One other uncomfortable experience Clara Barton had at this time. When she first began her work for the relief of the soldiers, she went forth from Washington as a center and still kept up her work in the Patent Office. When she found that this work was to take all her time, she approached the Commissioner of Patents and asked to have her place kept for her, but without salary. He refused this proposal, and said her salary should continue to be paid. The other clerks, also, were in hearty accord with this proposal, and offered to distribute her work among them. But as the months went by, this grew to be a somewhat laborious undertaking. The number of women clerks in the Patent Office had increased as so many of the men were in the army. There were twenty of these women clerks, some of whom had never known Clara Barton, and they did not see any reason why she should be drawing a salary and winning fame for work which they were expected to do. Moreover, the report became current that she was drawing a large salary for her war work in addition. The women in the Patent Office drew up a “round robin” demanding that her salary cease. This news, with the report that the Commissioner had acted upon the request, came to her while she had other things to trouble her. Had the salary ceased because she was no longer doing the work, it would have been no more than she had herself proposed. But when her associates, having volunteered to do the work for her that her place might be kept and her support continued, became the agents for the dissemination of a false report, she was hurt and indignant.

To the honor of Judge Holloway and his associates in the Patent Office, be it recorded that she received a letter from Judge Holloway that she had been misinformed about the termination of her salary; there had, indeed, been such a rumor and request, but he would not have acted on it without learning the truth, and did not credit it. Her desk would await her return if he continued as Commissioner.

A few days before Christmas another pleasant event occurred. Her nephew Stephen, whom she had continued to call “Bub,” arrived in uniform. Though hardly fifteen, he had enlisted in the telegraph corps, and was sent to be with her. He became her closest friend in an intimacy of relation that did not cease until her eyes closed in death; and then, in her perfect confidence in him, she appointed him her executor.

A letter in this month reviews the experiences of her sojourn at Hilton Head:

Hilton Head, S.C.
Wednesday, December 9th, 1863

Mr. Parker,
My dear kind Friend:

It would be impossible for me to tell how many times I have commenced to write you. Sometimes I have put my letter by because we were doing so little there was nothing of interest to communicate; at other times, because there was so much I had not time to tell it, until some greater necessity drew me away, and my half-written letter became “rubbish” and was destroyed. And now I have but one topic which is of decided interest to me, and that is so peculiarly so that I will hasten to speak of it at once. After almost a year’s absence, I am beginning to think about once more coming home, once more meeting the scores of kind friends I have been from so long; and the nearer I bring this object to my view, the brighter it appears. The nearer I fancy the meeting, the dearer the faces and the kinder the smiles appear to me and the sweeter the welcome voices that fall upon my ear. Not that I have not found good friends here. None could have been kinder. I came with one brother, loving, kind, and considerate; I have met others here scarcely less so, and those, too, with whom rested the power to make me comfortable and happy, and I have yet to recall the first instance in which they have failed to use their utmost endeavor to render me so, and while a tear of joy glistens in my eye at the thought of the kind friends I hope so soon to meet, there will still linger one of regret for the many of those I leave.

Eight months and two days ago we landed at the dock in this harbor. When nations move as rapidly as ours moves at present, that is a long time, and in it as a nation we have done much, gained much, and suffered much. Still much more remains to be done, much more acquired, and I fear much more suffered. Our brave and noble old Army of Virginia still marches and fights and the glorious armies of the West still fight and conquer; our soldiers still die upon the battle-field, pine in hospitals, and languish in prison; the wives and sisters and mothers still wait, and weep and hope and toil and pray, and the little child, fretting at the long-drawn days, asks in tearful impatience, “When will my papa come?”

The first sound which fell upon my ear in this Department was the thunder of our guns in Charleston Harbor, and still the proud city sits like a queen and dictates terms to our army and navy. Sumter, the watch-dog that lay before her door, fell, maimed and bleeding, it is true; still there is defiance in his growl, and death in his bite, and pierced and prostrate as he lies with the tidal waves lapping his wounds, it were worth our lives, and more than his, to go and take him.

We have captured one fort—Gregg—and one charnel house—Wagner—and we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little sand-hills that glitter in the pale moonlight are a thousand headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and break upon the whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to the toil-worn, gallant dead who sleep beside.

As the year drew to a close, the conviction grew stronger that her work in this field was done. Charleston still resisted attempts to recapture it. Sumter, though demolished, was in the hands of the Confederates. There was no prospect of immediate battle, and unless there was fresh bloodshed there was no imperative call for her. Moreover, little jealousies and petty factions grew up around the hospitals and headquarters, where there were few women and many men, and there were rumors of mismanagement which she must hear, but not reply to. She had many happy experiences to remember, and she left a record of much good done. But her work was finished at that place. In her last entries in her diary she is disposing of her remaining stores, packing her trunk, and when, after a rather long interval, we hear from her again, she is in Washington.

[10] Fort Sumter, fiercely bombarded July 24, repulsed an assault against it on September 8, and was not completely silenced until October 26.

CHAPTER XVII
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE JAMES

IN THE YEAR 1864

Clara Barton returned from Port Royal and Hilton Head sometime in January, 1864. On January 28 she was in Worcester, whence she addressed a letter to Colonel Clark in regard to the forthcoming reunion of veterans in Worcester. She did not expect to be present, as her stay in Massachusetts was to be brief.