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Clara Barton first became well known during the Civil War. She started a one-woman campaign to improve conditions for the injured.
She cooked meals for wounded soldiers. She comforted the dying. She even dug bullets out of wounded soldiers with her penknife when no doctor was available. Her tireless service earned her the nickname Angel of the Battlefield.
◀ In April 1861, Barton was living in Washington, D.C. That’s when she heard that troops from her home state had been attacked during riots in Maryland. When the troops arrived in Washington, she found out that their baggage had been lost or stolen. So she began to collect goods to replace the missing items.
Barton saw the need to improve the way supplies were delivered. She also wanted wounded soldiers to be better cared for. So she decided to go to the war front. There, she wrote letters to army officials requesting permission to travel. While she waited for a reply, she set up central collection places. Supplies could be dropped off and organized for distribution at these places. ▶
The first major battle of the war, Bull Run, unexpectedly sent Union soldiers fleeing back to Washington. The city was not prepared for the wounded. Barton began at once to collect supplies for the injured. Soon she had filled three rented warehouses with the items. These included bandages, soap, bedding, gloves, socks, and more. ▶
◀ Barton’s request to go to the battlefield was a shocking idea in the 1860s. Respectable women rarely went anywhere without an escort. In addition, at that time nursing was a little-respected, dangerous, poorly paid job. Most nurses were either men or poor or immigrant women.
▲ It took Barton three months to get her first pass from the War Department to transport her supplies to the battlefield. She received it in August 1862.
At Antietam, one of the bloodiest battles of the war, Barton traveled with the Union troops. Like them, she went without food and rest. And like them, she slept outside on the ground. When shells started exploding nearby, she held the operating table steady for a surgeon. The surgeon later called her “the angel of the battlefield.” ▼
If I can’t be a soldier, I’ll help soldiers.— Clara Barton
A soldier might have his arm or leg removed with nothing to numb the pain but a shot of whiskey. Soldiers were sometimes given a bullet to bite to keep them from screaming. ▶
◀ Sometimes a drink of water was the only help a wounded soldier received. Many more soldiers died of disease, infection, and untreated wounds than directly from enemy bullets. Such diseases as measles, smallpox, and typhoid fever spread sickness to hundreds at a time.
At the time of the Civil War, doctors knew little about disease-causing bacteria. Some doctors washed their hands and operating instruments in dirty water from nearby streams. Most wounds became infected. No effective treatment existed for curing infections. ▶
◀ Before the Civil War, neither the government nor private groups gave organized aid to soldiers on the battlefields. Most groups that cared for the sick and wounded worked far away from the fighting. No nursing schools existed to teach nurses their job. They simply learned as they worked.
▲ Clara Barton wrote this about a battlefield hospital she saw outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia: “Twelve hundred men were crowded into the Lacy House, which contained [only] twelve rooms. They covered every foot of the floors and stair landings. A man who found a way to lie between the legs of a table thought himself lucky. He was not likely to be stepped on.” When the Civil War began, just 16 army hospitals existed. All of them were in the North.
Think Piece!
What words would you use to describe
Clara Barton’s character?
Share ideas with a classmate.
