Clara Harlowe Barton , War Woman, Warrior

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
Sometimes we miss the really big names in History just because they ARE the really big names. Who hasn't heard of Clara Barton- whose name is synonymous with compassion, help, caring and the Civil War. It's funny, I'm not sure whether we think of her as Union or Confederate although there's no getting around her New England, Massachusetts, ' Whatever do you mean ' No' faint smile which shows up in every, single photograph. If you knew that smile the way I know that smile, it'd put chills up your spine, not make you feel cozy, believe me. In producing tributes to our Civil War Women, we have our era women- then we have our War Women- then we have our Warriors. Clara? Make no mistake, all woman, all Warrior. Thank goodness.

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"Born in Massachusetts in 1821, Clara Harlowe Barton was the youngest of six children. Barton supplemented her early education with practical experience, working as a clerk and book keeper for her oldest brother. She worked for several years as a teacher, even starting her own school in Bordentown, New Jersey in 1853. In 1854 she moved south to Washington, D.C. in search of a warmer climate. From 1854 to 1857 she was employed as a clerk in the Patent Office until her anti-slavery opinions made her too controversial. When she went home to New England she continued the charity works and philanthropy she had begun in Washington."
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/clara-barton.html
Clara's Home
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"Clara Barton was working as a recording clerk in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C. when the first units of federal troops poured into the city in 1861. The war had just begun, the troops were newly recruited, and residents in the capital were alarmed and confused. Barton perceived an immediate need in all this chaos for providing personal assistance to the men in uniform, some of whom were already wounded, many hungry, and some without bedding or any clothing except what they had on their backs. She started by taking supplies to the young men of the Sixth Massachusetts Infantry who had been attacked in Baltimore, Maryland, by southern sympathizers and were temporarily housed in the unfinished Capitol building. Barton quickly discovered that many were “her boys,” as she put it; she had grown up with some of them and some she had even taught. Like a few other women, Barton provided clothing and assorted foods and supplies to the sick and wounded soldiers on behalf of such organizations as the U.S. Sanitary Commission, although she never formally affiliated with any agency or group. She collected some relief articles herself, appealed to the public for others, and learned how to store and distribute them. Besides supplies, Barton offered personal support to the men in hopes of keeping their spirits up: she read to them, wrote letters for them, listened to their personal problems, and prayed with them. She knew, however, that where she was needed most was not behind the lines in Washington but on the battlefields where the suffering was greatest."

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Barton prodded leaders in the government and the army until she was given passes to bring her voluntary services and medical supplies to the scenes of battle and field hospitals. Following the battle of Cedar Mountain in northern Virginia in August 1862, she appeared at a field hospital at midnight with a wagon-load of supplies drawn by a four-mule team. The surgeon on duty, overwhelmed by the human disaster surrounding him, wrote later, “I thought that night if heaven ever sent out a[n] . . . angel, she must be one—her assistance was so timely.” Thereafter she was known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” as she served the troops at the battles of Fairfax Station, Chantilly, Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Petersburg and Cold Harbor.

Barton was never satisfied with remaining with medical units at the rear of the column—hours or even days away from a fight. At Antietam, she ordered the drivers of her supply wagons to follow the cannon and traveled all night, actually pulling ahead of military medical units. While the battle raged, she and her associates dashed about bringing relief and hope to the field. She nursed, comforted, and cooked for the wounded. In the face of danger, she wrote, “I always tried . . . to succor the wounded until medical aid and supplies could come up—I could run the risk; it made no difference to anyone if I were shot or taken prisoner.”

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The interest she showed in her “soldier boys” gave her a wealth of information about the men and the regiments to which they belonged. Toward the end of the war, she found herself writing to many families who inquired about men who had been reported missing. Here, again, she recognized a pressing human need and did something practical to address it. In the month before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln wrote: “To the Friends of Missing Persons: Miss Clara Barton has kindly offered to search for the missing prisoners of war. Please address her . . . giving her the name, regiment, and company of any missing prisoner.” Barton established the Office of Correspondence with Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army and operated it out of her rooms in Washington for four years. She and her assistants received and answered over 63,000 letters and identified over 22,000 missing men. Years later, Red Cross established a tracing service, one of the organization’s most valued activities today.
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Barton climaxed her Civil War activity when she participated in establishing a national cemetery around the graves of the Union men who died in the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia. With the help of Dorence Atwater, who had secretly tabulated a list of the dead during his own imprisonment in Andersonville, and a team of 30 military men, Barton identified the graves of nearly 13,000 men. After Barton helped raise the U.S. flag over the Andersonville grounds at their dedication in 1865, she wrote, “I ought to be satisfied. I believe I am.” Coming events were to show, however, that she would never be satisfied except by responding again and again to the call of human need. "
http://www.redcross.org/about-us/history/clara-barton

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