking, well-paid, and well-placed countrymen in this war-trampled, dead, old land, each one afraid that he should be called upon to do something.
On June 1 Miss Barton left her well-organized work in Strassburg and hastened to Paris, where she spent about six weeks in the relief of suffering and distress. From there she went to Lyons, where she established another workroom such as she had had in Strassburg. Something of the detail of her work in Paris is afforded us in a brief letter to a gentleman in London, acknowledging a gift of five hundred pounds sterling for her work. We see something of the grim situation which she confronted in that city. A much more cheerful letter is one which she wrote to Annie Childs just as she was about to leave Lyons at the end of August. Annie had been her dressmaker for many years. This letter, informing Annie that she was now the head of a dressmaking establishment of her own, shows how fully at this time she seemed to have recovered her old vivacity, and to be, amidst the desolation of a conquered country, her own wholesome, self-reliant self:
Lyons, France, August 20, 1871
My dear Annie:
If I were to make an apology as long as my offense, I could write nothing else, but I don’t like apologies; you don’t either, do you? Then let me hasten to proclaim myself an idle, lazy, procrastinating, miserable do-nothing and good-for-nothing; if that isn’t enough, I leave the sentence open for you to finish and I sign it squarely when you have done and call it “quits.” But really it has been too bad. I have neglected everybody in general, not you in particular. I thought I was too busy to write. I don’t suppose I was, only that I did not employ my time well. I know this is often so and perhaps always. I wish I had been better educated in this regard as well as every other. If you are ever married, as you doubtless will be, and have a family of eight or ten children, I beg you will make it a specialty in their several educations that they be taught to do things in the proper time. You will do me a favor to remember this as one of “my efforts for the good of humanity.”
[Facsimile]
PRINCE BISMARCK’S LETTER
I wanted all last winter to tell you about my “dressmaking” and describe to you my “shop.” I knew it would interest you if no one else. Now, wasn’t that the last thing you would have thought of, that I should come to Europe and set up dressmaking, and French dressmaking at that? I knew the fact would be a little surprise to most of my old friends who knew me best, but to you I imagine it a matter of bewildering astonishment. Well, you should have seen the patterns! “Did I have patterns?” Didn’t I? And didn’t I cut them myself? And didn’t I direct all the making until I had imparted my wonderful art to others? And you think my garments were fearfully and wonderfully made! Well, that opinion comes of your being an old maid and so particular. I assure you, Miss Annie Childs, that they were nice garments and prettily cut and well made, and I found them in excellent demand; every one wanted them and never a word of complaint of the price; everybody seemed to be perfectly convinced that they were cheap enough at my first offer. I had ten young girls (like yours) dressmakers, and from one to three men “tailors” who worked twelve hours a day, but only with the shears, never an hour’s sewing; and no one sewed at my “shop”; only those who must be taught to take something out and do it over. And we made dresses and sacques and petticoats and chemises and aprons and hoods and mittens and pantaloons, vests, blouses, shirts, socks, of all kinds of material and all sizes that ever the tiniest baby grew to. Oh, yes, and such lots of things for babies,—little dresses, little bonnets, cloaks, blankets, two thousand garments every week. I don’t think they were gored and flounced and frilled as much as yours, Miss Annie Childs, but they were strong and warm and handsome. It is true all my seamstresses had not such nimble, delicate fingers as one might desire for the finest work; they wore very large thimbles sometimes; but there were plenty of small fingers in the family. They came very gladly twice a week to see me and showed me with great pride their successful efforts; always the work came home in the market basket, and always I knew that that same basket would load the other way with bread and a little meat if it were possible, but this was not always. But it was such a comfort to see them, week by week, grow better clothed themselves and the children, till by and by a woman and her baby came to look only like a big and a little bundle of the same clothing she carried in her basket. And all the working-people of the city came to look like walking bundles of the same clothing. To be sure, it took away something from the picturesque style of the city as I first saw it when at least ten thousand human beings were perfectly arranged for models for the painter and the sculptor. I admit that it was highly artistic, but I thought it a “peutrop” for the season, considering that the earliest snows had commenced to fall. Oh, but don’t you wish now that you had come and worked at the head of my “shop”—didn’t I wish it? More than once I sighed in my inmost soul for you. How rich I should have been, with you at my side! Just think of it! I shall write to Fannie sometime when I hain’t told all the news to you—please hand her this if she looks patient and strong enough to stand it.
How much I wonder what you are all doing at home! I seem entirely to have lost the thread, and from the stray little thrums which I get hold of I cannot pick it up. I am just now in despair about Sally. Some one writes me that they suppose I know all about her and Vester’s sickness! Imagine the effect of this piece of intelligence. Another says, it was fortunate they were with Ber and Fannie, as they were sure of good care!!! This is consoling. What did they have, and how did they get it, and how was it, and when was it, and how is it now? Do pray you write and tell me. I am distressed and can’t at all help myself. I do hope they have not had a serious illness, but I keep feeling all the time that somebody will be sick. I keep writing Sally at Washington, but have no idea where she is and where you are this hot summer, and Fannie, poor, dear, neglected Fannie. She ought to cross me off her books, and I guess she has before this time. I know there has never been a day since I left that the entire troop of you all has not passed in panorama before me, and I have attempted to place you all as I thought it most likely to be, but I suppose I have been wide of the mark.
