So far as Harper’s Ferry was concerned, her advance information appeared to have come too late to be of any value. The number of wounded was not large, and these had all been taken to Frederick, Maryland. Only the day before, Stonewall Jackson and his men had passed through, and Barbara Frietchie had refused to haul down her flag. There had not been many wounded, anyway; the Federal army simply had failed to fight at Harper’s Ferry. The word “morale” was not then in common use, but that was what the Union army had lost. On Monday, September 15, 1862, was fought the battle of South Mountain, Maryland. There Hooker and Franklin and Reno were defeated with a loss of 325 men killed, 1403 wounded, and 85 prisoners. There were few prisoners as compared with Harper’s Ferry, but that was partly because the mountainous country gave the defeated Union soldiers a better chance to escape. The defeat was beyond question, and General Reno was killed. While Clara Barton was driving from Harper’s Ferry where she had expected to find a battle, she came suddenly upon a battle-field, that of South Mountain. There she did her ministering work. But Harper’s Ferry and South Mountain were both preliminary to the real battle of which she had had her Washington warning. And now she made a discovery. If she was ever to get to the front in time to be of the greatest possible service, she must short-circuit the ordinary military method which would have put her and her equipment among the baggage-wagons. For her the motto from this time on was, “Follow the cannon.” This gave her something approaching an open road, and afforded her the opportunity which she was just learning how to utilize with greatest efficiency.
The increase of stragglers along the road [Miss Barton recalled] was alarming, showing that our army was weary, and lacked not only physical strength, but confidence and spirit.
And why should they not? Always defeated! Always on the retreat! I was almost demoralized myself! And I had just commenced.
I have already spoken of the great length of the army train, and that we could no more change our position than one of the planets. Unless we should wait and fall in the rear, we could not advance a single wagon.
And for the benefit of those who may not understand, I may say that the order of the train was, first, ammunition; next, food and clothing for well troops; and finally, the hospital supplies. Thus, in case of the battle the needed stores for the army, according to the slow, cautious movement of such bodies, must be from two to three days in coming up.
Meanwhile, as usual, our men must languish and die. Something must be done to gain time. And I resorted to strategy. We found an early resting-place, supped by our camp-fire, and slept again among the dews and damps.
At one o’clock, when everything was still, we arose, breakfasted, harnessed, and moved on past the whole train, which like ourselves had camped for the night. At daylight we had gained ten miles and were up with the artillery and in advance even of the ammunition.
All that weary, dusty day I followed the cannon, and nightfall brought us up with the great Army of the Potomac, 80,000 men resting upon their arms in the face of a foe equal in number, sullen, straitened, and desperate.
Closely following the guns we drew up where they did, among the smoke of the thousand camp-fires, men hastening to and fro, and the atmosphere loaded with noxious vapors, till it seemed the very breath of pestilence. We were upon the left wing of the army, and this was the last evening’s rest of Burnside’s men. To how many hundred it proved the last rest upon the earth, the next day’s record shows.
In all this vast assemblage I saw no other trace of womankind. I was faint, but could not eat; weary, but could not sleep; depressed, but could not weep.
So I climbed into my wagon, tied down the cover, dropped down in the little nook I had occupied so long, and prayed God with all the earnestness of my soul to stay the morrow’s strife or send us victory. And for my poor self, that He impart somewhat of wisdom and strength to my heart, nerve to my arm, speed to my feet, and fill my hands for the terrible duties of the coming day. Heavy and sad I awaited its approach.
The battle of Antietam occurred on September 16 and 17, 1862. It was the first battle in the East that roused to any considerable degree the forlorn hope of the friends of the Union. It was the first real Eastern victory for the Union army. It was not as decided a victory as it ought to have been, but it was a victory. It put heart into Abraham Lincoln and certified to his conscience that the time had come to redeem the promise he had made to God—that if He would give victory to the Union arms Lincoln would free the slaves. McClellan did not follow up his advantage as he should have done and make that victory triumphant. But he did something other than delay and retreat, and he put some heart into the Union army when it discovered that it need not forever be on the defensive, nor always suffer defeat. In this great, and, in spite of its limitations, victorious, battle, Clara Barton was on the ground before the first gun was fired, and she did not leave the field until the last wounded man had been cared for. At the outset she watched the battle, but almost immediately she laid down her field-glasses, went to the place where the wounded were being brought in, and was able to perform her work of ministration without a single hour’s delay.
She told her story of the conflict as she saw it:
The battle commenced on the right and already with the aid of field-glasses we saw our own forces, led by “Fighting Joe” [Hooker], overborne and falling back.
Burnside commenced to send cavalry and artillery to his aid, and, thinking our place might be there, we followed them around eight miles, turning into a cornfield near a house and barn, and stopping in the rear of the last gun, which completed the terrible line of artillery which ranged diagonally in the rear of Hooker’s army. That day a garden wall only separated us. The infantry were already driven back two miles, and stood under cover of the guns. The fighting had been fearful. We had met wounded men, walking or borne to the rear for the last two miles. But around the old barn there lay, too badly wounded to admit of removal, some three hundred thus early in the day, for it was scarce ten o’clock.
