TO THE END OF THE WAR
At the end of May, 1864, Clara Barton was in Washington. She wrote to
her brother David informing him of her return to the city on the night
of May 24. There had been, she told him, a series of terrible battles;
she doubted if history had ever known men to be mowed down in regiments
as in these battles. Victory had been won, but it was incomplete, and
the cost had been terrible. She had seen nine thousand Confederate
prisoners.
As to her future plans, she thought she would not go out from
Washington a great deal during the excessively hot weather. She
remembered her sickness of the previous summer, and did not wish to
repeat it. But as for keeping her away in case there should be a
battle, she would not count a kindness on anybody’s part to attempt
that. She said: “I suppose I should feel about as much benefited as
my goldfish would if some kind-hearted person should take him out of
his vase where he looked so wet and cold, and wrap him up in warm, dry
flannel. We can’t live out of our natural element, can we? I’ll keep
quiet when the war is over.”
She was not permitted to stay in Washington and guard her health. She
was appointed Superintendent of the Department of Nurses for the Army
of the James. She was under the authority of Surgeon McCormack, Chief
Medical Director. The army was commanded by General B. F. Butler. She
entered this new field of service June 18, 1864. We have a letter which
she wrote concerning a celebration, such as it was, of the 4th of July.
POINT OF ROCKS, VA., July 5, 1864
General Butler’s Department
MY MOST ESTEEMED AND DEAR FRIEND:
Here in the sunshine and dust and toil and confusion of camp life,
the mercury above a hundred, the atmosphere and everything about
black with flies, the dust rolling away in clouds as far as the
eye can penetrate, the ashy ground covered with scores of hospital
tents shielding nearly all conceivable maladies that _soldier_
“flesh” is heir to, and stretching on beyond the miles of
bristling fortifications, entrenchments, and batteries encircling
Petersburg,--all ready to _blaze_,--just here in the midst of all
this your refreshing letter dropped in upon me.
NEW YORK! It seemed to me that in the very postmark I could
see pictured nice Venetian blinds, darkened rooms where never a fly
dared enter, shady yards with cool fountains throwing their spray
almost in at the open windows, watered streets flecked with the
changing shadows of waving trees, bubbling soda fountains and water
ices and grottoes and pony gallops in Central Park and cool drives
at evening, and much more I have not time to enumerate, and for an
instant I fear human selfishness triumphed, and, before I was aware,
the mind had instinctively drawn a contrast, and the sun’s rays glowed
hotter and fiercer, and the dust rolled heavier, and my wayward heart
complained to me that I was ever in the sun or dust or mud or frost,
and impatiently asked if all the years of my life should pass and I
never know again a season of quiet rest; and I confess it with shame.
I trust that the suddenness with which it was rebuked may atone for
its wickedness in some degree, and when I remembered the thousands who
would so gladly come and share the toils with us, if only they could
be free to do so, I gave thanks anew for my great privileges, and
broke the seal of the welcome missive.
And you find hot weather even there, and have time among all the
business of that driving city to remember the worn-out sufferers who
are lying so helpless about us, many of whom have fought the last
fight, kept the last watch, and, standing at the outer post, only wait
to be relieved. The march has been toilsome, but the relief comes
speedily at last--sometimes almost before we are aware. Yesterday in
passing through a ward (if wards they might be termed) filled mostly
from the U.S. Colored Regiments I stopped beside a sergeant who had
appeared weak all day, but made no complaint, and asked how he was
feeling then. Looking up in my face, he replied, “Thank you, Miss,
a little better, I hope.” “Can I do anything for you?” I asked. “A
little water, if you please.” I turned to get it, and that instant he
gasped and was gone. Men frequently reach us at noon and have passed
away before night. For such we can only grieve, for there is little
opportunity to labor in their cases. I find a large number of colored
people, mostly women and children, left in this vicinity, the stronger
having been taken by their owners “up country.” In all cases they are
destitute, having stood the sack of two opposing armies--what one army
left them, the other has taken.
On the plantation which forms the site of this hospital is a colored
woman, the house servant of the former owner, with thirteen children,
eight with her and five of her oldest taken away. The rebel troops had
taken her bedding and clothing and ours had taken her money, forty
dollars in gold, which she had saved, she said, and I do not doubt
her statement in the least. I gave her all the food I had that was
suitable for her and her children and shall try to find employment for
her.