For me, as you must have known a hundred times when I left Strassburg, I went to Paris, and, after six weeks there distributing clothing and money, I left and came to Lyons to visit a family of one of the younger ladies who had aided me twice since the war commenced, and I have remained here about as long as I was in Paris, but am ready to leave, and shall again this week go to Paris for a day or two to meet some parties of Americans who will be there on their way home, and from there I am to go, as I have been once, into the central eastern portion of France to see the places and peoples who have been much destroyed by the war and the sieges. I have no idea how much time I shall consume here. I must judge this by the condition I find the people in. I am almost tired of France and long for Germany or something which is solid and Saxon. There is no truth, no fixedness of purpose, nothing reliable, nothing sensible in France, and it only disgusts me that they have always claimed the leadership of the world and that so stupidly it has been conceded to them. I do hope the German bayonets have punched a hole in that bubble large enough to burst it. It is certainly time. If they were even neat, I would not complain so much of them, but they are such a dirty race of people, dirty but fashionable. One gets tired of this. Now, you will see from this that it is a real merit in me to work for the French. I do it out of pity and charity toward suffering humanity, because they need, and not because I gratify my love or my taste by it. I do neither. I think it right to do or I would not touch it, I do assure you.
Now, there are so many people whom you see every day that I would be so glad to see that it makes me almost homesick to write you. Does Willis still remain in Oxford, and Uncle John and Nancy; how are they? And Mrs. Hannah Sanford and Mrs. Sigourney, and all my cousins in Worcester; do you see them? Cousin Lydia Grout, do you see her ever? The Bacons and Starrs and Cousin Maria? I am told that Cousin Ned is to be married, and then my Cousin Jerry, what of him, and the Dennys and Dr. Snow? If you see him, please remember me most kindly. And the Towers and Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Hammond. Don’t you see I am homesick to see all these people even if they have forgotten me? I cannot help it. I am sure you will write me a long letter full of news, just as is your specialty, for, Annie Childs, you know, you do know, how to write a letter, and I shall wait for it now till it comes. You will address me as usual care of American Legation, Berne, Switzerland.
How does Ber behave? Does he boss his wife any? If he does, you pull his ears for me, and oblige
Yoors trooly, and believe me, your lovingest Sis
Clara Barton
Benjamin Moran, Esq.
Chargé d’Affaires, London
Esteemed Sir:
While I acknowledge the receipt of your favor and enclosed cheque for five hundred pounds, permit me, in the name of the suffering of France, to thank you and your Committee most earnestly for the same. Your generous gift will enable me to send comfort into hundreds of desolate and more distraught families, whom I have hitherto been unable to reach. I beg you will permit me to explain that my attempts to clothe the people of France have not been the result of a desire to improve the personal appearance, but to aid in ridding them a little, if possible, from the scourge of pestilence and vermin which the war has so terribly spread among them.
It is to be hoped that few will die of outright hunger during the next six months, but thousands must fall pitiful victims to disease lurking in the only old rags, in which months ago they escaped from fire and destruction. Disease is spread from one family to another, until thousands who are well to-day will rot with smallpox and be devoured by body lice before the end of August. Against the progress of these two scourges there is, I believe, no check but the destruction of all infected garments; hence the imperative necessity for something to take their place. Excuse, sir, I pray you, the plain, ugly terms which I have employed to express myself; the facts are plain and ugly.
How industrious she was in Paris and how bravely and cheerfully she did her work is shown by two home letters which she sent out simultaneously in September, one to her sister Sally and the other to Mrs. Bernard Vassall, her long-time friend, Fannie Childs Vassall:
Paris, Sept. 18, 1871
My dear Fannie:
I have forgotten if I really did send a line in Annie’s letter or not. I know I wanted to, but since that I have received that precious “gingerbread” letter from all the family, and I have read and re-read, and spied into little corners to see some other welcome face peeping out. It was so good of Willis and Ber to set their hands and seals. Yes, I know all about receiving letters that call directly upon my heart, and my desire to answer that hour, and a thousand times I have said that those were the very letters which were to lie longest in neglect and likely enough never get answered at all. The fact is I am over-anxious about them, and wait for a few moments of better opportunity, feeling that I have much to say, and so I wait and wait, and these letters are the sore spot, the worrying sin of my existence, that little package which I cannot put by, but which lies around, and looks me in the face on the most impossible of occasions, and reproaches in silence, and comes late at night and early in the morning to haunt, it may be to taunt, me a little; that little package is the plague of my life, and yet I prize it most of all and couldn’t have done without it, but I can never quite dispose of it. Oh, yes, yes, I do understand all you try so patiently to explain to me, ONLY that I don’t think my poor scrap could ever have been one of the class of letter which burden me, for I have no recollection whatever of it, and seriously suspect it was only a little pile of trash. It has been brave of you not to get sick in all summer with all your work, and company and sickness besides, but I am so glad that Sally was with you, and I suppose Vester was also, but it is not mentioned where he was during his illness.