We loosened our mules and commenced our work. The corn was so high as to conceal the house, which stood some distance to the right, but, judging that a path which I observed must lead to it, and also that surgeons must be operating there, I took my arms full of stimulants and bandages and followed the opening.
Arriving at a little wicker gate, I found the dooryard of a small house, and myself face to face with one of the kindest and noblest surgeons I have ever met, Dr. Dunn, of Conneautville, Pennsylvania.
Speechless both, for an instant, he at length threw up his hands with “God has indeed remembered us! How did you get from Virginia here so soon? And again to supply our necessities! And they are terrible. We have nothing but our instruments and the little chloroform we brought in our pockets. We have torn up the last sheets we could find in this house. We have not a bandage, rag, lint, or string, and all these shell-wounded men bleeding to death.”
Upon the porch stood four tables, with an etherized patient upon each, a surgeon standing over him with his box of instruments, and a bunch of green corn leaves beside him.
With what joy I laid my precious burden down among them, and thought that never before had linen looked so white, or wine so red. Oh! be grateful, ladies, that God put it in your hearts to perform the work you did in those days. How doubly sanctified was the sacred old household linen woven by the hands of the sainted mother long gone to her reward. For you arose the tender blessings of those grateful men, which linger in my memory as faithfully to-night as do the bugle notes which called them to their doom.
Thrice that day was the ground in front of us contested, lost, and won, and twice our men were driven back under cover of that fearful range of guns, and each time brought its hundreds of wounded to our crowded ground.
A little after noon, the enemy made a desperate attempt to regain what had been lost; Hooker, Sedgwick, Dana, Richardson, Hartsuff, and Mansfield had been borne wounded from the field and the command of the right wing devolved upon General Howard.
The smoke became so dense as to obscure our sight, and the hot, sulphurous breath of battle dried our tongues and parched our lips to bleeding.
We were in a slight hollow, and all shell which did not break over our guns in front came directly among or over us, bursting above our heads or burying themselves in the hills beyond.
A man lying upon the ground asked for a drink; I stopped to give it, and, having raised him with my right hand, was holding him.
Just at this moment a bullet sped its free and easy way between us, tearing a hole in my sleeve and found its way into his body. He fell back dead. There was no more to be done for him and I left him to his rest. I have never mended that hole in my sleeve. I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat?
The patient endurance of these men was most astonishing. As many as could be were carried into the barn, as a slight protection against random shot. Just outside the door lay a man wounded in the face, the ball having entered the lower maxillary on the left side and lodged among the bones of the right cheek. His imploring look drew me to him, when, placing his finger upon the sharp protuberance, he said, “Lady, will you tell me what this is that burns so?” I replied that it must be the ball which had been too far spent to cut its way entirely through.
“It is terribly painful,” he said. “Won’t you take it out?”
I said I would go to the tables for a surgeon. “No! No!” he said, catching my dress. “They cannot come to me. I must wait my turn, for this is a little wound. You can get the ball. There is a knife in your pocket. Please take the ball out for me.”
This was a new call. I had never severed the nerves and fibers of human flesh, and I said I could not hurt him so much. He looked up, with as nearly a smile as such a mangled face could assume, saying, “You cannot hurt me, dear lady, I can endure any pain that your hands can create. Please do it. It will relieve me so much.”
I could not withstand his entreaty and, opening the best blade of my pocket-knife, prepared for the operation. Just at his head lay a stalwart orderly sergeant from Illinois, with a face beaming with intelligence and kindness, and who had a bullet directly through the fleshy part of both thighs. He had been watching the scene with great interest and, when he saw me commence to raise the poor fellow’s head, and no one to support it, with a desperate effort he succeeded in raising himself to a sitting posture, exclaiming as he did so, “I will help do that.” Shoving himself along the ground he took the wounded head in his hands and held it while I extracted the ball and washed and bandaged the face.
I do not think a surgeon would have pronounced it a scientific operation, but that it was successful I dared to hope from the gratitude of the patient.
I assisted the sergeant to lie down again, brave and cheerful as he had risen, and passed on to others.
Returning in half an hour, I found him weeping, the great tears rolling diligently down his manly cheeks. I thought his effort had been too great for his strength and expressed my fears. “Oh! No! No! Madam,” he replied. “It is not for myself. I am very well, but,” pointing to another just brought in, he said, “this is my comrade, and he tells me that our regiment is all cut to pieces, that my captain was the last officer left, and he is dead.”
Oh, God! what a costly war! This man could laugh at pain, face death without a tremor, and yet weep like a child over the loss of his comrades and his captain.
At two o’clock my men came to tell me that the last loaf of bread had been cut and the last cracker pounded. We had three boxes of wine still unopened. What should they do?
“Open the wine and give that,” I said, “and God help us.”