For the last few days we have been constantly meeting and caring for
the wounded and broken-down from Wilson’s cavalry raid; they have
endured more than could be expected of men, and are still brave and
cheerful under their sufferings.
I hope I shall not surprise you by the information that we celebrated
the Fourth (yesterday) by giving an extra dinner. We invited in the
lame, the halt, and the blind to the number of some two hundred or
more to partake of roast beef, new potatoes, squash, blancmange,
cake, etc., etc. We had music, not by the band, but from the
vicinity of Petersburg, and, if not so sweet and perfectly timed as
that discoursed by some of your excellent city bands, it must be
acknowledged as both startling and thrilling, and was received with
repeated “_bursts_.”
I thank you much for your kind solicitude for my health. I beg to
assure you that I am perfectly well at present and, with the blessing
of Heaven, I hope to remain so.
Of the length of the campaign I have no adequate idea, and can form
none. I should be happy to write you pages of events as they transpire
every day, but duty must not be neglected for mere gratification.
Thus far I have remained at the Corps (which is, in this instance,
only an overburdened and well-conducted field) hospital. This point,
from its peculiar location, is peculiarly adapted to this double
duty service, situated as it is at one terminus of the line of
entrenchments.
This part of Clara Barton’s war experience is least known of all that
she performed. Her diaries were unkept and as her war lectures were
mostly occupied with her earlier service in the field, they make almost
no reference to this important part of her work. It is through her
letters that we know something of what she experienced and accomplished
in the closing months of 1864, and the early months of 1865. There
is less material here of the kind that makes good newspaper copy or
lecture material than was afforded by her earlier work in the open
field, and it is probably on this account that this period has fallen
so much into the shadow of forgetfulness that it has sometimes been
said that Clara Barton retired from active service after the Wilderness
campaign. Two letters, one to Frances Childs Vassall, and the other
to Annie Childs, give somewhat intimate pictures of her life in this
period, and may be selected out of her correspondence for that purpose.
TENTH ARMY CORPS HOSPITAL
September 3rd, 1864
MY DARLING SIS FANNIE:
It is almost midnight, and I ought to go to bed this minute, and I
want to speak to you first, and I am going to indulge my inclination
just a little minute till this page is down, if no more; but it will
be all egotism, so be prepared, and don’t blame me. I know you are
doing well and living just as quietly and happily as you deserve to
do. I hear from no one, and indeed I scarce write at all; and no one
would wonder if they could look in upon my family and know besides
that we had _moved_ this week--yes, _moved_ a family of
fifteen hundred sick men, and had to keep our housekeeping up all the
time; and no one to be ready at hand and ask us to take tea the first
night either.
I have never told you how I returned--well, safely, and got off from
City Point and my goods off its dock _just in time_ to avoid that
terrible catastrophe. I was not blown to atoms, but might have been
and no one the wiser. I found my “sick family” somewhat magnified on
my return, and soon the Corps (10th) was ordered to cross the James,
and make a feint while the Weldon Railroad was captured, and this
move threw all the sick in Regimental Hospital into our hospital,
five hundred in one night. Only think of such an addition to a family
between supper and breakfast and no preparation; and just that morning
our old cook John and his assistant Peter both came down sick, one
with inflammation of the lungs and the other with fever. It was
all the surgeons, stewards, and clerks could do to keep the names
straight and manage the official portion of the reception; and, would
you believe it, I stepped into the gap and assumed the responsibility
of the kitchen and feeding of our twelve hundred, and I held it and
kept it straight till I selected a new boss cook and got him regularly
installed and then helped him all the time up to the present day. I
wish I had some of my bills of fare preserved as they read for the
day. The variety is by no means so striking as the quantity. Say for
breakfast seven hundred loaves of bread, one hundred and seventy
gallons of hot coffee, two large wash-boilers full of tea, one barrel
of apple sauce, one barrel of sliced boiled pork, or thirty hams, one
half barrel of corn-starch blancmange, five hundred slices of butter
toast, one hundred slices of broiled steak, and one hundred and fifty
patients, to be served with chicken gruel, boiled eggs, etc. For
dinner we have over two hundred gallons of soup, or boiled dinner of
three barrels of potatoes, two barrels of turnips, two barrels of
onions, two barrels of squash, one hundred gallons of minute pudding,
one wash-boiler full of whiskey sauce for it, or a large washtub full
of codfish nicely picked, and stirred in a batter to make one hundred
and fifty gallons of nice home codfish, and the Yankee soldiers cry
when they taste it (I prepared it just the old home way, and so I
have everything cooked), and the same toasts and corn starch as for
breakfast. And then for supper two hundred gallons of rice, and twenty
gallons of sauce for it, two hundred gallons of tea, toast for a
thousand, and some days I have made with my own hands ninety apple
pies. This would make a pie for some six hundred poor fellows who had
not tasted pie for months, it might be years, sick and could not eat
much. I save all the broken loaves of bread from transportation and
make bread puddings in large milk pans; about forty at once will do.
