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Clara Barton has to her credit 72 achievements, every one of which entitles her to a page in history.

W. H. Sears, Secretary to Miss Barton.

Clara Barton,—this woman’s immortal work.

Boston Transcript.

Not all the noblest songs are worth one noble deed.

Alfred Austin.

Clara Barton,—her work and her achievements,—wonders wrought by that noble woman of New England.

Oakland (Cal.)Tribune.

Clara Barton,—no other whose achievements even approximate hers; her allegiance ran the whole race of mankind.

Sacramento (Cal.)Union.

Clara Barton,—measured by any scale you may choose, was the most useful woman of her day and generation.

Bangor (Me.)News.

By our deeds, and by our deeds alone—God judges us—if righteous God there be,Creeds are as thistle-down, wind-tossed and blown,But deeds abide throughout eternity.George Barlow.

By our deeds, and by our deeds alone—

God judges us—if righteous God there be,

Creeds are as thistle-down, wind-tossed and blown,

But deeds abide throughout eternity.George Barlow.

All who work beneath its glorious folds (Red Cross) are coworkers not only with the noblest spirits of all ages and all countriesbut, even reverently be it spoken, co-workers with the Divine beneficence whose blessed task we know will one day wipe every tear from every eye.Clara Barton.

Clara Barton was the recipient of twenty-seven decorations, medals of honor, diplomas of honor, badges, jewels, flags, resolutions, votes of thanks, and commendations from rulers of nations, legislative bodies, Red Cross decorations, relief committees, and distinguished, or titled, personages,—as testimonials of her great work for humanity.The Author.

Some day the full and complete history of Clara Barton and her unparalleled achievements will be given to the world, and no library on the face of the earth will be complete without a set of the volumes of that history.

W. H. Sears,J. B. Hubbell,Ex-Secretaries to Clara Barton.

W. H. Sears,

J. B. Hubbell,

Ex-Secretaries to Clara Barton.

(Especially prepared for this volume by her ex-secretary, W. H. Sears)

1. Organized, conducted and popularized Free School System, Bordentown, N. J., at her own expense. Commenced her school with six pupils, all boys, and in one year had six hundred; secured five teachers to assist and had promises of a new building, if she would continue. It was built for her and is still in use. “Pauper Schools,” that is, Public Schools at public expense, were ridiculed by the people. The six boys were renegades from private schools. Third week,room filled and assistant required. Such was the success that the private schools were discontinued and a four thousand dollar school house, three stories of brick, was built and Miss Barton inaugurated theFree Public School of Bordentown, N. J.With six hundred pupils and eight teachers, impetus was given to the cause of free education over the State, 1852–4.

2. First Woman Clerk in Government Office, Washington, D. C. A place of trust at $1,400 per year, in charge of caveats, Patent Office, which position she gave up at the opening of the Civil War to work in the field. 1854–’61, under Mr. Charles Mason, Commissioner of Patents. Discharged when Buchanan came in; but recalled under Lincoln; resigned when war came on.

3. Met and furnished relief at “Old Infirmary,” where Judiciary Square Hospital now stands; first day and next day at Capitol, in Senate Chamber (Senate not in session) to wounded soldiers of the 6th Mass. Volunteers in Washington, on arrival from the Baltimore attack by mob, April 19, 1861.First Civil War Field.

4. Met and furnished relief to sick and wounded soldiers, brought from the front on trains and boats to Washington, D. C., May 1, 1861 to July, 1862.

Afterwards she was on the following fields of battle and relief:

5. James Island, battlefield, July 7, 1862.

6. Cedar Mountain, battlefield, August 9, 1862, 3,700 killed and wounded.

7. Second Bull Run, battlefield, August 30 to September1, 1862. Found seven of her old pupils, Massachusetts schools, in this field and each had lost an arm or leg.

8. Chantilly, battlefield, August 31 to September 1, 1862.

9. Point of Rocks, Md., battlefield, September 4, 1862.

10. Point of Rocks, Md., battlefield, September, 1862.

11. Antietam, battlefield, September 16 and 17, 1862.

12. Falmouth battlefield, December 11 and 12, 1862.

13. Fredericksburg, battlefield, December 12 and 13, 1862. 18,000 killed and wounded.

14. Folly Island, battlefield, April 10, 1863.

15. Morris Island, battlefield, July 10 to September 7, 1863.

16. Fort Wagner, battlefield, September 7, 1863.

17. Charleston, S. C., battlefield, September 8, 1863.

18. The Wilderness, battlefield, May 6–7, 1864.

19. Spotsylvania, battlefield, May 8 to 21, 1864.

20. Petersburg, battlefield, June 15 to 18, 1864.

21. Petersburg Mine, battlefield, July 30 to August 5, 1864.

22. Deep Bottom, battlefield, August and September, 1864.

23. Richmond Campaign, battlefield, January 1 to April 3, 1865.

24. Annapolis Hospital, 1865, met starving, sick and wounded returning Federal prisoners and furnished relief.

Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles, the chairman of the ceremonies, withthe first shovel of dirt.(The Chairman of the National Advisory Board, National First Aid Associationof America)

by the American Forestry Association at Glen Echo, Md., 3 P. M., Easter Sunday, April 16, 1922. The occasion—to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the passing of Clara Barton.

