Clara Barton was the youngest child of Capt. Stephen Barton, of Oxford, Ma.s.s., a non-commissioned officer under "Mad Anthony Wayne."
Captain Barton, who was a prosperous farmer and leader in public affairs, gave his children the best opportunities he could secure for their improvement. Clara"s early education was princ.i.p.ally at home under direction of her brothers and sisters. At sixteen, she commenced teaching, and followed the occupation for several years, during which time she a.s.sisted her oldest brother, Capt. Stephen Barton, Jr., a man of fine scholarship and business capacity, in equitably arranging and increasing the salaries of the large village schools of her native place, at the same time having clerical oversight of her brother"s counting-house. Subsequently, she finished her school education by a very thorough course of study at Clinton, N. Y. Miss Barton"s remarkable executive ability was manifested in the fact that she popularized the Public School System in New Jersey, by opening the first free school in Bordentown, commencing with six pupils, in an old tumble-down building, and at the close of the year, leaving six hundred in the fine edifice at present occupied.
At the close of her work in Bordentown, she went to Washington, D. C., to recuperate and indulge herself in congenial literary pursuits.
There she was, without solicitation, appointed by Hon. Charles Mason, Commissioner of Patents, to the first independent clerkship held by a woman under our Government. Her thoroughness and faithfulness fitted her eminently for this position of trust, which she retained until after the election of President Buchanan, when, being suspected of Republican sentiments, and Judge Mason having resigned, she was deposed, and a large part of her salary withheld. She returned to Ma.s.sachusetts and spent three years in the study of art, belles-lettres, and languages. Shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln, she was recalled to the Patent Office by the same administration which had removed her. She returned, as she had left, without question, and taking up her line of duty, awaited developments.
When the civil war commenced, she refused to draw her salary from a treasury already overtaxed, resigned her clerkship and devoted herself to the a.s.sistance of suffering soldiers. Her work commencing before the organization of Commissions, was continued outside and altogether independent of them, but always with most cordial sympathy. Miss Barton never engaged in hospital service. Her chosen labors were on the battle-field from the beginning, until the wounded and dead were attended to. Her supplies were her own, and were carried by Government transportation. Nearly four years she endured the exposures and rigors of soldier life, in action, always side by side with the field surgeons, and this on the hardest fought fields; such battles as Cedar Mountain, second Bull Run, Chantilly, Antietam, Falmouth, and old Fredericksburg, siege of Charleston, on Morris Island, at Wagner, Wilderness and Spotsylvania, The Mine, Deep Bottom, through sieges of Petersburg and Richmond, with Butler and Grant; through summer without shade, and winter without shelter, often weak, but never so far disabled as to retire from the field; always under fire in severe battles; her clothing pierced with bullets and torn by shot, exposed at all times, but never wounded.
Firm in her integrity to the Union, never swerving from her belief in the justice of the cause for which the North was fighting, on the battle-field she knew no North, no South; she made her work one of humanity alone, bestowing her charities and her care indiscriminately upon the Blue and the Gray, with an impartiality and Spartan firmness that astonished the foe and perplexed the friend, often falling under suspicion, or censure of Union officers unacquainted with her motives and character for her tender care and firm protection of the wounded captured in battle. Their home-thrusts were met with the same calm courage as were the bullets of the enemy, and many a Confederate soldier lives to bless her for care and life, while no Union man will ever again doubt her loyalty. All unconsciously to herself she was carrying out to the letter in practice the grand and beautiful principles of the Red Cross of Geneva (of which she had never heard), for the entire _neutrality_ of war relief among the nations of the earth, that great international step toward a world-wide recognized humanity, of which she has since become the national advocate and leader in this country.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Clara Barton. "Very Sincerely Yours Clara Barton."]
At the close of the war she met exchanged prisoners at Annapolis.
Accompanied by Dorrence At.w.a.ter, she conducted an expedition, sent at her request by the United States Government to identify and mark the graves of the 13,000 soldiers who perished at Andersonville. From Savannah to that point, as theirs were the first trains which had pa.s.sed since the destruction of the railroads by Sherman, they were obliged to repair the bridges and the embankments, straighten bent rails, and in some places make new roads. The work was completed in August, 1865, and her report of the expedition was issued in the winter of 1866.
