THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME II
[Illustration: CLARA BARTON AT EIGHTY]
THE LIFE OF
CLARA BARTON
FOUNDER OF
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS
BY
WILLIAM E. BARTON
AUTHOR OF “THE SOUL OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN”
“THE PATERNITY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,” ETC.
_With Illustrations_
VOLUME II
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY WILLIAM E. BARTON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
CONTENTS
VOLUME II
I. FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF THE RED CROSS 1
II. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 10
III. HER ILLNESS FOLLOWING THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 55
IV. RETURNING HOME 77
V. THE YEARS OF SICKNESS AND RECOVERY 88
VI. THE FORERUNNERS OF THE RED CROSS 115
VII. THE YEARS OF LONELY STRUGGLE 120
VIII. THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS 144
IX. THE TRIALS OF A TREATY 161
X. THE PERILS OF SUCCESS 172
XI. CLARA BARTON AT SHERBORN 199
XII. THE RED CROSS IN PEACE 215
XIII. CLARA BARTON AT HOME AND ABROAD 259
XIV. CLARA BARTON IN CUBA 280
XV. CLARA BARTON’S RETIREMENT FROM THE RED CROSS 294
XVI. CLARA BARTON AT HOME 307
XVII. CLARA BARTON’S RELIGION 317
XVIII. THE PERSONALITY OF CLARA BARTON 326
XIX. CLARA BARTON’S LAST YEARS 361
XX. CLARA BARTON’S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 369
INDEX 381
ILLUSTRATIONS
CLARA BARTON AT EIGHTY _Frontispiece_
Photograph by Clara Barton Drew
FACSIMILE OF PRINCE BISMARCK’S LETTER 32
FACSIMILE OF STRASSBURG DIPLOMA OF HONOR 40
DECORATIONS OF CLARA BARTON 256
CLARA BARTON’S SUMMER HOUSE AT OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS 308
IN THE CEMETERY AT OXFORD: GRAVE AND RED CROSS MONUMENT 376
THE LIFE OF
CLARA BARTON
CHAPTER I
HER FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF THE RED CROSS
When in 1869 Clara Barton went to Europe in quest of health, she had
never so much as heard of the Red Cross. That organization had been in
existence in Europe for more than five years, but the number of people
in America who knew anything about it was exceedingly small. The United
States was not then a member of the international organization which
recognized the Red Cross, nor did it become a member for many years
thereafter. This was not because the United States Government did not
know about it, but because this country had no purpose or desire to
join in an organization established in Europe for purposes in which it
was generally believed this country had no occasion to participate.
It is necessary to be explicit on this subject. The meeting which
gave the Red Cross to the world took place at Geneva, Switzerland,
on February 29, 1863. At the call of a committee, which already had
behind it the formal endorsement of eleven national governments, the
international organization was formed in Geneva on August 22, 1864. At
this meeting the cross of red upon a white ground was adopted as the
insignia of the convention. Twenty-two governments promptly gave their
adherence to this convention. The United States was not among them,
although it had been formally invited to be present.
The Red Cross did not lack for an advocate in America in that early
day. The Reverend Henry W. Bellows, D.D., chairman of the Sanitary
Commission of the United States, earnestly desired that America should
have been among the original nations adhering to the treaty; but his
pleadings were met with indifference and with pronounced opposition.
Mr. George P. Fogg, United States Minister to Switzerland, and Mr.
Charles S. P. Bowles, European Agent of the Sanitary Commission, were
informally present at the Geneva Convention. The Secretary of State
authorized Mr. Fogg “to attend the meeting in an informal manner, for
the purpose of giving or receiving such suggestions as you may think
likely to promote the humane ends which have prompted it.” He added
that Mr. Fogg was not to attend if any emissary of the Confederate
Government was allowed to be there.
It is interesting and gratifying to know that Mr. Bowles was able to
report to the convention concerning the important work done in America
by the Sanitary Commission. But neither Mr. Fogg nor Mr. Bowles could
give any assurance that the United States would do anything toward
the formal endorsement of the Red Cross, or become a member of the
convention.
Dr. Bellows exhausted all his efforts to secure some recognition of the
movement in America, and finally gave it up in despair. From February
9, 1863, when the movement began in Geneva, until May 20, 1881, when
James G. Blaine wrote to Clara Barton that President Garfield would
recommend to Congress the adoption of the international treaty, was
a period of eighteen years, during which time the United States of
America turned a deaf ear to every entreaty to participate in the work
of the Red Cross. That the United States even at that late date came to
be a participant in the results of the Geneva Convention was due to the
untiring faith, devotion, and perseverance of Clara Barton.
