Through the thousands of years of Pagan and Christian history there had existed the sentiment “Humanity in war must stand aside.” Among men, war-trained and war-sacrificed, rare the word of pity that reached the Most High for the wounded soldier. On the battlefield there had been seen no angel of mercy until was seen the angel nurse, with the candles of her charity lighting up the gloom of suffering and death.
At the second Bull Run, in August, 1862, with a tallow candle in her hand through the darkness, in tears the ministering angel moved gently among the suffering thousands, putting socks and slippers on the wounded, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty. Her own life then in peril, while on that field of carnage there came from her lips the heroic words: “I should never leave a wounded man, if I were taken prisoner forty times.” Was hers patriotism to country? Greater than patriotism. Was hers woman’s love—woman’s love for her friend? It was love divine, a woman’s love for all mankind.
On, on to Chantilly, mid darkness and gloom,
Fire, thunder and lightning, guns boom upon boom.
At Chantilly the rain came down in torrents, the darkness impenetrable save when lit up by the lightning or the fitful flash of the guns. There up the hill to her tent she goes, falling again and again from exhaustion,—only to find a few moments’ rest on her bed of earth soaked with water. From her tent at midnight, the dead grass and leaves clinging to her, her hair and clothes dripping wet, she comes back to heartrending scenes. Forgetful of self, she carries army crackers mixed with wine, brandy and water for her compatriots, such work continuing for more than one hundred consecutive hours, save two hours of dreamful sleep.
© Harris & Ewing
NELSON A. MILES
Clara Barton is the greatest humanitarian the world has ever known.—Nelson A. Miles, Major-General Civil War, Commander American Army, 1895–1903; made Lieutenant General, 1900.
It was on Sunday morning, September 14th, 1862, in plumed hats, costly jewels, silken dresses and French-made shoes, that the ladies with their equally well-attired escorts were on their way to church. Adown Pennsylvania Avenue at the same time at our national capital, on an army wagon, the wagon loaded with well filled boxes, bags and parcels for the suffering—and seated with the driver—again there goes to the scene of war-carnage a woman, the woman self-styled as to theoretical religion a “well-disposed pagan.” For more than half a century past she has been, and for centuries to come the woman who went to the front on that Sunday morning—as to practical religion—will be known as the purest Christian womanhood.
“Chaste and immaculate in very thought,” chosen from above “by inspiration of celestial grace, to work exceeding miracles on earth!” “Inspiration of celestial grace!” That inspiration carried Clara Barton on an army wagon, through the night, past the sleeping artillery to the front of the battlefield of Antietam. There with her own hands she bandaged the wounds of the boys that were falling, falling and bleeding to death, herself escaping with a bullet through her clothes; carried her to another point on that battlefield, and there while supporting on her arm and knee a soldier his head by a cannon ball was severed from the body. That inspiration carried her with the soldiers under fire over the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg, amidst the hissing of bullets and exploding of shells; across the Rappahannock where a cannon ball tore away a part of the skirt of her dress and where a few moments later the officer, who had assisted her off the bridge, was brought to her shot to death.
It was that inspiration which gave her the strength with an axe to chop the ice from around the wounded “boys in gray”; to carry them to a negro cabin; to feed them gruel and to bind up their wounds; that nerved her with a pocket knife on the field of battle to cut the bullet from the face of a wounded soldier. It was that inspiration which gave her the courage to assist in a hospital where amputated human limbs were stacked in piles like cordwood. It was this scene to which General Butler referred, and of her in her presence at a public reception in Boston, to say, “I have seen those beautiful arms red with human blood to her shoulders.” Inspiration! “Inspired to save lives,” says of her the London Times.