The anxiety felt by the whole country for the fate of those whom the exchange of prisoners and the disbanding of troops failed to reveal, stimulated her to devise the plan of relief, which, sanctioned by President Lincoln, resulted in the "search for missing men," which (except the printing) was carried on entirely at her own expense, to the extent of several thousand dollars, employing from ten to fifteen clerks. In the winter of "66, when she was on the point, for want of further means to carry out her plan, of turning the search over to the Government, Congress voted $15,000 for reimbursing moneys expended, and carrying on the work. The search was continued until 1869, and then a full report made and accepted by Congress. During the winter of 1867-8 Miss Barton was called on to lecture before many lyceums regarding the incidents of the war.
In 1869, her health failing, she went to Switzerland to rest and recover, where she was at the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war, and immediately tendered her services there, as here, on the battle-field, under the auspices of the Red Cross of Geneva. Her Royal Highness the Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Baden, daughter of the Emperor of Germany, invited Miss Barton to aid her in the establishment of her n.o.ble Badise hospitals, a work which consumed several months. On the fall of Strasburg she entered the city with the German army, organized labor for women, conducting the enterprise herself, employing remuneratively a great number, and clothing over thirty thousand. She entered Metz with hospital supplies the day of its fall, and Paris the day after the fall of the Commune. Here she remained two months, distributing money and clothing which she carried, and afterward met the poor in every besieged city in France, extending succor to them.
She is a representative of the "International Red Cross of Geneva,"
and President of the American National a.s.sociation of the Red Cross, honorary and only woman member of "Comite de Strasbourgeois"; was decorated with the "Gold Cross of Remembrance" by the Grand Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Baden, and with the "Iron Cross of Merit" by the Emperor and Empress of Germany.
Miss Barton may be said to have given her whole life to humanitarian affairs, largely national in character. The positions she has occupied, whether remunerative or not--and she has filled but few paid positions--have been pioneer ones, in which her efforts and success have been to raise the standard of woman"s work and its recognition and remuneration. Her time, her property, and her influence have been held sacred to benevolence of that character that will a.s.sist in true progress. Nevertheless, she is one of the most retiring of women, never voluntarily coming before the world except at the call of manifest duty, and shrinking with peculiar sensitiveness from anything verging on notoriety.
Her summers are pa.s.sed at her pleasant country residence at Dansville, New York, where she has regained in a most gratifying degree her shattered health and war-worn strength, and her winters in Washington in the interests and charge of the great International movement which she represents in America.
JOSEPHINE SOPHIE GRIFFING.
_The National Freedman"s Relief a.s.sociation._
BY CATHARINE A. F. STEBBINS.
Josephine Sophie White was born at Hebron, Conn., December, 1816, and was educated in her native State. She grew to young womanhood in the pure and religious atmosphere of the New England hills, and developed a strength of const.i.tution and character which was the basis of her truly beneficent life-work. Refined, sympathetic, and conscientious, with the golden rule for her text, her career was ever marked with deeds of kindness and charity to the oppressed of every cla.s.s. Taking an active part in both the "Anti-slavery" and "Woman"s Rights"
struggles, she early learned the very alphabet of liberty. With her the perception of its blessings and its glory was also a rich inheritance, and the vigilance and courage to conquer and secure it for others was not less a n.o.ble legacy. The love of liberty flowed down to her through two streams of life. On the mother"s side she was descended from Peter Waldo[25], after whom the Waldenses were named; and on the father"s, from Peregrine White, who was born in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1620, the first child of Pilgrim parents. It is not strange she was by temperament and const.i.tution a reformer, and a protestant against all despotisms, whether of mind, body, or estate.
In the agitation for human rights of one cla.s.s after another, in their historical order, she enlisted with the Abolitionists, with the Woman Suffragists, with the Loyal League and sanitary workers, and after the war, in relief of the Freedmen. Her interest in her own s.e.x began early, and continued to the last.
At the age of twenty-two she married, and about the year 1842 removed with her family to Ohio, where her home soon became the refuge of the fugitive slave, and the resting-place of his defenders. In 1849 she began, with her husband, Chas. S. S. Griffing, her public labors in connection with the "American" and the "Western Anti-Slavery Societies," speaking at first to small audiences in school-houses, and when prejudice and bitterness gave way, to conventions, and ma.s.s-meetings; opposition and curiosity yielding finally to sympathy and aid. But for years the meetings were often broken up by mobs. The effort to uproot slavery was p.r.o.nounced either absurd, treasonable, or irreligious; that it would incite insurrection of the slaves; or if successful, bring great responsibility upon the Abolitionists, and disaster to the whole country.