I am spending some fine days in Paris, just what I most desired. I wanted to see some American people; it had been so long since I had seen them—and indeed there is no lack of them here. All Paris swarms with them, as I suppose it always does, and all grades. Some I am proud of, and some I am ashamed of; some speak remarkably well, and some cannot utter a proper sentence. Generally they are “well dressed,” as the world goes, but to my eye “over-rigged,” as a sailor would say, but always much better than the English, who are the most fearful dressers in all Christendom. English women are solid and sensible, learned and self-possessed, and all the world respects them; but the art of selecting and putting clothes onto themselves is something quite beyond their line of vision. Not that they do not wear enough,—oh, Heavens, no, not that,—there is always enough and to spare, but there is no calculation what portion or member of the body corporate it will be found dangling from, and Joseph’s coat bore no comparison. Still they are splendid women, and handsome, fifty per cent more beautiful than the French. The French declare that the Germans cannot dress in decent manner, but I have seen much good, comfortable-looking dressing in Germany, and I rather liked it. I don’t know what has induced me to write so much upon the silly matter of dress, unless that some of my “sisterin” abroad annoy me a little with theirs.
I can see how busy Ber must be with his large family and congratulate both him and his children upon the relationship. I imagine him to be the most sensible and paternal of parents. I shall be only too glad when you can really take your legitimate place in the work. I can see an equal call for your services. Go and look after the little girls. They may not like to tell all their troubles to their State Papa, but would rejoice to reveal some things to a mamma. Go with Ber. I think that is one of your “rights”—it is at least your privilege, and you know it is very well said that “until women get their rights, they must keep their privileges.” I also have something of a family in Europe, some hundreds of state children, but of my own immediate family I have two delightful girls. They are as fully grown and developed as my two boys in America were, rather more, and about as near alike, but charming girls, both good as they can be, and be human, live girls. One is all gentleness, the other all strength, but both are so loving, so obedient, so true. The elder is Miss Antoinette Margot. She is a thorough artist, and is with me at present, painting and visiting the Louvre and the Luxembourg and comparing notes with the Parisian painters. She is at this moment painting an American flag, and looking back over her shoulder to ask me, “How many of the red stripes must commence at the field?” and ends with “Mais il est très joli.” Miss Anna Zimmermann is at her home in Carlsruhe looking after the thousand wants of a clergyman’s house, keeping the big brothers in order for the Universities they are plodding through; obeying her papa and mamma, who tell her she is too “independent and ambitious,” writing at odd moments as she can pick them, reading Carlyle, Dickens, Goethe, Schiller, as she can steal the minutes, pining that she must be held in just such bondage of body and soul, praying for the day when she may come and live with me a little more, and beginning a long, strong, logical letter once in a while with “To the Devil with the housework! Why must I fritter away all the best years of my own life and starve my brain to cram my brothers who already have been taught twenty times more than they can apply?” And she is right.
But my sheet will be full and I shall have said nothing at all. I have just written your “Marm” and I think, perhaps, that will find its way to you, and you must just have had a surfeit through Annie. I am glad she went for a vacation. I wonder what they do at Falmouth. When I am home, can’t we go? I am not at all certain where I shall pass the winter; it may be I shall think I must work in France. I cannot tell how they will present themselves by winter, or I may think it well to quarter myself here in Paris and wait; and I have half a mind to go to Spain. This is perhaps the most sensible use I could make of the time. I must wait a little the turning of events. I can tell better after a month more in the east of France. I am glad you have had a visit from Georgie. It was nice of her to send me a line. Is not Alice with you now? Has she turned to ashes?—very possible—human nature can as well as wood or coal. Write me when you have time and don’t let Ber abuse you.
YoursClara
To Ber—
I am first-rate, how are you? Clara
For particulars see within.
After the terror and bloodshed of the Paris Commune, Miss Barton spent some time in northern France, laboring as she had labored in Paris and in Lyons; at Belfort, where she finished her work on October 27, and went for a little time of rest to Carlsruhe, where she was the guest of the Reverend Mr. Zimmermann, whose daughter had labored with her at Strassburg. Antoinette Margot was there also, glad to turn from scenes of desolation to her work of painting.
The middle of December she went forth again in bitter cold weather, accompanied by Antoinette Margot, distributing relief to the poor at Mülhausen, Belfort, and Montbéliard. She spent Christmas at Strassburg, where she served a great Christmas dinner to some five hundred of her old acquaintances, and then returned to Carlsruhe.