Mrs. John A. Logan, with second shovel of dirt. Author of the Congressionalmeasure creating May 30th a national holiday, known as DecorationDay; and sponsored in Congress by U. S. Senator John A. Logan.

He who plants an oak looks forward to future ages, and plants for posterity.

Washington Irving.

THE CLARA BARTON OAKRegistered in the Hall of Fame for Trees, Washington, D. C.

The American FlagThe Glen Echo Service FlagThe Red Cross FlagThe Clara Barton Red Cross Home

The American Flag

The Glen Echo Service Flag

The Red Cross Flag

The Clara Barton Red Cross Home

Pin Oak (Quercus Palustris), 8½ feet high, 5½ inches in circumference at the base; 3½ inches in circumference, 4½ feet from the ground.

The Memorial Address

The tree is the longest lived of all the lives of earth. Trees are in existence whose birth antedates that of our Christian civilization. The Cedar of Lebanon of the Old World is a part of the religious sentiment of the human race. The General Sherman Sequoia of the New World had battled against the warring elements of Nature for thousands of years before existed the warring forces of the Anglo-Saxons, on this continent. If there “be tongues in trees” every historic tree might say: “What I have seen and known is identified with the human race.”

Every country has its trees, historic, sacred through association with an individual or with some great national event. Of the tree, historic, the historian writes, the poet sings, and in delineating its beauties the painter exhausts his art. He who plants an historic tree transmits history and poetry and art to posterity. The tree becomes a part of a country’s history.

England has her Parliament Oak, under whose branches King John held his parliament; her Pilgrim Oak, associated with Lord Byron, her Falstaff Tree, her Shakespeare Tree. The United States has her Penn Treaty Elm, under whose possible inspiration, for once at least, faith was kept with the North American Indian; her Charter Oak that became the guardian of the parchment that held the liberties of the Puritans; her Cambridge Elm within whose cooling shades George Washington took command of the Colonial forces in the struggle for human liberty; her Liberty Tree, whose very soil wherein it grew, said Lafayette, should be cherished forever by the American people.

At the nation’s capital there are trees historic. On Capitol Hill there is the great elm, said to have been planted by George Washington in 1794. On the grounds of the Woman’s National Foundation, near Dupont Circle, is the tree known as the Treaty Oak. Its history is of pathos, possibly in part of fiction, but whether of fact or of fiction, like the wanderings of Ulysses the tree is of never-ceasing interest. In the Botanic Gardens is the Peace Oak, said to have been planted by a Southerner who tried desperately to prevent the Civil War, and died broken-hearted over his failure. And near by this historic tree is the picturesque oak that came from an acorn picked up by the grave of Confucius, in far away Shantung.

Of all the trees of ancient and modern times the oak is the most historic. The Ancient Greeks and Romans thought that the oak was Jupiter’s own tree; the Ancient Britons, that it belonged to the God of Thunder—groves of oaks were their temples. Among the Celts the oak was an object of worship; the Yule log was invariably of oak.

We plant an oak to commemorate a career, sacred, sacred to one who loved the world—to one whom all the world loves. As in Japan a certain tree is sacred, in America every tree is sacred that is love-planted. Our act, and sentiment, is in consonance with hers whose almost last wish was that an oak sapling be planted at the shrine of her beloved horse; that it might be his monument, and with the hope that the children would love and protect it as Baba’s Tree.

“Sing low, green oak, thy summer rune,Sing valor, love, and truth.”

“Sing low, green oak, thy summer rune,

Sing valor, love, and truth.”

In no other atmosphere of her native land as here is a place so appropriate to plant this historic tree. Through this atmosphere, into yonder edifice, came the cry “Come and Help Us”;—from Cuba that cruelty, pestilence and starvation were the portions of thousands; from Galveston that still other thousands of men, women and children had become victims of disaster, on her storm-swept coast. In every instance to the cry for help was there response, and on wings of love the Angel of Mercy sped forth to minister with her own hands to suffering humanity.

