The following year, 1897, she was appointed by the President to attend the International Red Cross Congress in Vienna, Austria.
In 1898 she did her notable work in connection with the Spanish-American War, and for the next two years was fully occupied with affairs at home.
In 1902 she went abroad again, this time as a delegate to the conference held in St. Petersburg, the last of the great conferences which she attended. This journey has its record in two letters, one to her niece, Mrs. Ida Barton Riccius, and the other to her nephew, Stephen E. Barton:
En route from St. Petersburg to the German Frontier
June 18, 1902
The conference is ended, Russia has been visited, and we are well, and well on the way toward home. It has been a most fortunate journey, no accidents, no illness. Attended a great and harmonious conference, royally met and cared for, with nothing to be regretted.
We went first to Havre, France, to Paris for a few days, then to Berlin a few days, then on toward Russia. At the crossing on the frontier, we were met by a Red Cross escort, and taken on, for transportation to St. Petersburg, about the 15th of May. Went into Hôtel de France, where we have remained till yesterday, nearly three weeks. The conference opened on the 16th with two sittings a day, and entertainments at evening unless it was necessary to take the day for some excursion, or visit to some royal entertainment. The conference lasted about eight days; it was composed of delegates from nearly fifty nations; subjects of a humanitarian character were discussed as connected with the work of the Red Cross. In Russia everything is Red Cross, all hospital work, all emergency work, nearly all relief work, care of children, orphans, foundlings. The women are educated to do this work. They enter the schools in the hospitals at eighteen to twenty, serve one year on probation, two as novices, then they may receive and wear the Red Cross and be nurses, at a small sum in money per month, board, clothes, care if sick,—a good home as long as they live. When too old, or no longer able to work, they have pensions given them and may remain in the hospital and be cared for always if they choose, or if they have relatives and want to live with them they can have their pensions and go to them, and return always if they like. The hospital is always their home, if they want it, or they may marry if they choose; then they leave. They seemed so happy, looked so healthy; many of them are orphan girls who had no home; nowhere else to be. They are not Catholic, but of the Protestant Church of Russia, though I see little difference between it and the Catholic. The churches are magnificent,—such wealth of ornamentation. The bishops seem like Catholic priests. The people are very devout, but still very lively, and kind; they seem to me to be the kindest people I ever saw. All the royal persons look kind; they have good faces; but the kindest face of all is that of the Czar. He is young, handsome, looks like a mature college graduate. The Czarina is also handsome; she was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria; they have four children, are very fond of them, and of each other.
We went on an excursion to Moscow, saw the city Napoleon went to capture, and which he found trouble in getting out of. We went to the Kremlin where he stayed; the rooms he lived in the few days while the city was burning, and the ways by which he retreated. We visited the Grand Duke, who is the Governor-General of Moscow, and whose wife is sister of the Empress, another granddaughter of Victoria, the daughter of Alice of Hesse, who died many years ago of diphtheria while nursing three children through it. The Grand Duchess is said to be the handsomest woman in Russia. I think that may be true, and after I returned to Petersburg she sent me her picture—beautiful!! Everybody was so kind to us all, but I felt they were especially kind to me. I never saw such treatment of guests; they wouldn’t let you spend money. Carriages were at the disposal of all the delegates, all places of amusement free, guides provided; lunches, like dinners, provided each day at the conference, a hundred persons fed somewhere, two or three times a day, and such feeding!! Very many of the delegates were old friends of mine. I had met them in five other conferences; they were so genial and attentive.
As I am going to ask you to let Ada and Mamie read this, and Harold, too, I must tell you about the horses, the finest I have ever seen. They have two choice kinds, the “black Orlorf,” and the dapple gray, good size, carriage horses, and they go like the wind. The Orlorf was brought into St. Petersburg (perhaps into Russia as well) by Count Orlorf a good many years ago. The males are not changed, kept as stallions in full strength and spirit, and, when past active or first-class service, are kept for breeding purposes. They are not allowed to be sold out of Russia, it is said. They weigh from one thousand to fourteen hundred pounds, are jet black, have glossy hair, high arching necks, step as proud as war-horses, with full even tails, trimmed at the bottom to keep them from touching the ground. The Russian harness is not half the weight of ours, and much less of it; the shafts are kept away from the body, and all horses are round and fat. I have not seen a poor horse in Russia. The grays are much like the black, only dappled, as if painted, so dark, and distinct dapples, with also the heavy beautiful tails. I asked to go through the Royal stalls—the Czar has eight hundred horses in his stud; a part are in Peterhof, ten miles away. The horses were in stalls about two thirds as wide, big stalls as Baba’s, say six to seven feet, with wooden floors, a narrow crack running the whole length to keep them dry, half a foot of clean dry straw in each, a little manger for grain, a little wire rack for hay, a good blanket on each, and you have the entire outfit of this beautiful “stud of Royal horses.” They were gentle and didn’t mind a strange hand on them, and the gentlemanly uniformed groom encouraged it, and smiled at their quiet, good behaviour. Some of the carriages are for two, some four, and some eight horses. The gilded and gemmed carriages are especially for Coronation occasions, some of them one hundred and fifty years old, bright and beautiful as yesterday. Ordinarily the Royal people ride in common carriages and drive a great deal, to hospitals, to all houses of charity, schools, orphanages, and churches. They are the patrons of all these, and give great sums to them.
The Empress has schools of hundreds of young women and young ladies in St. Petersburg studying from the lowest to the highest branches, art and literature, which she visits every week; they are fitting themselves, not alone for society, but to go all over Russia to teach. The Russians have all the societies we have, “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” which they don’t seem to need as much as we do. I might except temperance societies, which they do not have, and probably need about as much as we, only the Russian doesn’t fight and quarrel when he gets drunk; he goes to sleep.
Have I told you that there is no real night in northern Russia at this season of the year? Ask Saidee to trace it on her atlas and she will find that St. Petersburg is in the same latitude of the southern ends of Alaska and Greenland, consequently they have long days and short nights in summer, and long nights and short days in winter; it being summer now, we have no real night. The twilight lasted till eleven-thirty sure, and the sun rose at two-thirty. I went to bed by daylight, either at one end or the other of the day. I wrote without a lamp at eleven o’clock at night. The people are in the streets all night, but there is no disturbance, no one is hurt or attacked. The police are always on duty, not in the saloons, waiting to be called to some disturbance, but in the middle of the street, to see that there is no disturbance, and there is none; no people are killed in dark alleys here. The would-be killer would be killed first, unless he threw a bomb, and then he would be killed after.