Activity agreed with Clara Barton. She rose to meet great emergencies. When the crisis was passed, she felt the effect of so long a strain. Again and again during her lifetime she carried an enterprise completely through to the triumphant close, and when it was done collapsed from nervous overstrain. Twice in America that collapse had been indicated by the total failure of her voice. At the close of the Franco-Prussian War she collapsed again. This time it was not her voice, but her eyesight. Her eyes were inflamed by the strain and smoke of the battle-fields. The nervous tension aggravated the discomfort of which the inflamed eyes were, after all, only a symptom. For several months in the winter and spring of 1872 she was at Carlsruhe in a state of semi-blindness.
[Facsimile]
STRASSBURG DIPLOMA OF HONOR
We have a little sidelight on Clara Barton’s work among the French women in an undated letter from Belfort, almost certainly by Antoinette Margot. An American woman in Paris had evidently asked her for some account of the work of Clara Barton, and she had promised to write it. The letter gives some intimate glimpses into the character of her work:
[October, 1871]
Dear Madam:
Faithful to the promise made to you one bright day in Paris more than two months ago, I write. You remember that it was a kind of clandestine pledge, made in low tones, that I would one time tell you something of the doings of your compatriot, who has the “singular habit, for a woman,” as the world would say, of doing something and saying nothing.
From much observation, I am convinced that Clara Barton never makes the least report of what she does, unless, for some cause, she considers it to be absolutely indispensable, and then, in a form so plain and business-like that one would read, and turn the paper, little dreaming of all the sentiment, strength, heart, poetry, and labor that lay hidden beneath that unpretending exterior.
It were too long to tell you of the few weeks in Paris, following your departure. What, between the sympathies for the families of the wretched prisoners of Versailles, and the outpouring Alsatians who refuse to remain German, there was little rest for body or soul. Some entire families had even followed from Strassburg, knowing that Miss Barton went from there to Paris, and certain of relief if they should find her there. They did find her, and now occupy good positions. One is even placed for life in the civil service of the French Government (if the Government shall last so long). But these things, done through rain and storm, cost strength, and I was near to report to you a sick list.
Happily, that is past, and my present hour must be applied to telling you of Miss Barton’s work in a third general point of desolate France, viz., the brave little town of Belfort, which has rendered its name illustrious by the heroism of its defense. Here we are, facing the high citadel and the famous cannon “Catharine” that twenty-five thousand German bombs could not silence, and here day after day works your countrywoman trying to overcome the greatest amount of misery possible among so many.
The room in which she received her people has been tendered by Monsieur l’Administrateur of the town, and is in his own mansion, and himself and family are proving at every moment to your noble sister how proud they are of having obtained this favor.
It is in this room that she stands from morning till night, smiling and graceful as always, receiving family after family, and endeavoring to learn by herself what are their circumstances, how deeply they have suffered, to express to them her sympathy, and assist them with some money. It is probable that many of these poor people in this land of aristocracies have never listened to words so respectfully spoken, and are often so overcome by this added kindness of manner extended to them that the first answer which comes is a sob,—often no words can come,—and trembling, blessing hands held out to her are all that can speak. But oh! how eloquently they speak!
They are very poor, these relics of an eight months’ siege. Some, of course, have lost nothing in material by the war, having nothing to lose but time and labor, but the larger portion have lost all or nearly all they possessed, the fruit of forty or fifty years of hard work, and remain homeless, hopeless, old, broken, dispirited, sick since they have lived in cellars, and without the smallest prospect of regaining their lost property. Do wars in Republics leave the people as badly off, I wonder?
It is not a rare thing to see a poor woman come in with her garland of six, seven, or eight handsome young children which she presents with both pride and distress. One had even thirteen, and when asked if all of them were still in her charge, she exclaimed, with the most charming simplicity, “Oh! no, madame, two are abroad; I have only eleven to work for.”
To-day, a tall, thinly clad woman entered, and presented her billet, bearing the stamp of the mayor. “Have you children?” asked Miss Barton kindly, as she took it. “Have I children?” exclaimed the woman in a tone at once proud and pitiful. “Dear child, if I haven’t. I have ten.” Miss Barton turned away to her table, but a stolen glance at her face a moment after detected something there glistening brighter than the gold she dropped into that hard, dark hand. “Ah,” thought I, as I hastened down the name as rapidly as possible,—“Ah, if only all the world’s work were done with a little of the heart in it how much nearer Heaven would seem!”
