ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM
At the close of the Civil War, Clara Barton wanted to write a book.
Other women who had engaged in war work were writing books, and the
books were being well received. She had as much to tell as any other
one woman, and she thought she would like to tell it.
In this respect she was entirely different from Miss Dorothea Dix. She
met Miss Dix now and then during the war, and made note of the fact
in her diary, but either because these meetings occurred in periods
when she was too busy to make full record, or because nothing of large
importance transpired between them, she gives no extended account of
them. Miss Dix was superintendent of female nurses, and Miss Barton was
doing an independent work, so there was little occasion for them to
meet. But all her references to Miss Dix which show any indication of
her feeling manifest a spirit of very cordial appreciation of Dorothea
Dix’s work. Miss Dix managed her work in her own line, insisting that
nurses whom she appointed should be neither young nor good-looking, and
fighting her valiant battles with quite as much success as in general
could have been expected. But Dorothea Dix had no desire for publicity.
She shrank from giving to the world any details of her own life, partly
because of her unhappy childhood memories, and partly because she did
not believe in upholding in the mind of young women the successful
career of an unmarried woman. Accepting as she did her own lonely
career, and making it a great blessing to others, she did not desire
that young women should emulate it or consider it the ideal life. She
wished instead that they should find lovers, establish homes, and
become wives and mothers.
Clara Barton, too, had very high regard for the home, and she saw quite
enough of the folly of sentimental young women who were eager to rush
to the hospitals and nurse soldiers, but she did not share Miss Dix’s
fear of an attractive face, and she knew rather better than Miss Dix
the value of publicity. Timid as she was by nature, she had discovered
the power of the Press. She had succeeded in keeping up her supply of
comforts for wounded soldiers largely by the letters which she wrote to
personal friends and to local organizations of women in the North. She
made limited but effective use of the newspaper for like purposes. At
first she did not fully realize her own gift as a writer. Once or twice
she bemoaned in her diary the feebleness of her descriptive effort. If
she could only make people see what she had actually seen, she could
move their hearts, and the supply of bandages and delicacies for her
wounded men would be unfailing.
Her search for missing soldiers led her to a larger utilization of the
Press, and gave her added confidence in her own descriptive powers.
Her name was becoming more and more widely known, and she thought a
book by her, if she could procure means to publish it, would afford
her opportunity for self-expression and quite possibly be financially
profitable.
On this subject she wrote two letters to Senator Henry Wilson. They are
undated, and it is probable that she never sent either of them, but
they show what was in her heart. One of these reads as follows:
MY ALWAYS GOOD FRIEND:
Among all the little trials, necessities, and wants, real or
imaginary, that I have from time to time brought and laid down at
your feet, or even upon your shoulders, your patience has never once
broken, or if it did your broad charity concealed the rent from me,
and I come now in the hope that this may not prove to be the last
feather. It is not so much that I want you to _do_ anything as to
listen and advise, and it may be all the more trying as I desire the
advice to be plain, candid, and honest even at the risk of wounding my
pride.
Perhaps no previous proposition of mine, however wild, has ever so
completely astonished you as the present is liable to do. Well, to
end suspense. _I am desirous of writing a book._ You will very
naturally ask two questions--what for and what of. In reply to the
first. The position which I have assumed before the public renders
some general exposition necessary. They require to be made acquainted
with me, or perhaps I might say they should either be made to know
more of me or less. As it is, every one knows my name and something of
what I am or have been doing, but not one in a thousand has any idea
of the manner in which I propose to serve them. Out of six thousand
letters lying by me, probably not two hundred show any tolerably clear
idea of the writer as to what use I am to make of that very letter.
People tell me the color of the hair and eyes of the friends they have
lost, as if I were expected to go about the country and search them.
They ask me to send them full lists of the lost men of the army; they
tell me that they have looked all through my list of missing men and
the name of their son or husband or somebody’s else is not on it, and
desire to be informed why he is made an exception. They suppose me
a part of the Government and it is my duty to do these things, or
that I am carrying on the “business” as a means of revenue and ask
my price, as if I hunted men at so much per head. But all suppose me
either well paid or abundantly able to dispense with it; and these are
only a few of the vague ideas which present themselves in my daily
mail. A fair history of what I have done and desire to do, and a plain
description of the practical working of my system, would convince
people that I am neither sorceress nor spiritualist and would appall
me with less of feverish hope and more of quiet, potent faith in the
final result.
