XXXI
Clara Barton dared the bullets on the battlefield with the abandon of a dashing cavalry leader. Pawtucket (R. I.)Times.
In Clara Barton, the world has lost a guardian angel.
Pueblo Chieftain.
Pueblo Chieftain.
Pueblo Chieftain.
Pueblo Chieftain.
Death grinned a horrible ghastly smile.John Milton.
Says Clara Barton, in one of the battles of the Civil War, “A little sibley tent had been hastily pitched for me in a slight hollow upon a hillside. How many times I fell from sheer exhaustion in the darkness and mud of that slippery hillside I have no knowledge; but at last I grasped the welcome canvas, and a well established brook which washed in on the upper side, at the opening which served as the door, met me on my entrance to the tent.”
Percy H. Epler.
Percy H. Epler.
Percy H. Epler.
Percy H. Epler.
Clara Barton slept on the ground, wrapped in a blanket like a soldier, but her zeal was in no way diminished by hardship.
St. Paul (Minn.)Pioneer Press.
St. Paul (Minn.)Pioneer Press.
St. Paul (Minn.)Pioneer Press.
St. Paul (Minn.)Pioneer Press.
Clara Barton gave a lifetime of glorious service to humanity—a ministering angel like a benediction of her God amid the desolate, the stricken, the hungry and despairing.Los Angeles Examiner.
Sickness, confusion and death—these are inseparable from every conflict.Clara Barton.
I can never see a poor mutilated wreck, blown to pieces with powder and lead, without wondering if visions of such an end ever floated before his mother’s mind when she washed and dressed her fair-skinned boy.Clara Barton.
When giant misery stalks to the very threshold, and raps with bloody hands on one’s door, it is almost a libel upon the good Christian term to call it charity that answers.Clara Barton.
Women should certainly have some voice in the matter of war, either affirmative or negative, and the fact that she has not this should not be made the ground to deprive her of other privileges.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
“They say”:
Imagine their skirts ’mong artillery wheels,And watch for their flutter as they flee ’cross the fields,When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;—They never will wait for the answering shot.They would faint at the first drop of blood in sight—Clara Barton.
Imagine their skirts ’mong artillery wheels,And watch for their flutter as they flee ’cross the fields,When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;—They never will wait for the answering shot.They would faint at the first drop of blood in sight—Clara Barton.
Imagine their skirts ’mong artillery wheels,And watch for their flutter as they flee ’cross the fields,When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;—They never will wait for the answering shot.They would faint at the first drop of blood in sight—Clara Barton.
Imagine their skirts ’mong artillery wheels,
And watch for their flutter as they flee ’cross the fields,
When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;—
They never will wait for the answering shot.
They would faint at the first drop of blood in sight—
Clara Barton.
One day Miss Barton was asked to tell what was the most terrible experience she had ever gone through on a field of disaster or war, and she replied: “It was at the battle of Antietam. The poor boys were falling so fast that I rushed up into the line of fire to save them from bleeding to death by temporarily binding up their wounds. Bullets went through my clothing, but I did not think of danger. I loaded myself with canteens and went to a nearby spring and filled them with water, until I staggered under the load. The wounded were crying for water and I went to one poor boy who was wild with thirst and, stooping, I lifted his head onmy arm and knee and was giving him water from the canteen when a cannon ball took his head off, covering me with blood and brains. I dropped the headless body and went to the next wounded soldier, and so all day I worked through this awful battle and refused to retire, though officers and men tried to drive me back.”
In the Civil War there was widespread opposition to the presence of women on the battlefield—both on the part of civilians and the military officers. Lincoln was not the exception. He protested that a woman on the battlefield would be a “fifth wheel to a wagon.” After the close of the war Clara Barton penned the following, a part of the poem entitled “The Women who went to the Field”:
Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,At Pittsburgh and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,And her calm stately presence gave strength to the men.
Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,At Pittsburgh and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,And her calm stately presence gave strength to the men.
Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,At Pittsburgh and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,And her calm stately presence gave strength to the men.
Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,
At Pittsburgh and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?
And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,
And her calm stately presence gave strength to the men.