The patients asked for _gingerbread_, and I got extra flour and
molasses and make it by the score. I have all the grease preserved
and clarified, and to-morrow, if our new milk comes, we are to
commence to make doughnuts. I have a barrel of nice lard ready (they
had always burned it before to get it out of the way).
Last Saturday night we learned that we were to change with the
Eighteenth Corps, and go up in front of Petersburg, and their first
loads of sick came with the order. At dark I commenced to cook
puddings and gingerbread, as I could carry them best. At two o’clock
A.M. I had as many of these as I could carry in an ambulance,
and packed my own things in an hour, and at three A.M. in the
dark, started over the pontoon bridge across the Appomattox to our new
base, about four miles. Got there a little before day, and got some
breakfast ready about 8.30 for four hundred men that had crossed the
night previous, nearly one hundred officers. The balance followed, and
in eighteen hours from the receipt of the order we were all moved--but
a poor change for us. Since dark forty wounded men have been brought
in, many of which will prove mortal, one with the shoulder gone, a
number of legs off, one with both arms gone, some blown up with shells
and terribly burned, some in the breast. By request of the surgeons,
I made a pail full of nice thick eggnog (eggs beaten separately and
seasoned with brandy), and carried all among them, to sleep on, and
chicken broth, and I have left them all falling asleep, and I have
stolen away to my tent, which is as bare as a cuckoo’s nest--dirt
floor, just like the street, a narrow bed of straw, and a three-legged
stand made of old cracker boxes, and a wash dish. A hospital tent
without any fly constitutes my apartment and furnishing. And here it
is one o’clock, damp and cold, one little fellow from the 11th Maine
dying, whose groans have echoed through the camp for hours. Another
noble Swiss boy, I fear mortally wounded, who thinks he shall not live
till morning, and has gained a promise from me that I will see him
and be with him when he dies (I have still hopes of his recovery).
Oh, what a volume it would make if I could only write you what I have
seen, known, heard, and done since I first came to this department,
June 18th. The most surprising of all of which is (tell Sally) that I
should have _turned cook_. Who would have “thunk it”?
I am writing on bits of paper for want of whole sheets. I am entirely
out. My dresses are equal to the occasion; the skirt is finished, but
not worn yet. I am choice of it. The striped print gets soiled and
washes nicely, all just right, and I have plenty, and I bless you
every day for it. I want so to write Annie a good long letter, but how
can I get time? Please give her from this, if you please, an idea of
what I am doing, and she will not blame me so much.
Tell Sally that our purchases of tinware were just the thing, and but
for them this hospital could not be kept comfortable a single day,
not a meal. I wish I had as much more, and a nice stove of my own,
with suitable stove furniture besides. And I think I could do as much
good with it as some missionaries are supposed to do. Our spices and
flavorings were Godsends when I got them here. I wish I had boxes of
them. I need to use so much in my big cooking. There, I said it would
be all egotism, but I am too stupid to think of anybody but myself, so
forgive me. Give my love to all and write your loving Sis,
CLARA
From letters such as this we are able to rescue from oblivion a full
year of war service of Clara Barton. Contrary to all her previous
intent, she was a head-nurse, in charge of the hospitals of an entire
army corps. Not only so, but she was on occasion chief cook and
purveyor of pie and gingerbread, and picked codfish and New England
boiled dinners so like what the soldiers loved at home that they
sometimes cried for joy. But she did not relinquish her purpose to be
at the front. The front was very near to her. Another of her letters
must be quoted:
BASE HOSPITAL, 10TH ARMY CORPS
BROADWAY LANDING, VA.
Sept. 14th, 1864
MY DEAR SIS ANNIE:
Your excellent and comforting letter reached me some time ago, and,
like its one or two abused predecessors, has vainly waited a reply.
