Clara Barton was an American nurse, teacher and humanitarian who became one of the most famous women of the American Civil War. She risked her life to bring food, medicine and care to wounded soldiers on some of the bloodiest battlefields of the war. After the war she founded the American Red Cross, one of the most important relief organizations in the world today. She is remembered as the ‘Angel of the Battlefield’ and as a woman who spent her entire life helping others.
Clara Barton’s Early Life
Clara Barton was born Clarissa Harlowe Barton on December 25th, 1821 CE in North Oxford, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of five children. Her father, Stephen Barton, was a farmer, a local politician and a soldier who had fought in wars in his youth. He told his daughter stories about army life and the importance of keeping soldiers fed and supplied, stories that stayed with her for the rest of her life. Clara was a shy child but very smart and hardworking from a young age.
Her interest in caring for others started early. When she was a teenager, her older brother David fell seriously ill after an accident and had to stay in bed for two years. Clara helped look after him during this time, learning how to care for a sick person and developing a deep sense of responsibility toward those who were suffering. This experience was the beginning of what would become her life’s work. When she grew up, her family encouraged her to become a teacher, and she began teaching at the age of eighteen. She was a very good teacher and in 1852 CE she set up the first free public school in Bordentown, New Jersey, where she taught hundreds of children at no cost to their families. The school grew very quickly. With that said, when the town decided to hire a man to run the school instead of Clara, she resigned rather than accept a lower position. She later moved to Washington DC and got a job at the United States Patent Office, becoming one of the first women to work for the federal government.
Clara Barton and the Civil War
When the Civil War broke out in April of 1861 CE, Clara Barton was living in Washington DC. She was deeply upset by the condition of the wounded soldiers arriving in the city. Hospitals were overwhelmed and soldiers were arriving without food, clean clothing or basic supplies. Barton started collecting donations of food, medicine and clothing and distributing them to soldiers at hospitals and camps around Washington. She was determined to do more. She wanted to get to the battlefields themselves, where she believed the need was greatest.
In 1862 CE she received official permission to travel to the front lines and bring supplies directly to the soldiers on the battlefield. This was extremely unusual. Women were not expected to go anywhere near the fighting. Barton did it anyway. She and her helpers loaded supplies onto wagons and drove them to some of the bloodiest battles of the war, including the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862 CE. The Battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day of the entire Civil War. Thousands of soldiers were wounded in one day. Doctors had run out of bandages and were using cornhusks to wrap wounds. Barton arrived with wagon loads of supplies and worked alongside the doctors through the night, helping to care for the wounded. At one point during the battle a bullet passed through the sleeve of her dress and hit the soldier she was helping to treat, killing him. She kept working. As such, her bravery at Antietam and other battlefields became legendary and earned her the nickname the Angel of the Battlefield.
Barton continued this work through the rest of the war. She traveled with the Union army to battlefields in Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. She brought food, medicine and blankets. She helped doctors care for the wounded. She also kept careful records of the names of soldiers she treated, knowing that their families would want to know what had happened to them. In 1864 CE she was formally made superintendent of nurses for one of the Union army’s main commands. As such, her role went from being a volunteer helper to an official part of the Union war effort.
Clara Barton and the Missing Soldiers Office
After the war ended in 1865 CE, Barton turned her attention to a problem that was causing enormous pain across the country. Hundreds of thousands of families did not know what had happened to their sons, husbands and brothers. Many soldiers had died without being properly identified. Many others were in prison camps or hospitals far from home. Families had no way to find out if their loved ones were alive or dead.
President Abraham Lincoln gave Barton his support to set up an Office of Correspondence to help find missing soldiers. Barton and a team of twelve helpers worked through enormous piles of army records, letters and reports. They answered more than 63,000 letters from worried families. They identified more than 22,000 missing soldiers. For instance, Barton also traveled to Andersonville Prison in Georgia, which had been one of the worst Confederate prisoner of war camps during the war, and helped identify the graves of more than 13,000 Union soldiers buried there. As such, this work brought some peace to thousands of grieving families and was one of the most important humanitarian efforts of the entire postwar period.
Clara Barton and the American Red Cross
During a visit to Europe in 1869 CE, Barton learned about an organization called the International Red Cross, which had been set up in Switzerland to help wounded soldiers in wars across Europe. The International Red Cross worked under a set of rules called the Geneva Convention, which required countries at war to treat wounded soldiers and medical workers with care and respect. Barton was deeply impressed by the organization and determined to bring it to the United States.
After returning home, she spent years pushing the United States government to sign the Geneva Convention and set up an American branch of the Red Cross. It was hard, slow work. Many politicians did not see the need for such an organization. Barton kept pushing. On May 21st, 1881 CE, she officially founded the American Red Cross and became its first president. The following year, in 1882 CE, the United States signed the Geneva Convention. As president of the Red Cross, Barton led the organization’s response to major disasters across the country. For instance, the American Red Cross provided help to victims of the deadly Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania in 1889 CE, when more than 2,000 people died after a dam broke. The Red Cross also helped victims of hurricanes in South Carolina and Texas. Barton served as president of the American Red Cross for twenty-three years. She resigned in 1904 CE after disagreements with other members of the organization over how it should be run.
Clara Barton’s Death and Legacy
Clara Barton died on April 12th, 1912 CE at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland at the age of ninety. She was buried in Oxford, Massachusetts, near where she had been born ninety years earlier. She never married and had no children. She devoted her entire life to helping others.
Clara Barton is remembered as one of the most important women in American history. She showed extraordinary courage by going onto battlefields when no one expected a woman to be there. She helped thousands of wounded soldiers when they had nowhere else to turn. She founded the American Red Cross, which today helps millions of people around the world every year through disaster relief, blood donation and emergency support. For instance, the Red Cross responds to more than 70,000 disasters in the United States every year. As such, the work that Clara Barton began more than 140 years ago continues to help people to this day, making her one of the most lasting and important figures in the history of the American Civil War.
