She was then about thirty years of age, well educated, refined in manner, intensely energetic. She had been in the Patent Office seven years. Previous to that time she had been a school-teacher. Stories are still current of her wonderful success in school management.
Those were the days when the public schools were but little esteemed, and methods of education were not such as we have now. It is said that when Miss Barton assumed charge of a certain school in New Jersey there were but six pupils in attendance; but such was her genius and such the magnetism of her presence that the number increased within a few months to nearly six hundred.
One might think that such success would have made her a school-teacher for life. But this was not her destiny.
The war began.
Clara Barton read President Lincoln's proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers to fight for the preservation of the Union.
She gave up her position in the Patent Office, and volunteered—volunteered as a nurse without pay in the Army of the Potomac. Her work was not in safe and quiet hospitals far from the sound of danger; it was on the battlefield rescuing and nursing the wounded while yet the carnage and the strife were there.
It surely required a brave heart to pass through the horrors that followed the struggles at Pittsburg Landing, at Cedar Mountain, at Antietam, and at old Fredericksburg. Very heroic must have been the women who faced those dreadful scenes with only the one thought to give relief to the wounded and the dying.
Toward the close of the war, Clara Barton was appointed "lady in charge" of all the hospitals at the front of the Army of the James—a worthy and well-earned promotion.
Then there came inquiries concerning soldiers whose whereabouts were unknown. Their friends wrote to ask about them. Were they living or dead? If alive, where were they? If dead, when and how did they die? There were thousands of such inquiries, and no one could answer them.
It occurred to President Lincoln to appoint some competent person to conduct a search for all such missing men, to learn their history, if possible, and to place that history on record.
Who was more competent for such a duty than Clara Barton?
At the request of President Lincoln, then very near the end of his career, she undertook the task. With all her great energy and her habits of thoroughness, she carried it through. It was a work of months, taxing all her strength, and requiring the closest application. In the end she was able to report the names and the fate of more than thirty thousand missing men of the Union armies.
Is there any wonder that her health was broken? The years of constant labor, the weight of great responsibilities, had told sadly upon her strength. When her work was finished, then came the re-action. For days and weeks she was obliged to refrain from every sort of labor. She went to Europe. She spent the next few years in Switzerland, trying to regain her lost strength.
was on a midsummer day in 1859 that a great battle was fought at Solferino in the north of Italy. There the Austrian army was defeated by the combined forces of France and Sardinia. At the end of the bloody struggle more than thirty-five thousand men lay dead or disabled on the field of battle. There was no adequate aid at hand for the suffering and the dying. For hours and even days they lay uncared for where they had fallen. It was the old, old story of the barbaric cruelty of war.While the battlefield was still reeking with horrors it was visited by Henri Dunant, a gentleman of means from Switzerland. His heart was touched at the sight of the suffering that was around him. He gave every assistance that he could; he aided the few surgeons who were on the field, and was instrumental in saving many a wounded man from death.
When he returned home, he could not forget what he had seen. A vision of the battlefield was ever in his mind. He could not rest until he had written the story of the field of Solferino, and had tried to make others understand the horrors which he had witnessed. He delivered lectures and issued circulars, calling upon the good people of all nations to untie in forming a world's society for the care of disabled soldiers on the field of battle.
The work of Henri Dunant led to great results. A world's society was formed. A conference was held at Geneva. Eleven nations agreed to do a plan which recognized this society and its work. Its members, its helpers, its hospitals, and the sick and wounded under its care should be free from molestation on the battlefield; and each of the eleven governments pledged its active aid and support.
In order that the workers of the society should be known when in posts of danger, and in order that its hospitals and all their belongings should be protected, it was found necessary to adopt a badge that should be universally known. The badge chosen was a red cross on white ground. It was adopted in compliment to the Swiss government, whose flag is a white cross on red ground.
Thus it was that upon "the wild stock and stem of war" a noble philanthropy was engrafted. Thus it was that the movement was inaugurated which "gives hope," says Clara Barton, "that the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of war itself may some day at last (far off, perhaps) give way to the sunny and pleasant days of perpetual and universal peace."
It was while seeking health in Switzerland that Miss Barton first became fully acquainted with the objects and the work of the Red Cross. She met and formed friendships with the leaders of that movement. She resolved to give her energies and her life to its support.