I cannot tell how badly I have wanted to write you, how impossible I
found it to get the time. But often enough an attack of illness has
brought me a leisure hour, and I am almost glad that I can make it
seem right for me to sit down in daylight and pen a letter.
For once in my life I am at a loss where to commence. I have been your
debtor so long, and am so full of unsaid things, that I don’t know
which idea to let loose first. Perhaps I might as well speak of the
weather. Well, it _rains_, and that is good for my conscience
again, for I couldn’t get out in that if I were well enough. Rain
here means mud, you must understand, but I am sheltered. Why, I have
a _whole_ house of my own, first and second floors, two rooms
and a flight of stairs, and a great big fireplace, a bright fire
burning, a west window below, a south one above, an east door, with
a soldier-built frame arbor of cedar, twelve feet in front of it and
all around it, so close and green that a cat couldn’t look in, unless
at my side opening. It was the negro house for the plantation, and
was dirty, of course, but ten men with brooms and fifty barrels of
water made it all right, and they moved me into it one night when I
was sick, and here I have lain and the winds have blown and the rains
descended and beat upon my house, and it fell not, and for hours in
the dark night I have listened to the guy ropes snapping and the tent
flies flapping in the wind and rain, and thunder and lightning. All
about me are the frail habitations of my less fortunate neighbors.
One night I remembered a darling little Massachusetts boy, sick of
fever and chronic diarrhœa, a mere skeleton, and I knew he was lying
at the very edge of his ward, tents, of course,--delicate little
fellow, about fifteen,--and I couldn’t withstand the desire to shield
him, and sent through the storm and had him brought, bed and all,
and stored in my lower room, and there he lay like a little kitten,
so happy, till about noon the next day, when his father, one of the
wealthy merchants of Suffolk, came for him. He had just heard of his
illness, had searched through the damp tents for him and finally
traced him to me. The unexpected sight of his little boy, sheltered,
warm, and fed, nearly deprived him of speech, but when those pale lips
said, “Auntie--father--this is _my_ Auntie; doesn’t she look like
mother?” It was _too much_. Women’s and children’s tears amount
to little, but the convulsive sobs of a strong man are not forgotten
in an hour.
Well, I have made a queer beginning of this letter. One would have
supposed I should have made it my first duty to speak of the nice
_box_ that came to me, from you, by Mrs. Rich, and how choice I
was of it, and did not take it with me the first time I went for fear
I might not find the most profitable spot to use it in just then till
I had found my field. As good luck would have it, it did not take long
to find my field of operations; and nothing but want of time to write
has prevented me from acknowledging the box many times, and expressing
the desire that others might follow it. I can form no estimate of what
I would and should have made use of during the campaign thus far, if
I had had it to use. I doubt if you at home could _realize_ the
necessities if I could describe every one accurately, and now the cold
weather approaches, they will increase in some respects. The army
is filling up with new troops to a great degree and the nights are
getting cold....
I was rejoiced to hear from Lieutenant Hitchcock and that he is
doing well. You are favored in so pleasant a correspondent as I know
he must be, and what a comfort to his wife to have him home so soon.
I hope his wound will not disable him very much. Please give my love
and congratulations to them when you write. Poor fellows! how sorry
I was to see them lying there under the trees, so cut and mangled.
Poor Captain Clark! Do you know if he is alive? the surgeons told me
he couldn’t survive. I went up again to see them, a day or two after
they all left. Colonel Gould had gone the day before. Yes! I lost one
friend. Poor Gardner! He fought bravely and died well, they said, and
laid his mangled body at the _feet of his foe_. I feel sad when I
think of it all. “Tired a little”--not tired of the war, but tired of
our sacrifices.
I passed a most pleasant hour with Lieutenant Hitchcock. It seemed so
comfortable and withal so quaint and strange to sit down under the
sighing pines of Virginia away out in the woods in the war of the
guns and talk of _you_. I have asked a great many times for Mr.
Chamberlain and only heard twice--he was well each time, but this
was not lately. I shall surely go to him if I get near the dear old
regiment (21st regiment)--that is more than I ever said of any other
regiment in the service. I am a stranger to them now, I know, after
all their changes; few of them ever heard of me, and yet the very
mention of the number calls up all the old-time love and pride I ever
had. I would divide the last half of my last loaf with any soldier in
that regiment, though I had never seen him. I honor him for joining
it, be he who he may; for he knew well if he marched and fought with
_that_ regiment he had undertaken no child’s play, and those who
measured steel with them knew it as well.