When it was decided that Miss Barton would accept the labor of herself receiving the crowd of victims of the bombardment, the authorities of the town, fearing for her, from the roughness of these people, who, they said, would rush in all together, by all the doors and windows, placed four policemen around the house to protect her against the crowd. Two of them in turn have for their mission to open the only door by which the solicitors are admitted. But never was I so amused as to see Miss Barton protecting her policemen, and preventing these rough men and shrill-toned women from crowding them against the wall. When sometimes they are all in a quarrel, the policemen swearing like two thunders according to the approved French manner of preserving respect, she appears at the door, and in the most charming manner prays them to wait a little and be quiet. Then the most piercing voices become silent, the wildest men are ashamed of their noise. The only visible motions are those nearest trying to hide themselves behind others, and those in the distance raising themselves on tiptoe to see “la bonne dame américaine.” As for the policemen, they are perfectly puzzled, and could never have supposed that so gentle a lady, who never scolds or swears, could hold in order so undisciplined a crowd.
Often the work is interrupted for more agreeable reasons. Once it is a deputation of the sisters of the civil hospital, in their snowy bonnets, or some other charitable institutions of the town who want to thank her for the gifts sent to their establishment. Another day it is the mayor of the town, who desires to pay respects; another time all the council, mercifully asking to be allowed to express to her their gratitude in the name of Belfort and the county. All this as a personal matter I hear always steadily repelled, and they are politely requested to bear in mind that it is America and the goodly city of Boston to whom, if to any, all thanks are due. But no one is so mad as to expect to outdo a Frenchman in official politeness, and I observed the president of the council, half bent, hat in hand, replying that their three names would be always so united in their hearts that they should never be able to hear the one without thinking of the others.
This is a region almost exclusively Catholic, and the ignorance of the people is something deplorable. Each recipient is asked for a signature, and the proportion who are able to make something beyond an X is less than one in fifteen. Writing is an accomplishment generally not to be thought of, especially by the women, but when one who has attained so far is asked if she can give her signature, she replies, with the assuming grace of a noble of the blood, “Certainement, pourquoi pas?” But the common response is a burst of astonishment at the bare supposition. “I write! Mon Dieu, how should I.” A difficulty, by no means the smallest, is to find the kind of money to which these poor people have been accustomed. The immense payments of France to Germany all in silver and gold are fast making coin among the things that were. The bank-notes of France never having been small in value, and used rather as a convenience for business than as a currency for the people, the poor are mostly strangers to it, and when a note was placed in their hands they waited, holding it a long time, and then ventured to inquire timidly, if that was something that they could get some money for, and where they should go to get it changed, and how they should do it? It was useless to tell them its value; they would have preferred ten francs in silver to twenty in paper. And, indeed, as they could not read, it were perhaps better for them, as one saw at once that they would be at the mercy of every swindler they met. This would not do. All notes which had been given were recalled and redeemed in coin, and it is certainly the occupation of one man from morning till night to change paper into coin as fast as it is required for distribution.
But it is impossible; the night is not long enough to tell all that transpires during the day, and one must not attempt it. I only wish, as I always do, that her own people could see their countrywoman at work among European poor, as not one European has done. If they are proud of her for what she has done at home, they would be prouder of her in a tenfold greater degree for what she is doing abroad, never at the best strength, in a strange country of foreign customs and divers tongues.
Pardon, s’il vous plaît, my miserable English; you knew what it was when you gave me leave to write you, and I can only thank you for the kind indulgence.
Yours in sincerity
A.
Antoinette was not quite correct, however, concerning Clara Barton’s reports. She made rather full reports to the organizations that supplied her with funds. To Mr. Edmund Dwight, chairman of the Boston Committee, under whose auspices she labored during the latter part of her time in France, she wrote an extended letter, outlining in full her method of work, and shows how sensibly and wisely she did all her work:
Château de Belfort
Belfort, Oct. 28, 1871
Dear Mr. Dwight:
Sitting down to write you after one of the hardest day’s work one might ever hope to find, you will not wonder if I am not dazzlingly brilliant.
I should not select so inauspicious a moment but that I find your letter has been waiting so long without getting to me, and that I cannot rest until I have at least commenced a reply, even if I am not able to finish it to-night. It had been stayed by my own orders. My letters in France for a time went wrongly and some were lost, both for and from me, for which the postal authorities are now busy searching, and as the losing of letters is one of the things I cannot endure, I ordered mine to be held at all points where they would arrive, until I could arrange some safe place of reception. They have come to me at Belfort, and I find yours which has waited a month.
I should have written upon leaving Paris in July if I had not thought every day that I might get a line from either you or Mr. Moran, telling me of the delivery or receipt of my large package of accounts, from which I might draw some inference if my manner of doing things were an acceptable one. After this, I grew so busy that I think I forgot all but my work, or rather did not realize the length of time, as it passed so quickly.
You ask for my views. They have been so many and so varied that it would be impossible to tell them at one sitting, but I may say that my sympathy and judgment have pointed, and my efforts been directed, to three classes of sufferers, with two of which I have nearly finished, and the third I am at this moment among with heart and hand.
1. These were, the families of the prisoners of Versailles, and the ships of the Manche.
2. The families of Alsace and Lorraine, who, refusing to become German, are passing over the lines into France by hundreds, even thousands.