Then there is all of Andersonville of which I have never written a
word. I have not even contradicted the base forgeries which were
perpetrated upon me in my absence. I need not tell you how foully I
am being dealt by in this whole matter and the crime which has grown
out of the wickedness which overshadows me. I need to tell some plain
truths in a most inexpensive manner, that the whole country shall not
be always duped and honest people sacrificed that the ambition of one
man be gratified. I do not propose controversy, but I have a truth to
speak; it belongs to the people of our country and I desire to offer
it to them.
And lastly, if a suitable work were completed and found salable and
any share of proceeds fell to me, I need it in the prosecution of the
work before me.
Next--What of? The above explanation must have partially answered that
I would give the eight months’ history of my present work, and I think
I might be permitted by the writers to insert occasionally a letter
sent me by some noble wife or mother, and there are no better or more
touching letters written.
I would show how the expedition to Andersonville grew out of this
very work; how inseparably connected the two were; and how Dorence
Atwater’s roll led directly to the whole work of identifying the
graves of the thirteen thousand sleeping in that city of the dead.
I would endeavor to insert my report of the expedition now with the
Secretary. I have some materials from which engravings could be made,
I think, of the most interesting features of Andersonville, and my
experiences with the colored people while there I believe to have
been of _exceeding_ interest. I would like to relate this. You
recollect I have told you that they came from twenty miles around to
see me to know if Abraham Lincoln was dead and if they were free.
This, if well told, is a little book of itself. And if still I lack
material I might go back a little and perhaps a few incidents might
be gleaned from my last few years’ life which would not be entirely
without interest. I think I could glean enough from this ground to eke
out my work, which I would dedicate to the survivors of Andersonville
and the friends of the missing men of the United States Army. I don’t
know what title I would give it.
Now, first, I want your yes or no. If the former, I want your advice
still further. Who can help me do all this? I have sounded among my
friends, and all are occupied; numbers can write well, but have no
knowledge of _book_-making which I suppose to be a trade in
itself and one of which I am entirely ignorant. I never attempted any
such thing myself and have no conceit of my own ability as a writer.
I _don’t think_ I can write, but I would try to do something at
it; might do more if there were time, but this requires to be done
at once. I want a truthful, easy, and I suppose touching rather than
logical book, which it appears to me would sell among the class of
persons to whom I should dedicate it, and their name is legion. Now,
it is no wonder that I have found no one ready to take hold and help
me carry this on when it is remembered that I have not ten thousand
dollars to offer them in advance, but must ask that my helper wait
and share his remuneration out of the profits. If he _knew me_,
he would know that I would not be illiberal, especially as pecuniary
profit is but a secondary consideration. It is of greater importance
to me that I bring before the country and establish the facts that I
desire than that I make a few thousand dollars out of it, but I would
like to do both if I could, but the first if not the last. But I want
to stand as the author and it must be my book, and it should be in
very truth if I had the time to write it. I want no person to reap
a laurel off it (dear knows I have had enough of that of late), but
the man or woman who could and would take hold and work side by side
with me in this matter, making it a heart interest, and having my
interest at heart, be unselfish and noble with me as I think I would
be with them, should reap pecuniary profit if there were any to reap.
An experienced book-maker or publisher would understand if such a work
would sell--it seems to me that it would.
Now, can you point me to any person who could either help me do this
or be so kind as to inform me that I must not attempt it?
It will be noted that in this letter she indicates her present lack of
means to publish such a book as she had in mind. She had not always
lacked means for such an object. While her salary as a teacher had
never been large, she had always saved money out of it. The habit
of New England thrift was strong upon her, and her investments were
carefully made so that her little fund continually augmented. Her
salary in the Patent Office was fourteen hundred dollars, and for a
time sixteen hundred dollars, and though she paid a part of it to
her substitute during the latter portion of the war, she was able to
keep up the rental of her lodging and meet her very modest personal
expenses without drawing upon her savings. The death of her father
brought to her a share in his estate, and this was invested in Oxford,
conservatively and profitably. When she began her search for missing
soldiers, therefore, she had quite a little money of her own. She began
that work of volunteer service, expecting it to be supported as her
work in the field had been supported, by the free gifts of those who
believed in the work. When a soldier or a soldier’s mother or widow
sent her a dollar, she invariably returned it.
