"That"s so! That"s so!" and the cheer they gave was echoed by line after line, until the sound of the shouting was like the cheers after a great victory. Bending low with a courtly smile, the general said:
"I believe you are right, madam!" and galloped away.
"At the battles of Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, during the eight months" siege of Charleston, in the hospital at Fort Wagner, with the army in front of Petersburg and in the Wilderness and the hospitals about Richmond, there was no limit to the work Clara Barton accomplished for the sick and dying, but among all her experiences during those years of the war, the Battle of Fredericksburg was most unspeakably awful to her. And yet afterward she saw clearly that it was this defeat that gave birth to the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation.
"And the white May blossoms of "63 fell over the glad faces--the swarthy brows, the toil-worn hands of four million liberated slaves.
"America," writes Miss Barton, "had freed a race.""
As the war drew to an end, President Lincoln received hundreds of letters from anxious parents asking for news of their boys. There were eighty thousand missing men whose families had no knowledge whether they were alive or dead. In despair, and believing that Clara Barton had more information of the soldiers than any one else to whom he could turn, the President requested her to take up the task, and the army nurse"s tender heart was touched by the thought of helping so many mothers who had no news of their boys, and she went to work, aided by the hospital and burial lists she had compiled when on the field of action.
For four years she did this work, and it was a touching scene when she was called before the Committee on Investigation to tell of its results. With quiet simplicity she stood before the row of men and reported, "Over thirty thousand men, living and dead, already traced.
No available funds for the necessary investigation; in consequence, over eight thousand dollars of my own income spent in the search."
As the men confronting her heard the words of the bright-eyed woman who was looked on as a sister by the soldiers from Maine to Virginia, whose name was a household one throughout the land, not one of them was ashamed to wipe the tears from his eyes! Later the government paid her back in part the money she had spent in her work; but she gave her time without charge as well as many a dollar which was never returned, counting it enough reward to read the joyful letters from happy, reunited families.
While doing this work she gave over three hundred lectures through the East and West, and as a speaker she held her audiences as if by magic, for she spoke glowingly about the work nearest to her heart, giving the proceeds of her lectures to the continuance of that work. One evening in the winter of 1868, when speaking in one of the finest opera-houses in the East, before one of the most brilliant a.s.semblages she had ever faced, her voice suddenly gave out, as it had in the days when she was teaching. The heroic army nurse and worker for the soldiers was worn out in body and nerves. As soon as she was able to travel the doctor commanded that she take three years of absolute rest. Obeying the order, she sailed for Europe, and in peaceful Switzerland with its natural beauty hoped to regain normal strength; for her own country had emerged from the black shadow of war, and she felt that her life work had been accomplished, that rest could henceforth be her portion.
But Clara Barton was still on the threshold of her complete achievement. When she had been in Switzerland only a month, and her broken-down nerves were just beginning to respond to the change of air and scene, she received a call which changed the color of her future.
Her caller represented the International Committee of the Red Cross Society. Miss Barton did not know what the Red Cross was, and said so.
He then explained the nature of the society, which was founded for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers, and he told his eager listener what she did not know, that back of the Society was the Geneva Treaty, which had been providing for such relief work, signed by all the civilized nations except her own. From that moment a new ambition was born in Clara Barton"s heart--to find out why America had not signed the treaty, and to know more about the Red Cross Society.
Nearly a year later, while still resting in quiet Switzerland, there broke one day upon the clear air of her Swiss home the distant sounds of a royal party hastening back from a tour of the Alps. To Miss Barton"s amazement it came in the direction of her villa. Finally flashed the scarlet and gold of the liveries of the Grand Duke of Baden. After the outriders came the splendid coach of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, daughter of King Wilhelm of Prussia, so soon to be Emperor William of Germany. In it rode the Grand d.u.c.h.ess. After presenting her card through the footman, she herself alighted and clasped Miss Barton"s hand, hailing her in the name of humanity, and said she already knew her through what she had done in the Civil War. Then, still clasping her hand in a tight grip of comradeship, she begged Miss Barton to leave Switzerland and aid in Red Cross work on the battle-fields of the Franco-Prussian War, which was in its beginnings.