The Oxford ladies at work for me again!! I am very glad if they have
the confidence to do so. I had thought, perhaps, my style of labor
was not approved by them; but I could not help it. I knew it was
_rough_, but I thought it none the less necessary. If they do
so far approve as to send me the proceeds of some of their valuable
labors, it will be an additional stimulant to me to persevere.
Do you know I am thinking seriously of remaining “out” the winter
unless the campaign should come to a sudden and decisive stand, and
nothing be done and no one exposed.
_You_ know that my range here is very extended; this department
is large, and I am invited by General Butler to visit every part of
it, and all medical and other officers within the department are
directed to afford me every facility in their power. But so little
inclination do they display to thwart me that I have _never_
shown my “pass and order” to an officer since I have been in the
department. I have had but one trouble since I came, and that has been
to extend my labor without having the point that I leave miss me.
We have now in the 10th Corps two main hospitals and no regimental
hospital; the “base,” where I am at present, about four miles from the
extreme front, and the “Flying” Hospital three miles farther up--in
the rear of the front line of works. The most skillful operators
are always here, and all the surgeons at that post are my old-time
personal friends. Dr. Barlow I worked with at Cedar Mountain and
through Pope’s retreat, and again on Morris Island; and he says, if
I am going to desert my old friends _now_, _just say so_,
that’s all. And I have stood by Dr. Porter all summer, and Porter says
he will share me some with the upper hospital, but I must not leave
the Corps on any condition whatever. And yet the surgeon in charge of
one of the largest corps in General Grant’s army at City Point came
for me one day last week and would hardly be denied; wanted me to help
him “run” his hospital--“not to touch a bit of the work.” I begin to
think I can “keep a hotel,” but I didn’t think so a year ago. Well, I
have told you all this to show you how probable it is that I shall
find it difficult to get off the field this fall or even winter.
And thank you many times for your sisterly invitation to spend some
portion of the winter with you. I should be most happy to do so, but
it is a little doubtful if I get north of Washington this winter,
unless the war ends suddenly, and I am beginning to study _my
duty_ closely. I can go to the Flying Hospital, and be just along
with the active army; and then, if I had a sufficient quantity of
good suitable supplies, I could keep the needy portion of a whole
corps comfortably supplied; and being connected with the hospital and
convalescent camp, conversant with the men, surgeons, and nurses, I
could meet their wants more timely and surely than any stranger or
outside organization of men could do. And ladies, most of the summer
workers, will draw off, with the cool nights; men who have been
accustomed to feather beds, will seek them if they can when the frost
comes. Nevertheless the troops will need the same care--good warm
shirts, socks, drawers, and mittens, and the sick will need the same
good, well-cooked diet that they did in summer; and yet it would try
me dreadfully to be among them in the cold and nothing comfortable
to give them. And this corps especially never passed a winter north
of South Carolina and they _will nearly freeze_, I fear. I have
scraped together and given already the last warm article I have just
for the few frosty nights we have had. I haven’t a pair of socks
or shirts or drawers for a soldier in my possession. I shall look
with great anxiety now for anything to reach me, for I shall require
it both on account of the increased severity of the weather and my
proposed extended field of labor. I have the 4th Massachusetts Cavalry
on hand, and they have a hospital of their own and a good many sick.
I gave them, one day last week, the last delicacy I possessed; it
was but little--some New York and New Jersey fruits; nothing from
Massachusetts for them. I was sorry; I wish I had. If I go to the
Flying Hospital it will be entirely destitute of all but soldier’s
blankets and rations, not a bedsack or pillow, sheet or pillowcase,
or stove or tin dishes, except cups and plates. Now, I should want
some of all these things, and if I go I must write to some of the
friends of the soldiers the wants I see, and if they are disposed
they can place it in my power to make them comfortable, independent
of army regulations. You know this front hospital is for operations
in time of battle, and subject to move at an hour’s notice, or when
the shot might reach it, or the enemy press too near, and must not
be encumbered with baggage. Ask Lieutenant Hitchcock to explain it
to you, and he will also tell you how useful a _private_ supply
connected with it might be, what comfort there would be in it, and how
I could distribute from such a point to the troops along the front.
Now, with my best regards to the good ladies of Oxford, I am done
about soldiers and hospitals.
Oh, if I had time to write! I have material enough, “dear knows,” but
I cannot get time to half acknowledge favors received. If some one
would come and act as scribe for me, I might be the means of relating
some interesting incidents; but I have not even a cook or orderly,
not to say a clerk. I do not mean that I cannot have the two former,
but I do not use them myself at all when I hold them in detail. I
immediately get them at work for some one who I think needs them more.
I am glad you see my Worcester friends. You visited at Mr. Newton’s, I
suppose. I hope they are well. Please give my love to them....
We are firing a salute for something at this minute, don’t yet know
what. We fired one over the fall of Atlanta; solid shot and shell
with the guns pointed toward Petersburg. Funny salutes we get up
here. Yesterday morn we had terrible firing along the whole line, but
it amounted to only an artillery duel. Yet it brought us fourteen
wounded, three or four mortally. What a long letter I have written
you and I am not going to apologize and I know _you_ are not
tired even if it is long, you are glad of it, and so am I, although it
is not very interesting.
Please give my kindly and high regards to Miss Sanford and Mrs.
Burleigh, Colonel De Witt, also, and all inquiring friends and write
soon to your affectionate
Sis
CLARA
This letter was copied by Annie Childs, and bears this note in the
handwriting of Annie Childs:
I have my friend Clara’s permission to show any portion of her “poor
scrawls” that I think would interest the excellent ladies who are
laboring so faithfully for the good and comfort of the soldiers, and
trust to their charity to overlook imperfections. Many portions of the
above are copied for the benefit of persons in Worcester and other
places, as I could not get time to write many copies like this, which
is three fourths of my letter from her.
ANNIE E. CHILDS
It must have been something of a relief to Clara Barton to be working
in a definite sphere under military authority, and not as a volunteer
worker. Not that she regretted for a moment the method of her previous
activity. She would never have worked cheerfully as a part of the
organization commanded by Miss Dix. She had too clear ideas of her own,
and saw the possibilities of too large a work for her to be content
with any sort of long-range supervision. All the women who really
achieved large success at the front were individualists. “Mother”
Bickerdyke, for instance, took no orders from any one. General Sherman
was accustomed to say of her that she ranked him. But Miss Barton’s
field for volunteer service was now limited. The war was closing
in, and nearing its end. Clara Barton wisely accepted a definite
appointment and took up her work with the army of General Butler. How
highly he esteemed her service is shown by his lifelong friendship
for her, and his appointment of her to be matron of the Massachusetts
Reformatory for Women.
Clara Barton knew, before she went to the Army of the James, how
impossible it was to obtain ideal conditions in a military hospital.
She must have been very glad that she had refused to criticize the
hospitals at Hilton Head, even when she knew that things were going
wrong. She had her own experience with headstrong surgeons and
incompetent nurses. But on the whole her experience in the closing days
of the war was satisfactory.
One incident which she had looked forward to with eager longing, and
had almost given up, occurred while she was with the Army of the James.
Her brother Stephen was rescued.
It was a pathetic rescue. He was captured by the Union army, and robbed
of a considerable sum of money which had been in his possession. When
he was brought within the Union lines, he was sick, and he suffered
ill treatment after his capture. The date of his capture was September
25, 1864. It was some days before Miss Barton learned about it. She
then reported the matter to General Butler, and it was at once ordered
that Stephen be brought to his headquarters with all papers and other
property in his possession at the time of his capture. The prisoner
was sent and such papers as had been preserved, but the money was
not recovered. Two long letters, written by Stephen Barton from the
hospital, tell the story of his life within the Confederate lines, and
it is a pathetic story.
Stephen Barton was treated with great kindness while he remained in
the hospital at Point of Rock. He was there during the assault on
Petersburg, and well toward the end of the campaign against Richmond.
Then he was removed to Washington, where, on March 10, 1865, he died.
Miss Barton had the satisfaction of ministering to him during those
painful days, and she afterward wrote down her recollection of a prayer
he offered one night after a battle in front of Richmond:
An hour with my dear noble brother Stephen, during a night after a
battle in front of Richmond.