As the work proceeded, she was led to believe that Congress would make
an appropriation to reimburse her for her past expenditures, and add a
sufficient appropriation for the continuance of the work. She had two
influential friends at court, Senator Henry Wilson, her intimate and
trusted friend, Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs of the
Senate, and General Benjamin F. Butler, with whose army she had last
served in the field.
She knew very well how laws were passed and official endorsements
secured. She frequently interceded with her friends in high places
on behalf of people or causes in whom she believed. She, in common
with Miss Dix, had altercations with army surgeons, yet her diary
shows her working hard to secure for them additional recognition and
remuneration. On Sunday, January 29, 1865, she attempted to attend
the third anniversary of the Christian Commission, but the House of
Representatives was packed; thousands, she says, were turned away. That
afternoon or evening Senator Wilson called on her and she talked with
him concerning army surgeons: “I spoke at length with Mr. Wilson on the
subject of army surgeons. I think their rank will be raised. I believe
I will see Dr. Crane in the morning and make an effort to bring Dr.
Buzzell here to help frame the bill.”
She did exactly what she believed she would do; saw Dr. Crane, got
her recommendation that Dr. Buzzell be allowed to come, and then went
to the Senate. The thing she labored for was accomplished, though it
called for considerable added effort.
About this same time she had a visit from a woman who was seeking to
obtain the passage of a special act for her own benefit. She shared
Clara Barton’s bed and board, with introduction to Senator Wilson
and other influential people, until the bill passed both houses, and
still as Miss Barton’s guest continued in almost frantic uncertainty,
awaiting the President’s signature. It happened at the very time Clara
Barton was very desirous of getting her work for missing soldiers under
way. The idea came to her in the night of February 19, 1865:
Thought much during the night, and decided to invite Mr. Brown to
accompany me to Annapolis and to offer my services to take charge of
the correspondence between the country and the Government officials
and prisoners at that point while they continued to arrive.
Mr. Brown called upon her that very day and they agreed to go to
Annapolis the next day, which they did. She nursed her brother Stephen,
accomplished a large day’s work, did her personal washing at nine
o’clock at night, and the next day went to Annapolis. There she met
Dorothea Dix; found a captain who deserved promotion, and resolved
to get it for him; assisted in welcoming four boatloads of returned
prisoners, and defined more clearly in her own mind the kind of work
that needed to be done.
The next Sunday Senator Wilson called on her again, and she told him
she had offered her services for this work, and wanted the President’s
endorsement in order that she might not be interfered with. Senator
Wilson offered to go with her to see President Lincoln, and they went
next day, but did not succeed in seeing him. She went again next day,
this time without Senator Wilson, for he was busy working on the bill
for the lady who was her guest, so she sought to obtain her interview
with President Lincoln through the Honorable E. B. Washburne, of
Illinois. Mr. Washburne agreed to meet her at the White House, and did
so, but the President was in a conference preceding a Cabinet meeting,
and the Cabinet meeting, which was to begin at noon, was likely to last
the rest of the day, so Mr. Washburne took her paper and said he would
see the President and obtain his endorsement. She saw Senator Wilson
that afternoon, and reported that her papers were still unendorsed,
and General Hitchcock was advising her to go on without any formal
authority. She was not disposed to do it, for she felt sure that she
would no sooner get established than Secretary Stanton would interfere.
The difficulty was to get at the President in those crowded days just
before his second inaugural, when events both in Washington and in the
field were crowding tremendously.
[Illustration: [_Facsimile_]
Washington
Feb. 28th, 1865.
To President Lincoln
Dear Sir,
Miss Barton calls on you for a humane object and I hope you will grant
her request. It will cost nothing. She has given three years to the
cause of our soldiers and is worthy of entire confidence.
