She was asked to do this because she could be trusted to do her duty.
IV. The Civil War
When she had been in Washington about three years, the terrible Civil War broke out.
You remember what the quarrel was about, don’t you?
There were fierce battles, after which wounded soldiers lay on the battlefields without help.
The thought of their sufferings touched Miss Barton’s tender heart.
“Oh, if I could only go nurse them!” she thought. She knew that many other kind women were having the same thoughts.
“I will go!” she finally decided.
At first the men in charge of the army did not want her to go, and said that such work was too hard for women.
But Clara Barton, like Florence Nightingale, was not the kind of person to be discouraged by such talk.