The next instant an ejaculation from Sergeant Field, who had opened the first box, drew my attention, and, to my astonished gaze, the wine had been packed in nicely sifted Indian meal.
If it had been gold dust it would have seemed poor in comparison. I had no words. No one spoke. In silence the men wiped their eyes and resumed their work.
Of twelve boxes of wine which we carried, the first nine, when opened, were found packed in sawdust, the last three, when all else was gone, in Indian meal.
A woman would not hesitate long under circumstances like these.
This was an old farmhouse. Six large kettles were picked up and set over fires, almost as quickly as I can tell it, and I was mixing water and meal for gruel.
It occurred to us to explore the cellar. The chimney rested on an arch, and, forcing the door, we discovered three barrels and a bag. “They are full,” said the sergeant, and, rolling one into the light, found that it bore the mark of Jackson’s army. These three barrels of flour and a bag of salt had been stored there by the rebel army during its upward march.
I shall never experience such a sensation of wealth and competency again, from utter poverty to such riches.
All that night my thirty men (for my corps of workers had increased to that number during the day) carried buckets of hot gruel for miles down the line to the wounded and dying where they fell.
This time, profiting by experience, we had lanterns to hang in and around the barn, and, having directed it to be done, I went to the house and found the surgeon in charge, sitting alone, beside a table, upon which he rested his elbow, apparently meditating upon a bit of tallow candle which flickered in the center.
Approaching carefully, I said, “You are tired, Doctor.” He started up with a look almost savage, “Tired! Yes, I am tired, tired of such heartlessness, such carelessness!” Turning full upon me, he continued: “Think of the condition of things. Here are at least one thousand wounded men, terribly wounded, five hundred of whom cannot live till daylight, without attention. That two inches of candle is all I have or can get. What can I do? How can I endure it?”
I took him by the arm, and, leading him to the door, pointed in the direction of the barn where the lanterns glistened like stars among the waving corn.
“What is that?” he exclaimed.
“The barn is lighted,” I said, “and the house will be directly.”
“Who did it?”
“I, Doctor.”
“Where did you get them?”
“Brought them with me.”
“How many have you?”
“All you want—four boxes.”
He looked at me a moment, as if waking from a dream, turned away without a word, and never alluded to the circumstances, but the deference which he paid me was almost painful.
During a lecture in the West, Miss Barton related this incident, and as she closed a gentleman sprang upon the stage, and, addressing the audience, exclaimed: “Ladies and gentlemen, if I never have acknowledged that favor, I will do it now. I am that surgeon.”
Darkness [Miss Barton continues] brought silence and peace, and respite and rest to our gallant men. As they had risen, regiment by regiment, from their grassy beds in the morning, so at night the fainting remnant again sank down on the trampled blood-stained earth, the weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
Through the long starlit night we wrought and hoped and prayed. But it was only when in the hush of the following day, as we glanced over that vast Aceldama, that we learned at what a fearful cost the gallant Union army had won the battle of Antietam.
Antietam! With its eight miles of camping armies, face to face; 160,000 men to spring up at dawn like the old Scot from the heather! Its miles of artillery shaking the earth like a chain of Ætnas! Its ten hours of uninterrupted battle! Its thunder and its fire! The sharp, unflinching order,—“Hold the Bridge, boys,—always the Bridge.” At length, the quiet! The pale moonlight on its cooling guns! The weary men, the dying and the dead! The flag of truce that buried our enemies slain, and Antietam was fought, and won, and the foe turned back!
Clara Barton remained on the battle-field of Antietam until her supplies were exhausted and she was completely worn out. Not only fatigue but fever came upon her, and she was carried back to Washington apparently sick. But the call of duty gave her fresh strength, and she was soon wondering where the next battle was to be and planning to be on the field. Almost the only entry in her diary in the autumn of 1862, aside from memoranda of wounded men and similar entries relating to people other than herself, is one of October 23, which she began in some detail, but broke off abruptly. She records that she “left Washington for Harper’s Ferry expecting to meet a battle there. Have taken four teams of Colonel Rucker loaded at his office, traveled and camped as usual, reaching Harper’s Ferry the third day. At the first end of the pontoon bridge one of Peter’s mules ran off and we delayed the progress of the army for twenty minutes to be extricated.”
The rest of the entry contains the names of her drivers, details of the overturned wagon, and other memoranda. Two things are of interest in this fragmentary record. One is the definiteness of the method which she now had adopted of going where she “expected to meet a battle.” The other is the fact that a delay of twenty minutes, caused by an accident to one of her wagons on the pontoon bridge, illustrates a reason why, in general, armies cannot permit even so necessary things as supplies for the wounded to get in the way of the free movement of troops. However, this delay was quite exceptional. She did not usually cause any inconvenience of this sort, nor did it in this instance result in any serious harm. On this occasion she was provided with an ambulance for her own use. That thoughtful provision for her convenience and means of conserving her energy, was provided for her by Quartermaster-General Rucker.
On this journey the question was decided who was really in command of her part of the expedition. In one of her lectures she described her associates on this and subsequent expeditions: