“A great mind is an appreciative mind”; Clara Barton was appreciative. Of a simple New Year’s greeting she says: “’Twere worth the passing of the year to be so remembered.” At various periods in her life, from those she served and whose minds could appreciate, upon her honors fell thick and fast as fall the autumn leaves in your maple groves. As the daughter of the twenty-first Massachusetts Regiment stood on the banks at Aquia Creek by no divine command did the waters part that she might cross on dry land; but by command of a chivalric officer, in an instant and proud of the honor, on the left knees of that line of boys in blue with the soldiers’ helping hand Clara Barton crosses over. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she relates this incident and says “This is the most beautiful tribute of love and devotion ever offered me in my life.” On the three cheers given her as she entered Lincoln Hospital by the seventy soldier boys, boys she had served on the battlefield of Fredericksburg, she says “I would not exchange their memory for the wildest applause that ever greeted conqueror or king.”
© Harris & Ewing
JOHN J. PERSHING
It gives me sincere pleasure to add an expression of appreciation for the inestimable services which Miss Clara Barton rendered to her country and to mankind in founding and fostering the American Red Cross, of which she was the President for twenty-three years, as well as for her unselfish interest and splendid achievements during a life devoted to public welfare work. The accomplishments of the Red Cross during the past few years constitute an historical monument to the memory of this noble woman.—John J. Pershing, (1919) Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe; made General of the Armies of the United States, September 4, 1919.
From the days of Benjamin Franklin honors in Europe have been showered upon the dignity of the American office, on two ex-Presidents in private life, but high and above office-holders and ex-Presidents in the list of royal honors received stands Clara Barton. Her royal receptions, her royal decorations in all history have not been equaled. Czar and Czarina, Emperor and Empress, King and Queen, Prince and Princess, Duke and Duchess, all royalty so poor as to do honor to the richest in world-service. Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Geneva, Carlsruhe, Vienna, Baden-Baden, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Santiago,—no city too great, no city too unchristian, to open her gates to welcome Clara Barton.
At the great international sittings of the Red Cross in Geneva, in Carlsruhe, in Vienna, in St. Petersburg,—Clara Barton, the only woman officially representing any government among the representatives of forty nations. As the unpretentious woman of five feet three comes into the hall, the great men of the earth rise to their feet,—eyes eager, handkerchiefs in air, then huzzas that echo the heart throbs of a world humanity greet the ear and touch the heart of the “lonesomest-lone-woman” as she walks down the aisle of the auditorium to take her seat among the great world-humanitarians. Small in stature but great in deeds, a galaxy of deeds!
Peasants,—Russians, German, Austrian, Turk, Greek, Swiss, Cuban, Spaniard, Armenian, American soldier,—all so rich in gratitude as to “God bless her,” the angel of the world’s battlefields. Was it mere pastime that moved the famous generals of Europe to kneel in front of her and kiss her hand, accompanied by greetings of the highest praise? Did the Czar of all the Russians honor himself most or her when he declined to permit her to kiss his hand, as is the custom in the presence of royalty? Of Puritan origin, in peasant attire, she was recognized as royalty itself, American royalty, the highest type of royalty.
As “fame comes only when deserved,” would you know Clara Barton? Follow her into countless permanent and improvised hospitals, over nineteen battlefields of the Civil War,—from Cedar Mountain in ’62 through the Richmond Campaign in ’65; and I beg of you not to forget that twenty-mile ride on one night in June, ’64, as on to Petersburg astride her black horse in the darkness, in a rain storm amidst thunder and lightning that “lonesomest-lone-woman” goes on her mission to the relief of the thousands of victims of an explosion. Follow her into the malarial climate through the “Campaign before Charleston,” water deadly in character, on the barren sands under a tropic sun, sand granules transforming brown eyes to eyes swollen and bloodshot, feet calloused and blistered, where again she is seen under the fire of death-dealing guns, serving the whites and blacks alike. Follow her through nineteen national disasters,—from the Michigan forest fires in ’81 to the typhoid fever epidemic in Butler, Pa., in 1904. Follow her as she accepts the commission at the hands of President Lincoln and through the long, mournful months, searches the records, and walks the cemetery in the southland to identify the graves of the missing soldiers. Follow her over four of the great battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War; and then on the public highway as she walks into the city of stricken Paris.
Follow her again through numerous hospitals and on American relief fields. Follow her as on the relief ship State of Texas, to the strains of “My Country ’Tis of Thee” she leads the American navy into the torpedo-mined Bay of Santiago, and from Santiago into the war-stricken fields and the yellow fever camps of Cuba. Follow her as President of the American Red Cross through a score of national calamities and as President of the First Aid Association in untiring service. Follow her into an American audience where she receives the official greetings of Japan for her services in securing adhesion of the Japanese government to the Red Cross International Treaty. Follow her, as the official representative of our American nation, on four trips across the Atlantic, thence into the halls of world conference where not hate but love rules. Follow through half a century the woman whose deeds of love are as lighted candles for vestal virgins to keep burning on the altar in the Temple of Fame.
Of America’s heroine, Will Carleton sings:
A million thanks to one