Ever Yours
H. Wilson
SENATOR HENRY WILSON’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN]
Senator Wilson was still interested in what she wanted to do, but was
preoccupied. “He had labored all night on Miss B.’s bill.” In fact
Clara Barton read the probable fate of her own endeavor. Senator Wilson
had given himself with such ardor to the cause of her guest that he
had no time to help her. She had borrowed a set of furs to wear when
she went to the President. She took them back that afternoon and wrote
in her diary: “Very tired; could not reconcile my poor success; I find
that some hand above mine rules and restrains my progress; I cannot
understand, but try to be patient, but still it is hard. I was never
more tempted to break down with disappointment.”
On Thursday, March 2, two days before the inauguration, she went again
to see the President. Just as she reached the White House in the rain,
she saw Secretary Stanton go in. She waited until 5.15, and Stanton did
not come out. She returned home “still more and more discouraged.” Her
guest, also, had been out in the rain, but was overjoyed. Her bill had
passed the Senate without opposition, and would go to the House next
day, if not that very night. Miss Barton wrote in her diary: “I do not
tell her how much I am inconvenienced by her using all my power. I have
no helper left, and I am discouraged. I could not restrain the tears,
and gave up to it.”
It is hardly to be wondered that she almost repented of her generosity
in loaning Senator Wilson to her friend when she herself had so much
need of him. Nor need she be blamed for lying awake and crying while
her guest slept happily on the pillow beside her. She did not often cry.
Just at this time she was doubly anxious, for Stephen, her brother, was
nearing his end, and Irving Vassall, her nephew, was having hemorrhages
and not long for this world, and her day’s journal shows a multiplicity
of cares crowding each day.
Stephen died Friday, March 10. She was with him when he died and
mourned for her “dear, noble brother.” She believed he had gone to
meet the loved ones on the other side, and she wondered whether her
mother was not the first to welcome him. His body was embalmed, and a
service was held in Washington, and another in Oxford. Between the time
of Stephen’s death and her departure with his body, she received her
papers with the President’s endorsement. General Hitchcock presented
them to her. She wrote:
We had a most delightful interview. He aided me in drawing up a
proper article to be published; said it would be hard, but I should
be sustained through such a work, he felt, and that no person in the
United States would oppose me in my work; he would stand between me
and all harm. The President was there, too. I told him I could not
commence just yet, and why, and he said, “Go bury your dead, and then
care for others.” How kind he was!
President Johnson later endorsed the work and authorized the printing
of whatever matter she required at the Government Printing Office.
Her postage was largely provided by the franking privilege. Her work
was a great success and the time came in the following October, when
it seemed certain her department was to have official status with the
payment of all its necessary expenses by the Government. On Wednesday,
October 4, she wrote:
Of all my days, this, I suspect, has been my greatest, and I hope my
best. About six P.M. General Butler came quickly into my room
to tell me that my business had been presented to both the President
and Secretary of War, and fully approved by both; that it was to be
made a part of the Adjutant-General’s department with its own clerks
and expenses, and that I was to be at the head of it, exclusively
myself; that he made that a _sine qua non_, on the ground that it
was proper for parents to bring up their own children; that he wished
me to make out my own programme of what would be required; and on his
return he would overlook it and I could enter at once upon my labor.
Who ever heard of anything like this--who but General Butler? He left
at 7.30 for home. I don’t know how to comport me.
On that same night she had a very different call, and the only one
which the author has found referred to in all her diaries where any
man approached her with an improper suggestion. Mingling as she did
with men on the battle-field, living alone in a room that was open
to constant calls from both men and women, she seems to have passed
through the years with very little reason to think ill of the attitude
of men toward a self-respecting and unprotected woman. That evening she
had an unwelcome call, but she promptly turned her visitor out, went
straight to two friends and told them what had been said to her, and
wrote it down in her diary as a wholly exceptional incident, and with
this brief comment, “Oh, what a wicked man!”
The plan to make her department an independent bureau seemed humanly
certain to succeed. When, a few days later, General Butler left
Washington without calling to see her, she was surprised, but thought
it explained, a few days later, when the Boston “Journal” published
an editorial saying that General Butler was to be given a seat in the
Cabinet and to make his home in Washington.