3. And thirdly, the region of Belfort.
The first-named of these are no longer confined to Paris, but are scattered now, for some distance around, poor, suffering, frightened, and trebly desolate.
First, they have often lost the family support in the person of the prisoner; next, they wait in suspense worse than actual death for the result of the impending trial, and fearing often to reveal to those about them who they are, and why they are so destitute; and lastly, poor as they are, they know that the Government allows but fifty centimes a day for the use of each prisoner, and provides nothing else, not even a bed, only straw, and whatever more he has (and many are very ill) must be provided by the friends from outside. You will see how the hungry mouths and wretched homes would be robbed by pity and anxiety to supply this necessity.
I have made it a portion of my care to find and supply some of these families; it can only be some, for there cannot be less than twenty thousand of them. There are forty thousand prisoners.
The next in order, and a still more wretched class, if possible, so far as extreme homelessness and nothingness can go, are the outcoming Alsatians. The time has arrived for each to decide individually which to become, and remaining to take the oath of allegiance to Germany. In their ignorance and infatuation, they still believe France to be the greatest nation of the earth, and, in spite of her recent reverses, watch with unflinching faith to see her, at no distant day, rise in all her old-time power and glory, and advance in majesty to take back her lost possessions; and to them the thought is death, that, in that proud day, second only to the Resurrection, they and their sons must bend their necks to the Prussian helmet, and point their guns against the Eagles of France. Impudent expressions touching these points bring them into unpleasant relations with the German soldiery still stationed among them, who probably do not hesitate to mention unwelcome and unpalatable facts. This “last feather” is too much, and, finding the burden too heavy to be borne, the incensed father, or, too often, the widowed mother, gathers up the family of growing children, and, turning the back upon the blackened walls and trampled fields of the old home, makes the nearest point of the French lines and comes out defiant, with never a penny or a morsel. The French are glad to receive them, feel complimented by their loyalty, but are burdened and embarrassed by them. Societies for their relief are formed at many points, but it is only the merest trifle they can do for them, excepting to aid in finding employment. This often takes a long time, and the interim of waiting is something fearful. I found them largely at Lyons, which is one of the points they make on their way to the South of France, and Algiers. Again I found them at Paris, where several thousands have come in, every train bringing them, especially the night trains.
I have put in practice a lesson here which I learned in Germany fourteen months ago, when infuriated France drove all her German families over her lines; viz., to meet and provide for them at the trains. No one can suppose for a moment that leaving Alsace and Lorraine and coming into France is not the most unwise and deplorable step these poor people could take; that they would not be a hundred-fold better off to remain. But I did not understand that your mission was to the wise, but to the unhappy, and I have taken the liberty to give them something.
But while occupied with those and these, I had by no means forgotten Belfort, or the fact that this was to be the great point when the right time should come. After leaving Paris, I met some very intelligent and practical gentlemen from that vicinity and learned of them many facts which have been of use to me, and always a confirmation of what we had both thought, viz., that help would be really more serviceable at the commencement of the cold weather than in midsummer. Their crops were abundant, especially grass. This set me to confer in Switzerland in reference to cows, and from these inquiries I learned something of a plan most gratifying if it could be realized, and I waited a little to see. This was in August, at which time, as you know, nearly all the cattle are on the mountains. On the 9th of October (“Le jour de la Saint Denis”) they are returned to the farms! There are then often too many for the winter and they can be purchased at lower rates. This, then, would be the time to purchase. But the good idea had entered into the minds of the Swiss to make a collection of cattle at that time for all the vicinity of Belfort and Montbéliard, or where the stock had been lost. They could do this without sending money out of Switzerland, which they desired to avoid, having already done so much of it. They carried out their plan, and when the time arrived commenced sending, and are still sending, to this region nearly as much stock as it is thought they can keep through the winter.
When I saw these things likely to succeed, I held a conference with the authorities of Belfort, and asked them to tell me plainly what their people most needed. They replied, “Small sums of money to commence the winter with,” and gave this reason: There is just now commencing a money panic in France. The large payments she must make to Germany in gold and silver make these commodities exceedingly scarce, and all who have a little bury it in their pockets and bureaus, and hold it against the time when there will be no more and paper worth little or nothing. The smallest note, as you know, is twenty francs, a sum beyond the reach of a poor family, and thus there is nothing for them in money. This state of things, they assured me, would grow worse and worse, and, as France is only at her second payment (I believe), there was no room to doubt the correctness of their judgment. I asked how they would have it, in a sum to give to the people themselves, or should I give it? Apologizing for the labor they were suggesting to me, they begged that I would do it if I could, not that they were too indolent to do the work (for they are splendid men, and have the welfare of their people at heart), but they explained, that, living among and exercising jurisdiction over these people, who looked to them for impossible things, it was embarrassing to them to make distributions among them personally. The people were ignorant, and all had suffered so much that each one believed his or her case to be the worst in the world. And they would be much better satisfied with something from a stranger, which they would receive as a gift, than with ten times the sum from the municipal authorities, to whom they looked for “indemnity.” They seemed almost ashamed to ask of me the labor of distribution, and offered all possible assistance. For the town of Belfort and the nearest villages, the Administrateur has made the same kind of arrangement as the Mayor of Villette, and I am at this writing receiving at this house from fifty to a hundred a day, hearing their story and giving to them the proportion which seems best suited to their condition.