In 1861, Mrs. Griffing, prompted by the same loyal spirit that moved all the women of the nation, turned from the ordinary occupations of life to see what she could do to mitigate the miseries of the war. She united at once with "The National Woman"s Loyal League," lecturing and organizing societies in the West for the soldiers and freedmen, to whom large quant.i.ties of clothing and other supplies were sent, and circulating pet.i.tions to Congress for the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves as a war measure.
While thus engaged, her thoughts naturally turned to the large number of Southern slaves coming with the army into Washington, whose future she foresaw would be beset with distress and want during the long period of change from chattelism to the settled habits of freedom.
They were coming by the hundreds and thousands in 1863, with a vague idea of being cared for by "the Governor," but the Government had as yet made no provision, separate from that for the soldiers, when Mrs.
Griffing went to Washington and began her labors for them, which were continued until her death.
She at once counseled with President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton as to the best methods for immediate relief; proposed plans which they approved, and received from them every aid possible in their execution. Her first step was to open three ration-houses, where she fed at least a thousand of the old and most dest.i.tute of the freed people daily. She visited hundreds in the alleys and old stables, in attics and cellars, and in almost every place where shelter could be found, and became acquainted personally with their necessities, and the best means of supplying them. There were 30,000 in the capital at this time, and it would be difficult to give an idea to one not there, of the time and labor it cost to hunt out the old barracks and get them transformed into shelters for these outcasts. Upon the personal order of the Secretary of War, she was allowed army blankets and wood, which she distributed herself, going with the army wagons to see that those suffering most were first supplied. This "temporary relief" was necessarily continued for some time, during which Mrs. Griffing was made the General Agent of "The National Freedman"s Relief a.s.sociation of the District of Columbia." She opened a correspondence with the Aid societies of the Northern and New England States, which resulted in her receiving supplies of clothing and provisions, which were most acceptable. These were carefully dispensed by herself and two daughters, who were her a.s.sistants. Mrs. Griffing opened three industrial schools, where the women were taught to sew;[26] a price was set on their labors, and they were paid in ready-made garments.
The Secretary aided in the purchase of suitable cloth, and with that sent from the North, such outfits were supplied as could be afforded.
It was soon apparent to Mrs. Griffing that the Government must provide for the old and the infirm, and that until labor could be found, even a majority of the strong must be included in the provision--with the understanding, however, that they must seek employment and exert themselves to find homes--and that educational and political interests must be established and encouraged. The stress of the situation can not be said ever to have relaxed during our friend"s life, except as to numbers--at any rate in the early years; but as soon as some system grew out of the confusion, and all that could be, were supplied with bread and shelter, she turned her attention in part to the larger plan, and urged a bureau under Government; a department for these freedmen"s interests. This plan was favored by Messrs. Sumner, Wade, Wilson, and a few other Senators and Members of Congress, and in December, 1863, a bill for a Bureau of Emanc.i.p.ation was introduced in the House of Representatives by Hon. Mr. Elliot, of Ma.s.sachusetts. It received no welcome; few cared to listen to the details of the necessity, and it was only through Mrs. Griffing"s brave and unwearied efforts that the plan was accepted, and carried through in March, 1865, under the t.i.tle of "The Freedman"s Bureau." The writer has had testimony to the truth of this from Senators Wade of Ohio, Howard of Michigan, and others, as well as to the fact that a majority of the Congressional Committee in charge of the bill, wished that Mrs.