It was a real temptation to once again work for suffering humanity, yet she put it aside as unwise. But a year later, when the officers of the International Red Cross Society came again to beg that Miss Barton take the lead in a great systematic plan of relief work such as that for which she had become famous during the Civil War, she accepted. In the face of such consequences as her health might suffer from her decision, she rose, and, with head held high and flashing eyes, said:
"Command me!"
Clara Barton was no longer to be the Angel of the American battle-fields only--from that moment she belonged to the world, and never again could she be claimed by any one country. But it is as the guardian angel of our soldiers in the United States that her story concerns us, although there is reason for great pride in the part she played in nursing the wounded at Stra.s.sburg, and later when her presence carried comfort and healing to the victims of the fight with the Commune in Paris.
As tangible results of her work abroad, she was given an amethyst cut in the shape of a pansy, by the Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Baden, also the Serbian decoration of the Red Cross as the gift of Queen Natalie, and the Gold Cross of Remembrance, which was presented her by the Grand Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Baden together. Queen Victoria, with her own hand, pinned an English decoration on her dress. The Iron Cross of Germany, as well as the Order of Melusine given her by the Prince of Jerusalem, were among an array of medals and pendants--enough to have made her a much-bejeweled person, had it been her way to make a show of her own rewards.
Truly Clara Barton belonged to the world, and a suffering person had no race or creed to her--she loved and cared for all.
When at last she returned to America, it was with the determination to have America sign the Geneva Treaty and to bring her own country into line with the Red Cross movement, which she had carefully watched in foreign countries, and which she saw was the solution to efficient aid of wounded men, either in the battle-field or wherever there had been any kind of disaster and there was need of quick aid for suffering. It was no easy task to convince American officials, but at last she achieved her end. On the 1st of March, 1882, the Geneva Treaty was signed by President Arthur, ratified by the Senate, and immediately the American National Red Cross was formed with Clara Barton as its first president.
The European "rest" trip had resulted in one of the greatest achievements for the benefit of mankind in which America ever partic.i.p.ated, and its birth in the United States was due solely to the efforts of the determined, consecrated nurse who, when eleven years old, gave her all to a sick brother, and later consecrated her life to the service of a sick brotherhood of brave men.
On the day after her death, on April 12, 1912, one editor of an American newspaper paid a tribute to her that ranks with those paid the world"s greatest heroes. He said:
"On the battle-fields of the Rebellion her hands bound up the wounds of the injured brave.
"The candles of her charity lighted the gloom of death for the heroes of Antietam and Fredericksburg.
"Across the ocean waters of her sweet labors followed the flag of the saintly Red Cross through the Franco-Prussian war.
"When stricken Armenia cried out for help in 1896, it was Clara Barton who led the relief corps of salvation and sustenance.
"A woman leading in answering the responsibility of civilization to the world!
"When McKinley"s khaki boys struck the iron from Cuba"s bondage it was Clara Barton, in her seventy-seventh year, who followed to the fever-ridden tropics to lead in the relief-work on Spanish battle-grounds.
"She is known wherever man appreciates humanity."
Hers was the honor of being the first president of the American Red Cross, but she was more than that--she _was_ the Red Cross at that time. It was, as she said, "her child," and she furnished headquarters for it in her Washington home, dispensing the charities of a nation, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and was never requested to publish her accounts, an example of personal leadership which is unparalleled.
In 1897 we find the Red Cross president settled in her home at Glen Echo, a few miles out of Washington, on a high slope overlooking the Potomac, and, although it was a Red Cross center, it was a friendly lodging as well, where its owner could receive her personal friends.
