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At the end of every war, the fate of many soldiers is unknown. Their families may wait for them to come home.
But many are already dead and buried in unmarked graves. At the time of the Civil War, the U.S. War Department had no system for tracing such missing persons. Barton proposed to open an office where people could write to ask about missing soldiers. With the help of the government, she believed she could track them down. But she needed government permission to examine military records. She also needed help writing letters and checking records. Did she find a way to put her plan into action?
◀ During her work at the battlefront, Barton wrote down the names of soldiers she had seen wounded or killed. She planned to publish the names in newspapers. She also planned to publish other names she got from people who wrote to her. She hoped newspaper readers would write to her with information about the missing men.
Barton wrote many letters to government officials describing her plan. But she failed to find any supporters. That is, until Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts (right) agreed to help her. He talked directly to President Abraham Lincoln about Barton’s ideas. ▶
Barton’s work led to a remarkable discovery. One of the people who read about Barton’s work was Dorence Atwater. He was a former Union soldier who had been captured. Atwater had been held in Andersonville, a prisoner-of-war camp for Union soldiers in Georgia. Atwater’s prison job had been to write down information about each soldier who died at Andersonville. That included the soldier’s name and home state. It also included the soldier’s date and cause of death, his company, and his regiment. ▶
◀ A letter from President Lincoln helped Barton convince the War Department to give her a small office in Annapolis, Maryland. Officials gave her some money for postage. They also gave her a few paid clerks to help her write letters. She began checking names in letters from relatives of missing soldiers against official records of the dead and wounded.
▲ Atwater feared his lists might be lost or destroyed. So he made a copy, which he hid in the lining of his coat. When he left the camp in early 1865, his list had about 13,000 names of men buried at Andersonville. After reading about Barton’s newspaper work in June 1865, Atwater contacted her. Now she could compare lists to find out what had happened to many of the missing men.
▲ Barton sent her lists of missing men to newspapers. She also sent them to post offices and courthouses. Hundreds of former soldiers read these lists. Many replied to Barton with information about people on the lists.
Secretary of War Edward M. Stanton sent Barton and Dorence Atwater to the prison cemetery at Andersonville. With the information from Atwater, Barton was able to mark nearly 13,000 grave sites in the nine-acre cemetery. Today, Andersonville houses a museum about prisoners of war. ▶
▲ Clara Barton raised the flag of the United States at the dedication of Andersonville National Cemetery. The small crowd attending the ceremony sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Barton covered her face and wept.
▲ Barton’s missing persons bureau operated from 1865 to 1869. During that time, her staff tracked down more than 22,000 missing soldiers. The bureau gave out almost 100,000 printed lists and answered around 63,000 letters and requests for information.
The idea that she could earn money by talking to the public at first surprised Clara Barton. “To this day, I would rather stand behind the lines of artillery at Antietam or cross the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg, than be expected to preside at a public meeting.” ▶
◀ Her war work had made Clara Barton famous. But it had not made her rich. Some of Barton’s friends suggested she might add to her income by giving talks about her wartime experiences. Barton drew large crowds wherever she went. She kept up a demanding pace on the lecture circuit for two years. At one point, she lost her voice during a speech. Her doctor suggested that she go to Europe for a rest.
