JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
** Graphic photos of dead soldiers at Antietam in this thread, please be aware.
Clara is such a by-word it's terribly easy to by-pass much of what she did- with her hands and heart and determination. Dorothea Dix had similar compassion and endless drive but was much more intimidating as a person- less likely to charm the socks off a snake and may have eaten it whole instead, you know?
From NYPL
Bios on Clara are tough. There exists so much, or so many flatly astonishing feats on her part that to read them all end-to-end is to do justice to none. You're punch-drunk in her super-powers. Which one?
A lot of us are compassionate. How many could watch armies march to a battle and resolve to follow them in order to pick up the inevitable wounded and dying? You'd assume ' The Army ' had some vague plan. Clara had been meeting boats bringing wounded back from battles literally from Day 1. There was no real plan, surgeons being so, so overwhelmed most wounded died without having reached a surgeon. Or a nurse. or a hospital.
NYPL
It took an army of compassion to bring help to our wounded soldiers. From reading accounts it seems clear politicians held a war, everyone pretty much forgot to send bandaids. The Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission, states' Women's Aids Commissions in the North began organizing, Dorothea Dix wore down the Powers That Be inexorably applying bandaids administratively and physically. It took time. Clara Barton watched the Union Army march away to another great battle, knew wildly overwhelmed surgeons would have no hope of reaching more than a small a percentage of wounded and did something.
Up until this time Clara had not gone directly to battlefields, baffled by the problem of how to get official permission to do so. She never did. Clara stopped worrying about it. She just went.
This Brady photograph of Clara Barton is from these years. It is this face which our men, North and South saw as their first in a hideous day of pain and anguish- sometimes their last image on the planet. She made no distinction, Union or Confederate either. Clara was there to alleviate suffering. This was a hugely unusual woman.
" On Sunday, the 14th of September, 1862, she loaded an army wagon with supplies and started to follow the march of General McClellan. Her only companions were Mr. Cornelius M. Welles, the teacher of the first contraband school in the District of Columbia—a young man of rare talent and devotion—and one teamster.
She travelled three days along the dusty roads of Maryland, buying bread as she went to the extent of her means of conveyance, and sleeping in the wagon by night. After dark, on the night of the sixteenth, she reached Burnside's Corps, and found the two armies lying face to face along the opposing ridges of hills that bound the valley of the Antietam.
On Smith's Farm, straw huts erected to supplement the barn there used as the hospital
There had already been heavy skirmishing far away on the right where Hooker had forded the creek and taken position on the opposite hills; and the air was dark and thick with fog and exhalations, with the smoke of camp-fires and premonitory death. There was little sleep that night, and as the morning sun rose bright and beautiful over the Blue Ridge and dipped down into the Valley, the firing on the right was resumed. Reinforcements soon began to move along the rear to Hooker's support. Thinking the place of danger was the place of duty, Miss Barton ordered her mules to be harnessed and took her place in the swift train of artillery that was passing.
She did not feel men killed to be ' casualties ', thought of them as lost soldiers to be mourned- these at Dunker Church
On reaching the scene of action, they turned into a field of tall corn, and drove through it to a large barn.
Smith's Barn, Antietam
They were close upon the line of battle; the rebel shot and shell flew thickly around and over them; and in the barn-yard and among the corn lay torn and bleeding men—the worst cases—just brought from the places where they had fallen. The army medical supplies had not yet arrived, the small stock of dressings was exhausted, and the surgeons were trying to make bandages of corn-husks. Miss Barton opened to them her stock of dressings, and proceeded with her companions to distribute bread steeped in wine to the wounded and fainting. In the course of the day she picked up twenty-five men who had come to the rear with the wounded, and set them to work administering restoratives, bringing and applying water, lifting men to easier positions, stopping hemorrhages, etc., etc. At length her bread was all spent; but luckily a part of the liquors she had brought were found to have been packed in meal, which suggested the idea of making gruel. A farm-house was found connected with the barn, and on searching the cellar, she discovered three barrels of flour, and a bag of salt, which the rebels had hidden the day before. Kettles were found about the house, and she prepared to make gruel on a large scale, which was carried in buckets and distributed along the line for miles.
On the ample piazza of the house were ranged the operating tables, where the surgeons performed their operations; and on that piazza she kept her place from the forenoon till nightfall, mixing gruel and directing her assistants, under the fire of one of the greatest and fiercest battles of modern times. Before night her face was as black as a negro's, and her lips and throat parched with the sulphurous smoke of battle. But night came at last, and the wearied armies lay down on the ground to rest; and the dead and wounded lay everywhere.
Where Sumner's Corp fought
Darkness too had its terrors, and as the night closed in, the surgeon in charge at the old farm-house, looked despairingly at a bit of candle and said it was the only one on the place; and no one could stir till morning. A thousand men dangerously wounded and suffering terribly from thirst lay around, and many must die before the light of another day. It was a fearful thing to die alone and in the dark, and no one could move among the wounded, for fear of stumbling over them. Miss Barton replied, that, profiting by her experience at Chantilly, she had brought with her thirty lanterns, and an abundance of candles. It was worth a journey to Antietam, to light the gloom of that night. On the morrow, the fighting had ceased, but the work of caring for the wounded was resumed and continued all day.
On the third day the regular supplies arrived, and Miss Barton having exhausted her small stores, and finding that continued fatigue and watching were bringing on a fever, turned her course towards Washington. It was with difficulty that she was able to reach home, where she was confined to her bed for some time.
When she recovered sufficiently to call on Colonel Rucker, and told him that with five wagons she could have taken supplies sufficient for the immediate wants of all the wounded in the battle, that officer shed tears, and charged her to ask for enough next time."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21853/21853-h/21853-h.htm#Page_111
Famous photo of the lone grave at Antietam
Thank you once again Project Gutenberg volunteers!
Clara is such a by-word it's terribly easy to by-pass much of what she did- with her hands and heart and determination. Dorothea Dix had similar compassion and endless drive but was much more intimidating as a person- less likely to charm the socks off a snake and may have eaten it whole instead, you know?
From NYPL
Bios on Clara are tough. There exists so much, or so many flatly astonishing feats on her part that to read them all end-to-end is to do justice to none. You're punch-drunk in her super-powers. Which one?
A lot of us are compassionate. How many could watch armies march to a battle and resolve to follow them in order to pick up the inevitable wounded and dying? You'd assume ' The Army ' had some vague plan. Clara had been meeting boats bringing wounded back from battles literally from Day 1. There was no real plan, surgeons being so, so overwhelmed most wounded died without having reached a surgeon. Or a nurse. or a hospital.
NYPL
It took an army of compassion to bring help to our wounded soldiers. From reading accounts it seems clear politicians held a war, everyone pretty much forgot to send bandaids. The Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission, states' Women's Aids Commissions in the North began organizing, Dorothea Dix wore down the Powers That Be inexorably applying bandaids administratively and physically. It took time. Clara Barton watched the Union Army march away to another great battle, knew wildly overwhelmed surgeons would have no hope of reaching more than a small a percentage of wounded and did something.
Up until this time Clara had not gone directly to battlefields, baffled by the problem of how to get official permission to do so. She never did. Clara stopped worrying about it. She just went.
This Brady photograph of Clara Barton is from these years. It is this face which our men, North and South saw as their first in a hideous day of pain and anguish- sometimes their last image on the planet. She made no distinction, Union or Confederate either. Clara was there to alleviate suffering. This was a hugely unusual woman.
" On Sunday, the 14th of September, 1862, she loaded an army wagon with supplies and started to follow the march of General McClellan. Her only companions were Mr. Cornelius M. Welles, the teacher of the first contraband school in the District of Columbia—a young man of rare talent and devotion—and one teamster.
She travelled three days along the dusty roads of Maryland, buying bread as she went to the extent of her means of conveyance, and sleeping in the wagon by night. After dark, on the night of the sixteenth, she reached Burnside's Corps, and found the two armies lying face to face along the opposing ridges of hills that bound the valley of the Antietam.
On Smith's Farm, straw huts erected to supplement the barn there used as the hospital
There had already been heavy skirmishing far away on the right where Hooker had forded the creek and taken position on the opposite hills; and the air was dark and thick with fog and exhalations, with the smoke of camp-fires and premonitory death. There was little sleep that night, and as the morning sun rose bright and beautiful over the Blue Ridge and dipped down into the Valley, the firing on the right was resumed. Reinforcements soon began to move along the rear to Hooker's support. Thinking the place of danger was the place of duty, Miss Barton ordered her mules to be harnessed and took her place in the swift train of artillery that was passing.
She did not feel men killed to be ' casualties ', thought of them as lost soldiers to be mourned- these at Dunker Church
On reaching the scene of action, they turned into a field of tall corn, and drove through it to a large barn.
Smith's Barn, Antietam
They were close upon the line of battle; the rebel shot and shell flew thickly around and over them; and in the barn-yard and among the corn lay torn and bleeding men—the worst cases—just brought from the places where they had fallen. The army medical supplies had not yet arrived, the small stock of dressings was exhausted, and the surgeons were trying to make bandages of corn-husks. Miss Barton opened to them her stock of dressings, and proceeded with her companions to distribute bread steeped in wine to the wounded and fainting. In the course of the day she picked up twenty-five men who had come to the rear with the wounded, and set them to work administering restoratives, bringing and applying water, lifting men to easier positions, stopping hemorrhages, etc., etc. At length her bread was all spent; but luckily a part of the liquors she had brought were found to have been packed in meal, which suggested the idea of making gruel. A farm-house was found connected with the barn, and on searching the cellar, she discovered three barrels of flour, and a bag of salt, which the rebels had hidden the day before. Kettles were found about the house, and she prepared to make gruel on a large scale, which was carried in buckets and distributed along the line for miles.
On the ample piazza of the house were ranged the operating tables, where the surgeons performed their operations; and on that piazza she kept her place from the forenoon till nightfall, mixing gruel and directing her assistants, under the fire of one of the greatest and fiercest battles of modern times. Before night her face was as black as a negro's, and her lips and throat parched with the sulphurous smoke of battle. But night came at last, and the wearied armies lay down on the ground to rest; and the dead and wounded lay everywhere.
Where Sumner's Corp fought
Darkness too had its terrors, and as the night closed in, the surgeon in charge at the old farm-house, looked despairingly at a bit of candle and said it was the only one on the place; and no one could stir till morning. A thousand men dangerously wounded and suffering terribly from thirst lay around, and many must die before the light of another day. It was a fearful thing to die alone and in the dark, and no one could move among the wounded, for fear of stumbling over them. Miss Barton replied, that, profiting by her experience at Chantilly, she had brought with her thirty lanterns, and an abundance of candles. It was worth a journey to Antietam, to light the gloom of that night. On the morrow, the fighting had ceased, but the work of caring for the wounded was resumed and continued all day.
On the third day the regular supplies arrived, and Miss Barton having exhausted her small stores, and finding that continued fatigue and watching were bringing on a fever, turned her course towards Washington. It was with difficulty that she was able to reach home, where she was confined to her bed for some time.
When she recovered sufficiently to call on Colonel Rucker, and told him that with five wagons she could have taken supplies sufficient for the immediate wants of all the wounded in the battle, that officer shed tears, and charged her to ask for enough next time."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21853/21853-h/21853-h.htm#Page_111
Famous photo of the lone grave at Antietam
Thank you once again Project Gutenberg volunteers!