Flags and Red Cross testimonials from rulers of all nations fluttered from the walls, among them a beautiful one from the Sultan of Turkey.
Two small crosses of red gla.s.s gleamed in the front windows over the balcony, but above the house the Red Cross banner floated high, as if to tell the world that "the banner over us is love." And to Glen Echo, the center of her beloved activity, Clara Barton always loved to return at the end of her campaigns. To the many thousands who came to visit her home as one of the great humane centers of the world, she became known as the "Beautiful Lady of the Potomac," and never did a t.i.tle more fittingly describe a nature.
To the last she was a soldier--systematic, industrious, severely simple in her tastes. It was a rule of the household that every day"s duties should be disposed of before turning in for the night, and at five o"clock the next morning she would be rolling a carpet-sweeper over the floor. She always observed military order and took a soldier"s pride in keeping her quarters straight.
Hanging on the wall between her bedroom and private sitting-room was a small mirror into which her mother looked when she came home as a bride.
Her bed was small and hard. Near it were the books that meant so much to her--the Bible, Pilgrim"s Progress, the stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, the poems of Lucy Larcom, and many other well-worn, much-read cla.s.sics.
That she was still feminine, as in the days of girlhood when she fashioned her first straw bonnet, so now she was fond of wearing handsome gowns, often with trains. Lavender, royal purple, and wine color were the shades she liked best to wear, and in which her friends most often remember her. Despite her few extravagant tastes, Clara Barton was the most democratic woman America ever produced, as well as the most humane. She loved people, sick and well, and in any State and city of the Union she could claim personal friends in every walk of life.
When, after ninety-nine years of life and fifty of continuous service to suffering human nature, death laid its hand upon her on that spring day, the world to its remotest corner stopped its busy barter and trade for a brief moment to pay reverent tribute to a woman, who was by nature of the most retiring, bashful disposition, and yet carried on her life-work in the face of the enemy, to the sound of cannon, and close to the firing-line. She was on the firing-line all her life.
That is her life story.
Her "boys" of all ages adored her, and no more touching incident is told of her than that of a day in Boston, when, after a meeting, she lingered at its close to chat with General Shafter. Suddenly the great audience, composed entirely of old soldiers, rose to their feet as she came down the aisle, and a voice cried:
"Three cheers for Clara Barton!"
They were given by voices hoa.r.s.e with feeling. Then some one shouted:
"Tiger!"
Before it could be given another voice cried:
"No! _Sweetheart!_"
Then those grizzled elderly men whose lives she had helped to save broke into uproar and tears together, while the little bent woman smiled back at them with a love as true as any sweetheart"s.
To-day we stand at the parting of the ways. Our nation is in the making as a world power, and in its rebirth there must needs be bloodshed and scalding tears. As we American girls and women go out bravely to face the untried future and to nurse under the banner of the Red Cross, we shall do our best work when we bear to the battle-field the same spirit of high purpose and consecration that inspired Clara Barton and made her the "Angel of the Battle-fields."
Let us, as loyal Americans, take to heart part of a speech she once made on Memorial Day, when she stood with the "Boys in Blue" in the "G.o.d"s-acre" of the soldier, and declared:
"We cannot always hold our great ship of state out of the storms and breakers. She must meet and buffet with them. Her timbers must creak in the gale. The waves must wash over her decks, she must lie in the trough of the sea as she does to-day. But the Stars and Stripes are above her. She is freighted with the hopes of the world. G.o.d holds the helm, and she"s coming to port. The weak must fear, the timid tremble, but the brave and stout of heart will work and hope and trust."
VIRGINIA REED: MIDNIGHT HEROINE OF THE PLAINS IN PIONEER DAYS OF AMERICA
On a lovely April morning in 1846 there was an unusual stir in the streets of Springfield, Illinois, for such an early hour. From almost every house some one was hurrying, and as neighbor nodded to neighbor the news pa.s.sed on: