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

by Charles Sumner Young

For out of the gloom future brightness is born,

And after the night looms the sunrise of morn;

And the graves of the dead, with the grass overgrown,

May yet form the footstool of liberty’s throne;

And earth’s single wreck in the war path of night

Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right.

Father Ryan.

OF GRAVES, OF WORMS, OF EPITAPHS

After the Civil War Clara Barton engaged in a sad mission. Of the Federal soldiers, there were 80,000 missing. Letters from the sorrowing were coming to the President and the Secretary of War, for information. To obtain the names of the missing, how died, where buried, and other information about loved ones, was a tremendous undertaking,—it was Clara Barton’s mission. Many of her personal friends said it was impossible, but President Lincoln gave her encouragement. She also received her Commission from the President, who had published the following:

TO THE FRIENDS OF THE MISSING PRISONERS: