Judge T. M. Cooley.
General Shafter, while in Santiago as he had been at all other times, was the kind and courteous officer and gentleman.
Clara Barton.
In Cuba General Leonard Wood—alert, wise and untiring, with an eye single to the good of all—toiled day and night.
Clara Barton.
Take whatever three or four years of my existence you will, but leave the old army life untouched. Clara Barton.
THREE CHEERS—WILD SCENES IN BOSTON—TIGER!! NO, SWEETHEART
It was on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Grand Army of the Republic, held at Atlanta, Georgia. Mrs. W. M. Scott, of O. M. Mitchell No. 2, W. R. C., was the President. At that meeting the President described the scene occurring at one of the sessions in Boston the previous year.
Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer was the President of the W. R. C. at the session in Boston. As President she said: “I have the pleasure and the honor to introduce to you”—and hundreds of lips ejaculated “Clara Barton!” Then there occurred an ovation seldom witnessed. Handkerchiefs waved from every part of the hall, and loving little tears of tenderness streamed down the faces in that vast throng of admirers of the beloved woman. And Clara Barton talked. She, describing a former meeting, said (her voice tremulous): “They showed me the wounds they said I had helped to heal, and the stubs of the limbs they said I had tried to save, and they clustered around me like loving boys, and I—I cried, and they cried too; and we talked of those terrible times, and then we talked of those glorious times. They were grateful to me for what I had done for them, and I was grateful that I had the privilege of doing it.” “And,” says Mrs. Scott, “as Clara Barton told the simple story of her experiences with her soldier boys every one of us women, gazing at her, thought that if we did not have a sweetheart, or husband, at that time to nurse, well,—we wish we had.”
The old soldier boys brave and true in numbers were there. The G. A. R. too was having its session in Boston, and their heroine also was there. He, too, whom history will record as one of the greatest of American generals, was there. As since has the soldier’s idol, the great General also had “suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”—at the hands of schemers and politicians. Under the General she had served in Cuba—the same fearless woman that at the battle of Santiago, perched on a gun-carriage, gave orders to the doctors and nurses. Clara Barton again received an ovation, and General Shafter shared in the honors.