But General Butler’s plans failed. He fell into disfavor, and all that
he had recommended and was still pending became anathema to the War
Department. The bureau was not created, and Clara Barton’s official
appointment did not come.
During all this time she had been supporting her work of correspondence
out of her own pocket. The time came when she invested in it the very
last dollar of her quick assets. Her old friend Colonel De Witt,
through whom she had obtained her first Government appointment, had
invested her Oxford money. At her request he sent her the last of
it, a check for $228. She wrote in her diary: “This is the last of
my invested money, but it is not the first time in my life that I
have gone to the bottom of my bag. I guess I shall die a pauper, but
I haven’t been either stingy or lazy, and if I starve I shall not be
alone; others have. Went to Mechanics’ Bank and got my check cashed.”
She certainly had not been lazy, and she never was stingy with any one
but herself. Keeping her own expenses at the minimum and living so
frugally that she was sometimes thought parsimonious, she saw her last
dollar of invested money disappear, and recorded a grim little joke
about her poverty and the possibility of starvation. But she shed no
tears. In the few times when she broke down and wept, the occasion was
not her own privation or personal disappointment, but the failure of
some plan through which she sought to be of service to others.
This is a rather long retrospect, but it explains why Clara Barton,
when she wanted to publish a book, contemplated the cost of it as an
item beyond her personal means. She could have published the book at
her own expense had it not been for the money she had spent for others.
Congress did not permit her to lose the money which she had expended.
In all her diary and correspondence no expression of fear has been
found as to her own remuneration. She thought it altogether likely she
could get her money back, but there is no hint that she would have
mourned, much less regretted what she had done, if she had never seen
her money again.
Sad days came for Clara Barton when she found that General Butler was
worse than powerless to aid her work. Heartily desirous of assisting
her as he was, his name was enough to kill any measure which he
sponsored. When Senator Wilson came to see her, just before Christmas,
and told her that the plan was hopeless, she was already prepared for
it. He suspected that she was nearly out of money, and tried to make
her a Christmas gift of twenty dollars, but she declined. She wakened,
on these mornings, “with the deepest feeling of depression and despair
that I remember to have known.” But this feeling gave place to another.
Waking in the night and thinking clearly, she was able to outline the
programme of the next day’s task so distinctly and unerringly that she
began to wonder whether the spirit of her noble brother Stephen was not
guiding her. She did not think she was a Spiritualist, but it seemed to
her that some influence which he was bringing to her from her mother
helped to shape her days aright. It was such a night’s meditation that
made plain to her that Dorence Atwater, released but not pardoned, must
get his list published immediately, and that he must do it without a
cent of compensation so that no one should ever be able to say that he
had stolen the list in order to profit by it. She found that she did
not need many hours’ sleep. If she could rest with an untroubled mind,
she could waken and think clearly.
Gradually, her plan to publish a book changed. Instead she would write
a lecture. She went to hear different women speakers, and was gratified
whenever she found a woman who could speak in public effectively. A
woman preacher came to Washington, and she listened to her. Even in the
pulpit a woman could speak acceptably. When she traveled on the train,
she was surprised and gratified to find how many people knew her, and
she came to believe that the lecture platform offered her a better
opportunity than the book.
There was one other consideration,--a book would cost money for its
publication and the getting of it back was a matter of uncertainty. But
the lecture platform promised to be immediately remunerative.
She conferred with John B. Gough. She read to him a lecture which
she prepared. Said he, “I never heard anything more touching, more
thrilling, in my life.” He encouraged her to proceed.
Thus encouraged, Clara Barton laid out her itinerary, and prepared for
three hundred nights upon the platform. Her rates were one hundred
dollars per night, excepting where she spoke under the auspices of the
Grand Army Post, when her charge was seventy-five.
She took Dorence Atwater with her to look after her baggage and see
to her comfort, and exhibit a box of relics which he had brought from
Andersonville. She paid his expenses and a salary besides. Sometimes
she thought he earned it, and sometimes she doubted it, for he was
still a boy and exhibited a boy’s limitations. But she cherished a very
sincere affection for him and to the end of her life counted him as one
of her own kin.
