If one had been privileged to visit the Senate Chamber of the United States in three days after the assault upon the Massachusetts troops, he might have beheld an interesting sight. Behind the desk of the President of the Senate stood a little woman reading to the Massachusetts soldiers who were quartered there from their home paper, the Worcester “Spy.” Washington had need of these troops. Had they and their comrades in arms arrived a few days later, the capital would have been in the hands of the Confederates. They came none too soon; Washington had no place to put them, nor was the War Department adequately equipped with tents or other supplies. The Capitol building itself became the domicile of some of the first regiments, and the Senate Chamber was the habitation of the boys from Worcester County. A few of the boys Clara Barton knew personally.
Already the war had become a reality to these Yankee lads. Lincoln’s call for men was issued on April 15, 1861. Massachusetts had four regiments ready. The first of these reached Baltimore four days after the President’s Proclamation. Three men were killed by a mob, and thirty were injured as they marched through Baltimore. The regiment fought its way to the station, regained possession of their locomotive and train, and moved on to Washington.
Clara Barton’s first service to the soldiers was only incidentally to the wounded. There were only thirty of them, and they were adequately cared for. But she, in company with other women, visited the regiment at the Capitol, and she performed her first service to the armies of her country by reading to the homesick boys as they gathered in the Senate Chamber, and she stood in the place that was ordinarily occupied by the Vice-President of the United States. Her own account of this proceeding is contained in a letter to her friend, B. W. Childs:
Washington, April 25th, 1861
My Dear Will:
As you will perceive, I wrote you on the 19th, but have not found it perfectly convenient to send it until now, but we trust that “navigation is open now” for a little. As yet we have had no cause for alarm, if indeed we were disposed to feel any. The city is filling up with troops. The Massachusetts regiment is quartered in the Capitol and the 7th arrived to-day at noon. Almost a week in getting from New York here; they looked tired and warm, but sturdy and brave. Oh! but you should hear them praise the Massachusetts troops who were with them, “Butler’s Brigade.” They say the “Massachusetts Boys” are equal to anything they undertake—that they have constructed a railroad, laid the track, and built an engine since they entered Maryland. The wounded at the Infirmary are all improving—some of them recovered and joined the regiment. We visited the regiment yesterday at the Capitol; found some old friends and acquaintances from Worcester; their baggage was all seized and they have nothing but their heavy woolen clothes—not a cotton shirt—and many of them not even a pocket handkerchief. We, of course, emptied our pockets and came home to tear up old sheets for towels and handkerchiefs, and have filled a large box with all manner of serving utensils, thread, needles, thimbles, scissors, pins, buttons, strings, salves, tallow, etc., etc., have filled the largest market basket in the house and it will go to them in the next hour.
But don’t tell us they are not determined—just fighting mad; they had just one Worcester “Spy” of the 22d, and all were so anxious to know the contents that they begged me to read it aloud to them, which I did. You would have smiled to see me and my audience in the Senate Chamber of the United States. Oh! but it was better attention than I have been accustomed to see there in the old time. “Ber” writes his mother that Oxford is raising a company. God bless her, and the noble fellows who may leave their quiet, happy homes to come at the call of their country! So far as our poor efforts can reach, they shall never lack a kindly hand or a sister’s sympathy if they come. In my opinion this city will be attacked within the next sixty days. If it must be, let it come; and when there is no longer a soldier’s arm to raise the Stars and Stripes above our Capitol, may God give strength to mine.
Write us and tell our friends to write and I will answer when I can. Love to all.
C. H. Barton
Several things are of interest in this letter. One is the place where her work for the soldiers began. It was the Government’s poverty in the matter of tents and barracks which caused the soldiers to be quartered in the Capitol, but it was certainly an interesting and significant thing that her great work had its beginning there. Washington was still expecting to be attacked; she believed that the attack would occur shortly. It was rather a fine sentence with which her letter closed,—“If it must be, let it come; and when there is no longer a soldier’s arm to raise the Stars and Stripes above our Capitol, may God give strength to mine.”
She was still signing her formal letters Clara H. Barton She was no longer Clarissa, and before very long she dropped the middle name and letter entirely, and, from the Civil War on, was simply Clara Barton.
This letter which deals entirely with her military experiences is the first of many of this general character. To a large extent personal matters from this time on dropped out of sight. It will be of interest to go back a few weeks and quote one of her letters to her brother David, in which there is no mention of political or military matters. It is a letter of no great importance in itself, but shows her concern for her father, who had partially recovered from his serious illness, for her niece Ida, her nephew Bub, as she still called Stephen E., though he was now a lad of some size, and for home affairs generally. For her father she had adopted the name given him by her nephews and nieces, and called him “Grandpa”:
Feb. 2nd, 1861
Dear Brother:
I enclose in this a draft for twelve dollars, and will send you another for the remaining fifteen on the first of next month, i.e., provided Uncle Sam is not bankrupt, which he nearly is now and his payments have been very irregular. I have only received a part of my salary for this month—but all right in the end. I have been very sorry that I took the money of you lest you might have wanted it when I might just as well have drawn upon myself, only for the trouble of getting at the Colonel. Another time I should do so, however, for I believe I am the poorest hand in all the world to owe anything. I never rest a moment until all is square. And now, if you have the least need of the remaining fifteen dollars just say so to the Colonel and he will honor your draft so quick you will never know you made it. You may want it for something about the house, or to make out a payment, and if so don’t wait, I pray you, but just call over when you get your draft changed and get the remainder of the Colonel, and tell him in that case he will hear from me very soon. Perhaps Julia or the children have wanted something, and if I have been keeping them out of any comfort I am very sorry.