She was not one among many good women working for this common end. She
was not a member of a committee or other organization beginning feebly,
but gradually gaining strength until the object was accomplished. Alone
she learned of the Red Cross; alone she brought tidings of it back to
her own country; alone she wrote of it, talked of it, brought it to the
attention of distinguished men, carried her faith in it from desk to
desk in Washington, and cherished the hope of it through long years,
until just before the assassination of President Garfield, she received
from him, through his Secretary of State, the assurance that the United
States would accept the treaty which thirty-one national governments
had previously adopted.
In September, 1869, Clara Barton went abroad in quest of health. For
several months following the loss of her voice on the platform she had
been fighting nervous prostration in America, and had found that she
must turn her back on everything that suggested work. Acting under
medical advice, she sailed in September, and, after a short sojourn
in Scotland with no more than a look at London and Paris, she came to
Geneva in Switzerland, bearing letters of introduction from the Swiss
Minister in Washington, the Honorable John Hitz, to the American
Consul and the American Ambassador. It was there Clara Barton learned
of the Red Cross.
Had she but known it, a Red Cross Society had actually been formed
in the United States in 1866, but had died without securing national
recognition or attracting public attention. Of that organization we
shall have occasion to speak hereafter. It was called “The American
Association for the Relief of the Misery of Battlefields.” Information
concerning it is preserved in a letter of the Reverend Henry W.
Bellows, D.D., President, to Monsieur J. Henri Dunant, Secrétaire du
“Comité International de Secours aux Militaires Blessés.” The few
people who knew of this organization in 1866 had very nearly forgotten
about it by 1869, and its great-hearted organizer, Dr. Bellows, had
become completely discouraged with respect to any recognition of
the movement in America. How Clara Barton came into touch with this
organization as it existed abroad she told in a lecture which she
prepared and delivered in a number of places on her return from Europe
at the close of the Franco-Prussian War. As during this period her
health was so poor that her diary was kept with great irregularity,
this lecture gives us our best account of her journey and succeeding
events:
Most of you, I presume, know of me only as connected with our own war,
and probably little of that, and, unless I give a word of explanation,
it will remain a mystery to you how I ever came near a war in another
country, and, in military parlance, we must connect the two by a
“pontoon bridge,” and get ourselves across on it.
Our war closed in the spring of ’65. Almost four years longer I worked
among the débris, gathering up the wrecks, and sometimes, during the
lecture season, telling a few simple war-stories to the people over
the country, in their halls and churches.
One early winter evening in ’68 I stood on the platform of one of the
finest new opera houses in the East, filled to repletion, it seemed
to me, with the most charming audience I had ever beheld,--plumed and
jeweled ladies, stalwart youths, reverend white-haired men. Gradually,
and to my horror, I felt my voice giving out, leaving me; the next
moment I opened my mouth, but no sound followed. Again, and again,
and again I attempted it, with no result. It was finished! Nervous
prostration had declared itself. I went to my home in Washington,
lay helpless all winter. Finally, by my physicians I was ordered to
Europe, and in early September, ’69, I was able to go.
I came in time to Geneva, when, while we were waiting, anticipating
and settling ourselves, one day there was announced a visit from a
body of Geneva gentlemen, having some business with me.
They introduced themselves as the officers of a society known as
the International Convention of Geneva,--more familiarly, the Red
Cross,--having for its object the amelioration of the sufferings of
war, the succor and nursing of the wounded and sick in battle, the
relief of prisoners, the guarding against famine and pestilence, and
whatever may befall a people, under the scourge of war.
And this, in its international character, extends not alone to its
own, but to all nations within the compact.
This society had been formed in 1865, at the instance of Dr. Louis
Appia,--there present,--a noted surgeon in the Italian wars of
Napoleon III, who had at that date called a convention composed of
delegates from the civilized nations of the whole world, formed
their laws for international neutral action in all wars extending
to all peoples, framed their treaty and presented it for signature,
through the delegates present, to the nations which they respectively
represented. In less than two years this compact had been signed and
entered into by twenty-five distinct governments comprising all the
civilized and some semi-civilized nations of the globe.
With your kind permission, I will depart for a few moments from my
narrative and speak of the nature of the international compact, which
may not be familiar to you.
This treaty, consisting of ten articles, and making material changes
in the articles of war governing the medical and hospital departments
of all armies, provided among other things for entire neutrality
concerning all hospitals for the care of sick and wounded men; that
they should not be subject to capture; that not only the sick and
wounded themselves, but the persons in attendance upon them, as
surgeons, hospital stewards, and nurses should be held neutral, and
free from capture; that surgeons, chaplains, and nurses, in attendance
upon the wounded of a battle-field at the time of its surrender,
should be regarded as non-combatants, not subject to capture, and
left unmolested to care for the wounded so long as any remained upon
the field, and, when no longer needed for this, be safely escorted to
their own lines, and given up; that soldiers too badly wounded to be
capable of again bearing arms should not be carried away as prisoners,
but offered to their own army if in retreat it could take them. They
must be placed in hospitals and cared for, side by side with the
wounded of the enemy; that all convoys of wounded or evacuations of
posts should be protected by absolute neutrality; that all supplies
designed for the use of the sick or wounded should be held as neutral
and entirely exempt from capture by either belligerent army; that
it should be the duty of both generals in command to apprise the
inhabitants, in the vicinity of a battle about to take place, of the
fact that any house which should take in and entertain the wounded of
either side would be placed under military protection, and remain so
as long as any wounded remained therein, and that they would be also
exempt from the quartering of troops and ordinary contributions of
war, thus literally converting every house in the vicinity of a battle
into a furnished hospital and making nurses of its inmates.