CLARA BARTON
_My brother Stephen, when with me in front of Richmond_
Hearing a voice I crept softly down my little confiscated stairway
and waited in the shadows near his bedside. He had turned his face
partly into his pillow and, resting it upon his hands, was at prayer.
The first words which my ear caught distinctly were, “O God, whose
children we all are, look down with thine eye of justice and mercy
upon this terrible conflict, and weaken the wrong and strengthen the
right till this unequal contest close. O God, save my Country. Bless
Abraham Lincoln and his armies.” A sob from me revealed my presence.
He started, and, raising his giant skeleton form until he rested upon
his elbow, he said, “I thought I was alone.” Then, turning upon me a
look of mingled anxiety, pity, and horror, which I can never describe,
he asked hastily, “Sister, what are those incessant sounds I hear?
The whole atmosphere is filled with them; they seem like the mingled
groans of human agony. I have not heard them before. Tell me what it
is.” I could not speak the words that would so shock his sensitive
nature, but could only stand before him humbled and penitent as if
I had something to do with it all, and feel the tears roll over my
face. My silence confirmed his secret suspicions, and raising himself
still higher, and every previous expression of his face intensifying
tenfold, he exclaimed, “Are these the groans of wounded men? Are
they so many that my senses cannot take them in?--that my ear cannot
distinguish them?” And raising himself fully upright and clasping his
bony hands, he broke forth in tones that will never leave me. “O our
God, in mercy to the poor creatures thou hast called into existence,
send down thine angels either in love or wrath to stay this strife and
bid it cease. Count the least of these cries as priceless jewels, each
drop of blood as ruby gems, and let them buy the Freedom of the world.
Clothe the feet of thy messengers with the speed of the lightning and
bid them proclaim, through the sacrifices of a people, a people’s
freedom, and, through the sufferings of a nation, a nation’s peace.”
And there, under the guns of Richmond, amid the groans of the dying,
in the darkling shadows of the smoky rafters of an old negro hut by
the rude chimney where the dusky form of the bondman had crouched for
years, on the ground trodden hard by the foot of the slave, I knelt
beside that rough couch of boards and sobbed “Amen” to the patriot
prayer that rose above me.
* * * * *
The stolen money was never restored. Stephen struggled on a few
weeks longer, alternating, hoping, and despairing, suffering from
the physical abuse he had received, crushed in spirit, battling with
disease and weakness as only a brave man can, worrying over his
unprotected property and his debts in the old home he never reached,
watching the war, and praying for the success of the Union armies,
and died without knowing--and God be praised for this--that the
reckless torches of that same Union army would lay in ashes and ruins
the result of the hard labor of his own worn-out life and wreck the
fortunes of his only child.
Although doubting and fearing, we had never despaired of his recovery,
until the morning when he commenced to sink and we saw him rapidly
passing away. He was at once aware of his condition and spoke of his
business, desiring that, first of all, when his property could be
reached, his debts should be faithfully paid. A few little minutes
more and there lay before us, still and pitiful, all that remained to
tell of that hard life’s struggle and battle, which had failed most
of all through a great-hearted love for humanity, his faithfulness to
what he conceived to be his duty, and his readiness to do more for
mankind than it was willing to do for itself.
Clara Barton did not long continue in hospital service after the
immediate need was passed. With the firing of the last gun she returned
to Washington. One chapter in her career was closed. Another and
important work was about to open, and she already had it in mind. But
the work she had done was memorable, and its essential character must
not be forgotten.
Clara Barton was more and other than a hospital nurse. She was not
simply one of a large number of women who nursed sick soldiers. She did
that, hastening to assist them at the news of the very first bloodshed,
and continuing until Richmond had fallen. Hers was the distinction of
doing her work upon the actual field of battle; of following the cannon
so as to be on the ground when the need began; of not waiting for the
wounded soldier to be brought to the hospital, but of conveying the
hospital to the wounded soldier. Others followed her in this good work;
others accompanied her and were her faithful associates, but she was,
in a very real sense, the soul and inspiration of the movement which
carried comfort to wounded men while the battle was still in progress.
She was not, in any narrow sense, a hospital nurse; she was, as she has
justly been called, “the angel of the battle-field.”
One characteristic of Clara Barton during these four years deserves
mention and emphasis because her independent position might have made
it easy for her to assume a critical attitude toward those who worked
under the regular organization or through different channels. In all
her letters, in all the entries in her diaries, there is found no
hint of jealousy toward any of the women who worked as nurses in the
hospitals, or under the Sanitary or Christian Commission.