I shall go from point to point seeing and aiding personally all I can or until I am too tired to go farther, and after this, if something remain unfinished, find the proper persons to do what I have not done. Montbéliard, Haute Savoie, and Gex will be remembered as you desired. Indeed, is it necessary for me to say that I shall try by all means in my power to carry out all suggestions which you have made? Time and observation have shown them to have been wise and good. I have found nothing better, and only dare hope I may be able to execute something nearly as well as you designed.
The money from Baring Bros. I have drawn through Paris, as far as I thought well in the present state of things, and indeed more of it than I have found convenient for the manner in which I was desired to distribute it, and some I must take through Switzerland or Germany to get the coin which will be useful to these people. The authorities will aid me in all these things. I have so far rather gained than lost in all exchanges.
I believe I have forgotten to speak of my visit to the Prefect of Doubs, which was one of the most pleasant that could have been. I found him to be an excellent man (who desired to be remembered to you with great regard, regretting your illness). He seemed glad and touched that I had found and regarded the families of Alsace and Lorraine, and a little surprised that I should have “comprehended their condition so quickly,” as he expressed it, as they are a rather new feature in the chapter of French suffering, and he asked that, in anything I might leave with Besançon, he be allowed to draw one half of it from the “Comité de Secours” from time to time to aid these families on their distressing arrivals and passages through the town. I thank you very much for this pleasant and useful introduction.
I am unable, my dear friend, at the present moment to report further, as I am just in the midst of my work; when it is a little over, I will write again, and as soon as possible I will send you all explanations and certificates and signatures which have come into my possession, and tell you as well as I am able what I have done, and how it was done.
With the highest esteem
I am very truly yours
Clara Barton
I cannot describe how painful and tiresome I find it to work here, abroad, among these strangers, with every thought and sympathy and energy turning and rushing four thousand miles across the ocean to our own beautiful and ill-fated city,[1] with its hundred thousand homeless heads. At night I can realize this a little; in the morning I think I have dreamed a bad dream. The facts will not remain fixed with me.
A message has been sent from the Court of Baden to say that I am desired there. This is the third time I have been asked in the last two months, but was always too busy to go immediately, but now that I am so near and the message made so direct, I must go. If I can finish my work first I will; if not, I must leave it a little and return. I have no idea what is wanted of me. I will send this enclosed to Baring Bros.
Hastily
C. B.
This work continued for some time and there came no definite date which could be accounted its termination. For this reason and because of the condition of her health, the final report was not presented until after her return to America. Then in a letter to Mr. Dwight, the chairman, and Mr. Jackson, the secretary, Miss Barton sent her final accounting, asking for its approval, on receipt of which she proposed to return the balance in her hands. Her letter is as follows:
Messrs. Edmund Dwight and P. T. Jackson
Boston
Esteemed Friends:
It has long been a subject of deep regret to me that I have been unable to make my report of the expenditure of certain sums of money placed in my hands by you, as agents for the distribution of the “French Relief Fund” sent by the city of Boston to the people of France who had been rendered destitute by the war of 1870-71. My apology for this long delay is physical illness, which overtook me before the work of distribution was completed in 1872, and has, with the exception of a few months, held me prostrate from that time until the present, more than two thirds of the time unable to leave my bed, and one year unable to transact the smallest item of my own business, or even hear of it as done by others.
But all this time it has been a source of pain and unrest to me that I could not close the account and make the proper returns to you; and all the more so, as there is still a portion of the money which I did not expend, and which I desire to return to you; and only He who knows and comprehends all can know with what gratitude I welcome the past few weeks of returning strength, which have enabled me to go over the long undisturbed packages of letters, receipts, and vouchers which have traveled with and remained by me all these weak and weary years, and arrange them to be at last given up to you, who have waited upon my silence with a gentlemanly kindness seldom met in the rough business of life.
Although allowed the largest liberty in regard to the place and manner of the distribution, I knew from you both that your preference lay in the direction of the east of France, and accordingly Belfort, Montbéliard, Besançon, Savoie, and Strassburg became the scenes of my labors: and, as you both know my manner was to give in small sums to the needy in person, it only remains for me to repeat that I met the poor of these districts by call, through the civil authorities presiding over them, listened to each story of want and suffering, and gave such a sum as assured by the authorities would be most serviceable to them, and such as they themselves should have given if left in their hands. I was always cautioned from this quarter against making the sum too large, as the people had only the habit of small sums, and were demoralized by too much at once. This, of course, both increased and prolonged the labor of distribution.