In order to carry into effect these great changes, it would be needful
to have some one distinctive sign, a badge by which all these neutral
peoples and stores could be designated. There must be but one hospital
flag among all nations within the treaty, and this same sign must
mark all persons and things belonging to it. The convention studied
diligently for this sign; at length it got so far as to decide that a
cross would be acceptable to nearly all peoples. They next said, “We
represent here the great war-making monarchy of the world.”
This little Republic of Switzerland, so small that one of us could
crush her between our thumb and finger, has had the courage to invite
us here to consider our cruelties and call upon us for some better
system of kindness and humanity than we have heretofore practiced.
For this brave lesson she deserves something of us. We cannot take
her flag; she has fought a thousand years for that, and will not give
it up; but if she permits, we will reverse its colors--a white cross
upon a red ground--and make a red cross on a white ground the one
distinctive sign of humanity in war, the world over. The consent was
given and this committee of gentlemen who had called the convention,
with Monsieur Gustave Moynier as its president, was reëlected by
all the nations as the international medium and head of war relief
throughout the civilized world. To anticipate a little, I would say
here that our adhesion to this treaty in 1882 has changed our articles
of war; our military hospital flag. We have no longer the old faded
yellow flag, but a bright red cross at every post, and the same sign
to be worn by all military surgeons and attendants, if the orders of
the War Department have as yet reached them, for we are to-day, you
will be glad to know, not only in full accord with this International
Treaty of Geneva, but are considered one of the strongest pledged
nations within it.
There were at this time thirty-one nations in this great compact,
comprising all the civilized and even some of the semi-civilized
nations of the globe, all with one great and incomprehensible
exception, the United States of America.
It had been three times presented to our Government; once at its
formation during our war and twice since, without success, and without
any reason, which, to the members of the convention, seemed sufficient
or intelligent.
And it was to ask of me the real nature of the grounds of this
declination that the interview had been sought.
If there were something objectionable in their articles, they might
be modified to meet our laws, or even our prejudices--that some clue
might be gained, which they could understand. They had thought of
everything. If it had originated in a monarchical government, they
could see some justifiable caution, but a sister Republic older than
our own--and yet all monarchies had signed it. In their perplexity
they had come to me for a solution of the problem. What could I say?
What could each or any of you have said, if confronted with this
question?
Simply that you did not know anything about it, and you were sure the
American people did not know anything about it, or ever had heard of
it. That the Government, or rather some officer of the Government,
to whom the matter had been assigned, had decided upon and declined
it individually, and it had never been considered in the national
councils, nor in any way made known to the people.
I knew it must be so: that it had simply gone by default with no real
objection; that our Government was too rushing to attend to details
outside of political influence.
I could only answer these gentlemen that I feared the matter was not
sufficiently understood, being in a foreign language, and I hoped it
could be better presented at some future time. I need not say that
this committee of seven members and myself became friends.
I read their Articles of Convention, their published bulletins and all
reports, and, as we progress, we shall see if, in the dark days that
followed, I found reason to respect the cause and appreciate the work
of the Geneva Convention.
On Miss Barton’s arrival in Switzerland she made her home with the
Golay family, father and mother of Jules Golay whom she had befriended
in America, and who extended to her every possible courtesy while she
was in their home and in their country.
Switzerland is beautiful in summer and early autumn, but in winter
it is no improvement on New England. The beginning of cold weather
found Miss Barton in discomfort. She celebrated Thanksgiving, and soon
afterward left Switzerland for a milder climate.
She had a cordial invitation to spend the winter in London, but
declined the opportunity. London fogs are inhospitable even to
Londoners, and, to any one in Clara Barton’s condition of health, they
are most depressing. She determined instead to go to the Island of
Corsica.
Corsica did not agree with Clara Barton. The mild weather was
favorable, but she found that she needed as much quinine there as she
had required in the South. In the spring she returned to Switzerland,
where her home was at the United States Consulate with Mr. and Mrs.
Upton, and where she resided from March until the 26th of May. Then
she went to Berne for the sake of some baths which had been highly
recommended to her. While there, an event occurred which caused her to
forget that she was an invalid in search of health.