As it is my intention to keep a strict account with myself of all my expenditures and profits from this time henceforth, you may, if you please, sign the receipt at the top of this sheet, and hand it to Sally to bring to me.
I had thought I should get a line, or some kind of word from you, perhaps, but I suppose you are too busy. Well, this is a very busy world. You will be glad to know that I am very happily situated here; the winter is certainly passing very pleasantly. I find all my old friends so numerous, and so kind, and, unless they falsify grossly, so glad to have me back among them again; I could not have believed that there was half so much kind feeling stored away for me here in this big city of comers and goers. The office and my business relations are all right, and they say I am all right too. The remainder of the winter will be very gay, and I must confess that I fear I am getting a little dissipated, not that I drink champagne and play cards,—oh, no,—but I do go to levees and theaters. I don’t know that I should own up so frankly, only that I am afraid “Mr. Grover” will show me up if I try to keep still and dark. Now, if he does, just tell him that it gets no better, but rather worse if anything, and that he ought to have stayed to attend Mr. Buchanan’s big party. It was splendid—General Scott and the military; in fact, we are getting decidedly military in this region. But we have no winter. Mr. J. S. Brown, of Worcester, came to us in the theater last night at eleven and said a dispatch from Worcester declared the snow to be six feet deep in Massachusetts. We decided to put it down at a foot and a half, and didn’t know but that was big! We couldn’t realize even that, for we have only now and then a little spot of snow, and this morning a monster fog has come and settled down on that, and in two hours we shall forget how snow looks, and in two days, if it doesn’t rain, the dust will blow; but no fears but that it will rain, though.
But I haven’t said a word about Grandpa. I am so glad to know that he is better and even gets into the kitchen; that is splendid, and besides he has had company as well as you all. Ah, ha, I found it out, if none of you told me! Ben Porter came at last!! Please give my congratulations to Grandpa, and you too Julia, for I am writing to you just as much as to Dave, only I don’t know as I said so before. I forgot to tell you—and now if you don’t write me how Adeline and Viola are, I will do some awful thing to come up to you. I don’t justly know what, for if Frank wrote a week he never would tell me. Oh, I had a letter from him last night; said he was over his boots in snow, was going “down east” to Bangor, Dr. Porter’s, etc.
I am afraid my trunk and other things are in your way, and I would ask Sally to take the trunk, only that it seems to me that I had best wait until I see what the 4th of March brings about, and find where I am in the new administration, or at least if we have one. If we are to have a war, I have plenty of traps and trunks in this region, and if all comes right and I remain, it may be that some one will be coming South pretty soon without much baggage who would take something for me.
How are all the children? I must write to somebody soon; I guess it will be Bub, but Ida isn’t forgotten. She was a faithful little correspondent to tell me how Grandpa was. I shall not forget it of Ida. Can she skate yet? Now, aren’t you going to write me and tell me all the news? And you must remember me to Mrs. Waddington, Mrs. Aborn, and family, and, Jule, you must give my regards to Silas and Mr. Smith, for I don’t wish to be lost sight of by my old-time friends, among all the new ones here. And don’t forget to give my love to Mrs. Kidder and tell me how she is. You had best clap your hands for joy that I have no more room, only to say I am
Your affectionate sister
Clara
I forgot to cut my draft loose until I had written on the back of it, and then I cut it loose without thinking that I had written; so much for doing things in a hurry, and I can’t stop to rewrite a single word to anybody, so patch up and read if you can.
The Sixth Massachusetts left Washington and moved farther south. She tells of her feelings with regard to these men in a letter written May 19, 1861, to Annie Childs. The letter to which she referred as having been written on the same day to Frances Childs, and containing war news, has not been found:
Washington, D.C., May 19, 1861
My dear Annie:
I am very sorry that it will be in my power to write you so little and no more, but these are the busy days which know no rest, and there are at this moment thirty unanswered letters lying by my side—besides a perfect rush of ordinary business, and liable to be interrupted by soldier calls any moment. I wish I could tell you something of the appearance of our city, grand, noble, true, and brave. I wish you could see it just as it is, and if it were not that at this season of the year I had no thought that you could leave your business, I would say to you come,—and indeed I will say this much, hopeless as I deem it, aye, know it to be,—but this,—if you have the least curiosity to witness the events of our city as they are transpiring or enough so that you could come, you shall be doubly welcome, have a quiet nook to stay in, and I will find you all you want to do while you will stay, longer or shorter, and pay you all you ask for your services. If it were winter I should hope you would think well enough of it to come, but at this season of the year, I dare not, but rest assured nothing would please me as much, and Sally too. We often wish you would come, and I am in a most destitute condition. I cannot get a moment to sew in and can trust no one here. I know I must not urge you, but only add that I mean just what I say. If you care to come, you shall not lose your time, although I feel it to be preposterous in me to say such a thing at this time of the year, but I have said it at a venture and cannot retract. I saw your friend Mr. Parker before he left the city for the Relay House, and we had a long talk about you. I had never met him before, but was much pleased with his easy, pleasant manners and cordial ways. Allow me to congratulate you upon the possession of such friends.
For war news I must refer you to a letter I have written your sister to-day; she will show it to you.
I was sorry when the Sixth Regiment left us, but nothing could have delighted them more than the thought of nearing Baltimore again, and how successfully they have done it. I wept for joy when I heard of it all, and they so richly deserved the honor which is meted out to them—noble old regiment they; every one admires, and no one envies; there seems to be no jealousy towards them, all yield the precedence without a word, and their governor! I have no words good enough to talk about him with. Will this little scrap be better than nothing from your
Loving Coz
Clara
I have not forgotten my debt, but have nothing small enough to enclose. I will pay it.