Clara Barton from her childhood was given to versifying. She was once
called upon to respond to a toast to the women who went to the front.
She did it in rhyme as follows:
TOAST
“THE WOMEN WHO WENT TO THE FIELD”
The women who went to the field, you say,
The _women_ who went to the field; and pray
What did they go for? just to be in the way!--
They’d not know the difference betwixt work and play,
What did they know about _war_ anyway?
What could they _do_?--of what _use_ could they be?
They would scream at the sight of a gun, don’t you see?
Just fancy them round where the bugle notes play,
And the long roll is bidding us on to the fray.
Imagine their skirts ’mong artillery wheels,
And watch for their flutter as they flee ’cross the fields
When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;--
They never will wait for the answering shot.
They would faint at the first drop of blood, in their sight.
What fun for us boys,--(ere we enter the fight;)
They might pick some lint, and tear up some sheets,
And make us some jellies, and send on their sweets,
And knit some soft socks for Uncle Sam’s shoes,
And write us some letters, and tell us the news.
And thus it was settled by common consent,
That husbands, or brothers, or whoever went,
That the place for the women was in their own homes,
There to patiently wait until victory comes.
But later, it chanced, just how no one knew,
That the lines slipped a bit, and some ’gan to crowd through;
And they went,--where did they go?--Ah; where did they not?
Show us the battle,--the field,--or the spot
Where the groans of the wounded rang out on the air
That her ear caught it not, and her hand was not there,
Who wiped the death sweat from the cold clammy brow,
And sent home the message;--“’Tis well with him now”?
Who watched in the tents, whilst the fever fires burned,
And the pain-tossing limbs in agony turned,
And wet the parched tongue, calmed delirium’s strife
Till the dying lips murmured, “My Mother,” “My Wife”!
And who were they all?--They were many, my men;
Their record was kept by no tabular pen:
They exist in traditions from father to son.
Who recalls, in dim memory, now here and there one.--
A few names were writ, and by chance live to-day;
But’s a perishing record fast fading away.
Of those we recall, there are scarcely a score,
Dix, Dame, Bickerdyke,--Edson, Harvey, and Moore,
Fales, Whittenmeyer, Gilson, Safford and Lee,
And poor Cutter dead in the sands of the sea;
And Frances D. Gage, our “Aunt Fanny” of old,
Whose voice rang for freedom when freedom was sold.
And Husband, and Etheridge, and Harlan and Case,
Livermore, Alcott, Hancock, and Chase,
And Turner, and Hawley, and Potter, and Hall.
Ah! the list grows apace, as they come at the call:
Did these women quail at the sight of a gun?
Will some soldier tell us of one he saw run?
Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,
At Pittsburg and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?
And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,
And her calm, stately presence gave strength to his men.
And _Marie of Logan_; she went with them too;
A bride, scarcely more than a sweetheart, ’tis true.
Her young cheek grows pale when the bold troopers ride.
Where the “Black Eagle” soars, she is close at his side,
She staunches his blood, cools the fever-burnt breath,
And the wave of her hand stays the Angel of Death;
She nurses him back, and restores once again
To both army and state the brave leader of men.
She has smoothed his black plumes and laid them to sleep,
Whilst the angels above them their high vigils keep:
And she sits here _alone_, with the snow on her brow--
Your cheers for her comrades! Three cheers for her now.
And these were the women who went to the war:
The women of question; what _did_ they go for?
Because in their hearts God had planted the seed
Of pity for woe, and help for its need;
They saw, in high purpose, a duty to do,
And the armor of right broke the barriers through.
Uninvited, unaided, unsanctioned ofttimes,
With pass, or without it, they pressed on the lines;
They pressed, they implored, till they ran the lines through,
And _this_ was the “running” the men saw them do.
’Twas a hampered work, its worth largely lost;
’Twas hindrance, and pain, and effort, and cost:
But through these came knowledge,--knowledge is power.--
And never again in the deadliest hour
Of war or of peace, shall we be so beset
To accomplish the purpose our spirits have met.
And what would they do if war came again?
The _scarlet cross floats_ where all was blank then.
They would bind on their “_brassards_” and march to the fray,
And the man liveth not who could say to them nay;
They would stand with you now, as they stood with you then,
The nurses, consolers, and saviors of men.