Clara Barton is one of the most famous women who participated and made a difference in the Civil War. As a battlefield nurse and the founder of the American Red Cross, Barton left her mark on American military history.
An Asset to the Army
A Republican and self proclaimed patriot,Barton hated the restrictions placed on her because of her sex and wanted nothing more than to be a soldier in the army. When the Civil War was brewing, Barton did not see any reason why she could not be an asset to the army.
Being a woman, Barton was restricted from entering the battlefield, so she did what she could by gathering supplies and food for the soldiers and distributing them with the help of the military. 31 August 1862 found Barton and her aides at Fairfax Station, near Bull Run, ready to deliver supplies to the soldiers.
Battlefield Nurse
Out of sheer need for more help, it was here that Barton worked for the first time as a battlefield nurse, working for sixty hours straight. It was the turning point for Barton. She felt that if she were truly to be of use to the soldiers, she needed to be at the battlefield when the fighting occurred.
Barton’s work led her to serve as a battlefield nurse at Antietam in September 1862 and at various other locations in South Carolina. Many times she worked so hard and for so long that she collapsed from exhaustion after the battle had ceased.
On 15 September 1863, she sustained a tough blow. She was ordered off the battlefield by General Quincy A. Gillmore, at the request of Samuel A. Green, a physician who did not like Clara being in the field and had mistreated her in the past. Realizing that it was her sex which had caused her dismissal, she became severely depressed.
With no place for her, Barton decided on 26 December 1863 to return home to Washington City to see if she could be of any use there.
Missing Soldiers Project
With the difficulty getting back into the battlefield and the slowing of the war, Barton began to focus on other ways to be of use to the war effort. Barton's new mission was prompted by letters pleading for information which she received from soldiers’ family members. On 23 March 1865, Barton went to Camp Parole in Annapolis to start her missing soldier search, calling her project Correspondence with the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army.
Before leaving for Camp Parole, articles detailing her project were published in the Washington Chronicle and other papers and the response was overwhelming; 360 letters were waiting for her when she reached the camp.
22,000 Men
Clara Barton and others were able to identify nearly 13,000 dead. Their efforts were rewarded by the establishment of a national cemetery at Andersonville. Barton continued her work after this achievement and went on to identify nearly 22,000 men by the end of 1868. Finally, after all of her years of service, she felt that she had done her duty and supported the soldiers as her father had instructed her.
Barton went on to found and become the first president of the American Association of the Red Cross. At seventy-seven years old, she was still in the field, serving in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
Clara Barton died in 1912, at the age of ninety, with the words, “Let me go; let me go!”
Source:
Oates, Stephen B., A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War
New York: The Free Press, 1994. 527 pages.