During this period she had abundant time to write in her diary;
for, while there were long journeys, the ordinary distance from one
engagement to another was not great. She lectured in the East in
various New England cities, in Cooper Institute in New York, and in
cities and moderate-sized towns through Indiana, Ohio, Illinois,
Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. She had time to record and did record all
the little incidents of her journey, together with the exact sum she
received for each lecture, with every dime which she expended for
travel, hotel accommodation, and incidental expenses. It was a hard
but varied and remunerative tour. It netted her some twelve thousand
dollars after deducting all expenses.
A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers;
There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears;
But a comrade stood beside him, as the life-blood ebbed away,
And bent with pitying glances to hear what he might say;
The dying soldier faltered,--as he took that comrade’s hand,--
And said, “I never more shall see my own--my native land.
Take a message and a token to some distant friend of mine,
For I was born at Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine.”
With this quotation from the familiar but effective poem of Mrs.
Norton, Clara Barton opened her first public lecture, which she
delivered at Poughkeepsie, on Thursday evening, October 25, 1866. The
lecture was an hour and a quarter in length as she read it aloud in
her room, but required about an hour and a half as she delivered it
before a public audience. It was, as she recorded in her diary, “my
first lecture,” and “the beginning of remunerative labor” after a long
period in which she had been without salary. She knew that it was her
first lecture, but the audience did not. She returned from it to the
house of Mr. John Mathews, where she was entertained, ate an ice-cream,
went to bed and slept well. She received her first fee of one hundred
dollars. On Saturday night she spoke in Schenectady, where she received
fifty dollars, and found, what many a lecturer has learned, that it
was not profitable to cut prices. A diminished fee means less local
advertising. The audience was smaller and less appreciative. On Monday
evening she spoke in Brooklyn. Theodore Tilton presided and introduced
her. There she had an ovation. Mr. Tilton accompanied her to her hotel
after the lecture, and she told him that she was just beginning, and
asked for his criticism. He told her the lecture contained no flaw for
him to mend. She went back to Washington enthusiastic over the success
of her new venture. She had spoken three times, and two of the lectures
had been a pronounced success. Her expenses had been less than fifty
dollars, and she was two hundred dollars to the good.
She found awaiting her in Washington a large number of requests to
lecture in different places, and she arranged a New England tour. She
began with Worcester and Oxford. She did this with many misgivings,
not forgetting the lack of honor for a prophet in his own country. She
spoke in Mechanic’s Hall in Worcester, before a full house. She got
her hundred dollars, but was not happy over the lecture. In Oxford,
however, things went differently. She had a good house, and “the
pleasantest lecture I shall ever deliver. Raced home all happy and at
rest. My best visit at home.” Here she refused to receive any fee,
placing the proceeds of the lecture in the hands of the overseers of
the poor.
She lectured at Salem, at Marlborough, and then at Newark, and again
returned to Washington convinced that her plan was a success.
Her next tour took her to Geneva and Lockport, New York, Cleveland and
Toledo, Ohio, Ypsilanti and Detroit, Michigan, and on the return trip
to Ashtabula, Ohio, Rochester and Dansville, New York. Her fee was a
hundred dollars in every place excepting Dansville, but her lecture at
this last place proved to be of importance. There she learned about
the water cure, which later was to have an important influence upon
her life. All these lectures on her third trip left a pleasant memory,
except the one at Ashtabula, which for some reason did not go well.
She now arranged for a much longer trip. She bought her ticket for
Chicago, stopping to lecture at Laporte, Indiana. She reshaped her
lecture somewhat for this trip, telling how her father had fought
near that town under “Mad” Anthony Wayne. She lectured in Milwaukee,
Evanston, Kalamazoo, Detroit, Flint, Galesburg, Des Moines, Rock
Island, Muscatine, Washington, Iowa, Dixon, Illinois, Decatur, and
Jacksonville. On her way north from Jacksonville, she was in a train
wreck in which several people were injured. She also had an experience
in an attempt to rob her, and she resolved never to travel by sleeper
again when she had to go alone. She was very nearly as good as her
word. Very rarely did she make use of a sleeping-car; she traveled by
day when she could, and, when unable to do so, sat up in a corner of
the seat and rested as best she could.
She lectured at Mount Vernon, Aurora, Belvidere, Rockford, and other
Illinois cities, and at Clinton, Iowa.