It was here that she basked in the sunset rays, as they dipped gently towards the west. Yonder are the trees which she planted with her own hands; yonder the soil wherein grew her beautiful flowers; yonder humanity’s centre from which flowed her charities to almost every part of the known world; yonder the chamber from whose bed of sorrow she cried: “Let me go; let me go”; yonder the window through whose casement on Easter Morn, in 1912, her spirit flew to the Great Unknown.

Nature that springs from the soil decays and dies; deeds that spring from the soul never die. Nature’s foliage that ornaments is destroyed by the frosts of winter; the spiritual foliage that ornaments is perennial. The American Red Cross whose bud, in 1881, opened to the sunlight in the forests of Michigan is now the sheltering tree for the world’s millions; the woman that planted the seed and nourished it with her tears, as later she planted that other tree known as THE NATIONAL FIRST AID, is now the spirit that stands sponsor for certain charities, charities the most widely known of all the charities of earth.

Neither marble nor canvas is so venerated as the tree, from out of GOD’S FIRST TEMPLES—a tree to commemorate the individual is the most venerated memorial in the world. The world will little care, or note not at all, what we say and do here and yet the spirit of these environments may become the inspiration of future ages. The mound that soon must shut out from view our mortality will be leveled and covered with earth’s foliage, only to be forgotten or marked “UNKNOWN.” But let us pray that the tree, whose sentiment is world-humanity, may take highest rank among the world’s other historic trees; that through the centuries the children of successive generations will love and protect THE CLARA BARTON OAK, NATURE’S EASTER-TRIBUTE TO IMMORTALITY.

Planting the “Clara Barton Rose”—Miss Carrie Harrison, Chairman ClaraBarton Centennial Committee of the National Woman’s Party.

MEMORIAL TREE PLANTING TO THE MEMORY OF CLARA BARTON

Charles Sumner Young, while delivering the memorial address.

25. Summer of 1865 at Andersonville identifying the dead, and laying out the first National Cemetery, by request of the Government. Raised the first United States flag over Andersonville.

26. 1865–67 Searching for the 80,000 missing men of the army. Found 19,920 of them at an expense to herself without pay of $17,000. The Government reimbursed $15,000 of this sum.

27. The Lecture Field. Delivered 300 at $100 per lecture on the battlefields of the Civil War, 1867–8.

Was on the following battlefield and relief fields during this war:—

28. Hagenau, battlefield.

29. Metz, battlefield.

30. Strasburg, battlefield (8 months) siege, and relief after siege.

31. Belfort, relief.

32. Woerth, relief.

33. Baden Hospitals.

34. Sedan, battlefields.

35. Montbelard, relief.

36. Paris, Fall of the Commune; relief.

37. Organizing and managing relief for sick and wounded soldiers and sick and destitute people in France at close of war, 1871.

38. With the International Red Cross Committee in Europe, Switzerland, Germany and France. 1869–71. 1872–73, ill in London.

39. Seven years’ effort to make Red Cross known to the United States and asking for the treaty; 1875–1882. Secured adhesion of the United States to the Treaty ofGeneva, March 1, 1882, having organized the American National Red Cross Association the year before, and was nominated to first presidency by President Garfield, 1882; was the President for twenty-three years; 1881–1904.

40. Author of American Amendment authorizing Red Cross to administer relief in time of great National disasters, which was adopted by all treaty nations.

41. Organized First Aid Department within the Red Cross; but when she resigned in 1904 as President, it was discontinued by her successors, 1903.

42. Organized The National First Aid Association of America, independent of the Red Cross, similar in its scope and object to the St. John Ambulance Association of England. Five hundred and twenty-two classes have been organized with ten thousand students and five thousand four hundred graduates—January 1, 1922.

43. Conceived idea of a Rest Cure and School where people should be taught to keep well.

(The cost of distributing the funds and other contributions entrusted to Clara Barton, as President of the American Red Cross during her twenty-three years of administration, did not exceed two per cent. of the amounts contributed for the twenty fields of relief in this country and the four fields in foreign countries. Signed: Julian B. Hubbell, General Field Agent of the Red Cross during the twenty-three years of Clara Barton’s Presidency.)

64. Superintendent of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Criminal Women. One year; appointed by General Butler, then governor of Massachusetts, 1884.Represented United States Government at International Red Cross Conferences, as follows:—

65. At Geneva, Switzerland, in 1884.

66. At Carlsruhe, Germany, in 1887.

67. At Rome, Italy, in 1890.

68. At Vienna, Austria, in 1897.

69. At St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1902.

70. Author of books.

71. Author of lectures.

72. Author of poems.

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