I remember to have written you that among the most necessitous I met were the outcoming Alsatians. An extract from a letter of mine, written at Belfort, October, 1871, and kindly embodied in your report, renders a further description of this class of sufferers unnecessary in mine.
As these self-constituted exiles made their way largely into or through the districts I was serving, the people were keenly alive to the distress they witnessed, and humanely devised plans for relief. The one most practicable to their minds was to form a colony of Alsatians in the South of France and help them on to it. The climate was genial and productive, the country not over-populated, and the mayors and prefects besought me to withhold something for this enterprise and aid them personally in the establishment of their colony. I accordingly held back the money I had not expended, and went to Paris to learn what aid would be rendered by influential persons and the Government. But Paris was not so unsophisticated as the good people of the desolated outskirts. She was wise, polite, and had other aims. She immediately foresaw that these people, once broken up in their homes and family ties, placed on the borders of the sea studded with ships, would not withstand a pressure of poverty; but at the first approach of want would emigrate a second time and to some other country. Thus France would lose her soldiers, and she counted largely on the exasperated Alsatians some day to fight for their homes, take back their lost possessions, and the Rhine. Hence they not only discouraged but forbade the step, and I had my appropriation left on my hands. I went to Carlsruhe to deliberate and rest, was worn out, and became ill, and from that time have never been able either to apply the funds or (until now) arrange the papers showing how I had disposed of what I had applied.
At the end of a year and a half of illness, I was able to figure up what still is due you, which sum, if satisfactory to you, I shall be happy to send you in a draft on my bankers.
Praying that, if upon examination all is not found to be satisfactory, you will not hesitate to inform me, and thanking you for your kindness and patience, I remain,
With the highest respect
Most truly yours
Clara Barton
New England Village, Mass.
April 24, 1876
Accompanying this letter was a detailed statement of all moneys received and expended, with vouchers for the disbursements. This account was duly audited, and the committee discovered that Miss Barton had deducted nothing for her own expenses, nor for any disbursements excepting those for which she had sent vouchers. They therefore sent to her the following letter:
My dear Miss Barton:
Mr. Dwight informed me sometime since that you have about eleven hundred and thirty dollars, still on hand, of the money sent to you by the Committee of the French Fair of which I was treasurer.
Your account shows that you have made no charge for your expenses, and that you have charged us only with items for which you have vouchers, taking no notice of the sums given where you were unable to take receipts. If the account had been made up with all of these items included, the balance would have been nearly or quite absorbed.
The Committee have, therefore, directed me to say that they consider the account balanced, and request that you will accept this letter as a receipt in full settlement of your account with them.
Thanking you for your services in this work of charity and hoping that your health may soon be restored, I remain with great respect,
Yours very truly
(Signed)P. T. Jackson
Treasurer French Fair
There still remained in the hands of the Boston committee a sum of something more than three thousand dollars. The committee desired to present this to Miss Barton, who had accepted no salary during her period of work, and whose broken health they regarded as in a large measure the result of her arduous efforts for the relief of the stricken people of France. This was not acceptable to Miss Barton; she did not want the money; she wrote that she was almost the last of her family, with no dependents, and had neither use nor desire for money a day beyond her life nor beyond the simple needs for which her present income was sufficient. The committee, therefore, decided to give the money remaining in their hands to the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, with a provision that the interest should be paid to Clara Barton during the term of her natural life. The hospital concurred in this arrangement and faithfully carried out the trust. Clara Barton received an annuity semi-annually on $3251, the amount which finally was paid over to that institution. With this action the committee placed upon record their high appreciation of her service in France.
60 State Street, Boston
July 1st, 1876
Dear Miss Barton:
You will wonder at my long silence, but, owing to the absence of gentlemen of the committee under whom I act, I have only been able to obtain their signatures to-day.
The money in the hands of Messrs. Brown Brothers, including interest on bonds to May first, is $4521, of which one quarter (or $1130) belongs to Mr. Jackson’s fund. Of this I am directed to pay $150 to a distressed family from Massachusetts, now in Boston. The balance (or $3240) to pay to the Massachusetts General Hospital in trust, to pay income arising from this money to you during your life; afterwards to become the property of the Hospital.
In making this arrangement the committee desire to express to you their high appreciation of your intelligence and self-sacrifice in distributing the funds placed in your hands, and their great sympathy with you in your long and painful illness, caused partly by the work which you did in their behalf. They recognize the great accuracy of your accounts, the large numbers of vouchers obtained by much labor, and the scrupulous care with which you have guarded the money entrusted to you. They wish you good health and a long life.
I need not tell you, dear Miss Barton, how cordially I join in all good wishes for your health and happiness. May the Hospital pay your annuity until the next Centennial.
Sincerely yours
(Signed) Edmund Dwight