Position at Antietam
Civilian (Age 40 at the battle)
Personal
1821 -1912 Massachusetts
Nickname: Clara, “Angel of the Battlefield”
Clarissa Harlow Barton was born on December 25, 1821, in Oxford, Massachusetts
Education
Studied at the Clinton Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. She achieved her first teacher’s certificate in 1839, at 17 years old.
Civilian career highlights
Taught in schools in Oxford, Massachusetts and Bordentown, New Jersey. In 1855, she moved to Washington, D.C., and began work as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office
Civil War
At the start of the war, she began assisting soldiers from Massachusetts in the US Capitol and provided supplies from her own household for their comfort. Tended to wounded soldiers from the Battle of First Manassas as they arrived in Washington, DC. She established a distribution agency to begin collecting and distributing supplies. Gained official permission to transport supplies to battlefields in August 1862 and heads to tend the wounded at Cedar Mountain. She is at Fairfax Station, VA and Antietam, MD, Sep. 1862; Virginia, Nov. 1862; Fredericksburg, VA, Dec. 1862; Hilton Head, SC, Apr. 1863; Ft. Wagner, South Carolina, Aug. 1863; Fredericksburg, VA, May 1864; placed in charge of diet and nursing at a X Corps hospital near Point of Rocks, VA, Jun. 1864. Established The Office of Correspondence with Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army, Mar. 1865; assisted in the locating and marking of nearly 13,000 Union graves at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, GA.
Postwar
1870 Travelled to Europe to regain her health and, for the first time, read about the International Red Cross. Assisted in providing nursing and humanitarian assistance during the Franco-Prussian War. In 1881, the American Association of the Red Cross was formed. Miss Barton was elected president. The following year, America joined the International Red Cross. From 1882 to 1904, she led disaster relief efforts for floods, fires, tornadoes, earthquakes, epidemics, and wars until she resigned as president of the American National Red Cross in 1904. Established the National First Aid Association of America.
Death
Died at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland, due to pneumonia on April 12, 1912; Age 90.
Quotes
“I ask neither pay or praise, simply a soldier’s fare and the sanction of your Excellency to go and do with my might, whatever my hands can find to do.” –Letter to Massachusetts Governor Andrew, seeking permission to go to the front, March 20, 1862
“I only wish I could work to some purpose. I have no right to these easy comfortable days and our poor men suffering and dying thirsting … My lot is too easy and I am sorry for it.” –Letter to Mary Norton, July 4, 1862
“It was a miserable night. There was a sense of impending doom. We knew, every one knew, that two great armies of 80,000 men were lying there face to face, only waiting for dawn to begin the battle.”—Writing about the night before the battle of Antietam.
“A ball has passed between my body and the right arm which supported him, cutting through his chest from shoulder to shoulder. There was no more to be done for him and I left him to his rest. I have never mended that hole in my sleeve. I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat?” Clara Barton at Antietam
“I thought that night if heaven ever sent out a homely angel, she must be the one, her assistance was so timely.” Dr. James L. Dunn of the 109th Pennsylvania Vol. Inf. writing to his wife.
“In my feeble estimation, Gen. McClellan, with all his laurels, sinks into insignificance beside the true heroine of the age, the angel of the battlefield.” Dr. James L. Dunn of the 109th Pennsylvania Vol. Inf. letter published in the Hartford Courant.