In most of these cities she was entertained in the homes of
distinguished people, Dorence Atwater sometimes staying at the hotel.
In Chicago she had good visits with John B. Gough and Theodore Tilton,
both of whom were on the lecture platform, and she herself lectured in
the Chicago Opera House.
Other lectures followed in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York,
and so on back to Washington. Then she took another tour through New
England. She lectured in New Haven and found the people unresponsive,
but she had a good time at Terryville, Connecticut. There Dorence
Atwater was at home. It was characteristic of Clara Barton that at this
lecture she insisted that Dorence should preside; not only so, but she
called it his lecture and gave him the entire proceeds of that and the
lecture at New Haven. It was a proud night for this young man, released
from his two imprisonments, and she records that he presided well. She
lectured again in Worcester and with better results than before, then
extended her tour all over New England.
After this she made other long tours through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
and States farther west. Now and then she records a disappointing
experience, but in the main the results were favorable. She had no
difficulty in making a return engagement; everywhere she was hailed
as the Florence Nightingale of America. The press comments were
enthusiastic; her bank account grew larger than it had ever been.
Clara Barton was now forty-seven years old. For eight years, beginning
with the outbreak of the Civil War, she had lived in rooms on the
third floor of a business block. The two flights of stairs and the
unpretentiousness of the surroundings had not kept her friends away.
Her daily list of callers was a long one, and her evenings brought her
so many friends that she spoke humorously of her “levees.” But she had
begun to long for a home of her own, which she now was well able to
afford. Since the appropriation of Congress of fifteen thousand dollars
and her earnings from her lectures, all of which she had carefully
invested, she possessed not less than thirty thousand dollars in good
interest-bearing securities. She had brought from Andersonville a
colored woman, Rosa, who now presided over her domestic affairs. She
spent a rather cheerless Christmas on her forty-seventh birthday in her
old room on 7th Street, and determined not to delay longer. She bought
a house. On the outside it looked old and shabby, but inside it was
comfortable. On Tuesday, December 29, 1868, she packed her belongings.
Next day she records:
December 30, 1868, Wednesday. Moved. Mr. Budd came early with five
men. Mr. Vassall, Sally, and myself all worked, and in the midst of
a fearful snowstorm and a good deal of confusion, I broke away from
my old rooking of eight years and launched out into the world all by
myself. Took my first supper in my own whole house at the corner of
Pennsylvania Avenue and Capitol Hill.
She had engaged her movers at a stipulated price of six dollars, but
she was so happy with the result that she paid them ten dollars, which
for a woman of Clara Barton’s careful habits indicated a very large
degree of satisfaction.
The next day, assisted by her colored woman Rosa and her negro man
Uncle Jarret, and with some help from two kindly neighbors, she set
things to rights. It was a stormy day and she was tired, but happy to
be in her home. She wrote in her diary: “This is the last day of the
year, and I sometimes think it may be my last year. I am not strong,
but God is good and kind.”
It is pathetic that the joy of her occupancy of her new home should
have been clouded by any forebodings of this character. Her premonition
that it might be her last year came very near to being true. Heavy
had been the strain upon her from the day when the war began, and the
events of the succeeding years had all drawn upon her vitality. What
occurred at the height of her success in Bordentown came again to her
at the height of her career upon the lecture platform. She rode one
night to address a crowded house, and she stood before them speechless.
Her voice utterly failed. Her physicians pronounced it nervous
prostration, prescribed three years of complete rest, and ordered her
to go to Europe.
END OF VOLUME I
Transcriber’s Notes
In a couple of places, obvious errors in punctuation have been
corrected and inconsistent hyphenization was standardized.
Illustrations have been relocated to more appropriate places in the
text and the list of illustrations has been updated accordingly.
Page 38: “but this brief vacational” changed to “but this brief
vocational”
Page 49: “were conscious charletans” changed to “were conscious
charlatans”
Page 57: “according to predecent” changed to “according to precedent”
Page 125: “our authority must be spected” changed to “our authority
must be respected”
Page 167: “Clara Barton had two large” changed to “Clara Barton had
too large”
Page 243: “in addiion to his own disability” changed to “in addition to
his own disability”