Griffing should be made Commissioner (among whom, and most active in support of the bill, was Senator Henry Wilson), but it was decided to place the Bureau in the War Department, with a military man at the head, Mrs. Griffing being appointed "a.s.sistant Commissioner." She really held the position but a few weeks--in name, five months--a second military officer standing ready to take the appointment, as men have ever done, and as they will always crowd women aside so long as they are held political inferiors, without the citizen"s charter to sustain their claim. This officer had the t.i.tle and drew the pay, while our n.o.ble friend went on as before in her arduous and almost superhuman labors. The Bureau adopted _her_ plan of finding homes in the North, sending the freedmen at Government charge, and of opening employment offices in New York City and in Providence, R. I.; nevertheless it was necessary to supplement Government provision by private generosity; and moreover, that Congress should provide temporary relief for the helpless in the District. Appropriations were made in sums of $25,000, amounting in all to nearly $200,000, for the purchase of supplies, a very large proportion of which were distributed by Mrs. Griffing in person from her own residence.[27]
"Shirley Dare," in writing to _The New York World_, after a little time spent with Mrs. G., said:
"I sat an hour this morning in Mrs. Griffing"s office during the distribution of rations, and a curious scene it was. There was not a sound creature among the crowd which filled the yard, and which hangs about all day from nine till four, and which the neighborhood calls "Mrs. Griffing"s signs." It reminded me of another crowd of impotent folk, lame, halt, and blind, which filled the loveliest s.p.a.ce in Jerusalem, and was a _sign_ of joy and charity in the place. Queer, tender, wistful faces, so earnest one forgets their grotesque character and ragged, faded forms, cl.u.s.ter in the porch; such a set as one might once have seen put up at auction as a "refuse lot" of plantation negroes.
The men wear old army cloaks, while the women, with dresses in every stage of decay, are so comic, one struggles between the ludicrous and the pitiful.... The faith of this cla.s.s seems to be fastened nowhere so strongly as upon Mrs. Griffing. Salutations follow her along the streets, enough to satisfy the proudest Pharisee, and it provokes one between a smile and a tear, to see the women waiting timidly, yet eagerly, for a word from her, to set their faces all aglow. They used to say, persistently, "We belongs to you," and no efforts could induce them to change that phrase. "Who has we but the Lord and you?" was the simple argument which stayed protest from the kind, proud woman who was their benefactress. A few words from her will draw out histories simple, funny, and sad beyond question."
Our friend had a strong belief that the able in body could sustain themselves if labor were provided, which it could not be there, so she urged them to go to the North, which greatly needed laborers to fill the places of Northern men in the army. Woman"s help, too, was as much in demand, for in many places large farms were wholly managed by women in the absence of husbands and sons; but it was learned by Mrs.
Griffing and daughters through repeated testimony, that the life-long teaching of the slaves had been, that no good could come from Northern people,[28] and this led the many in their pitiable ignorance to believe that, somewhere in the North, the monsters surely lived who were waiting to destroy them, and that the kind few whom they had met were of a different race; that "the North" was beyond the sea, and they could never return, nor hear from their friends left behind; so persistent argument was needed to convince the most ignorant of their false notions, and many of them never were, until some had gone and returned with good tidings. The first company prepared to go numbered sixty persons, for whom Mrs. Griffing procured Government transportation and a day"s rations. She went with them to New York City, and as they pa.s.sed from the cars the sight was a new and strange one. Filing through the streets, the anxious, wondering women dressed partly in neat garments given them, with others of their own selection in less good taste; while on the men an occasional damaged silk hat topped off a coat that would have made Joseph"s of old look plain; with ironclad army shoes; or a half-worn wedding swallow-tail, eked out by a plantation broad-brim, and boots too much worn for either comfort or beauty. This motley band, led by a gentle and spiritual-faced woman, will not soon be forgotten by those who saw it depart. Leaving a few at one depot, and a few at another, to be met at the journey"s end by their employer, Mrs. Griffing took those remaining to Providence, near which place homes had been provided.
After these sent messages back to friends, others went more readily, and during a little more than two years over seven thousand freed people left Washington under Mrs. Griffing"s special supervision and direction for homes in the North. I wish I could say how many parties she actually convoyed on the journey, and how many miles she traveled, but I know that she went as far as New York with a great many; and as I have seen them start, knew and felt that it was too much for her, and longed that some stronger person should appear to share her burdens, and relieve her from these exhausting duties. Perhaps she had written letters till twelve o"clock the night before; had taken a long walk beyond the Navy-Yard cars, in the afternoon, to visit her centenarians; or had received calls, and talked till her voice had almost given out.
But she had the comfort of knowing that many remained where they had been sent, some buying homes and planting vines about the roof-tree.
To behold this, she had wrought heroically in the past for emanc.i.p.ation. She was busy with her hands, busier with her brain, and her spiritual nature was like a spring of sweet waters, overflowing in bounteous blessing on all around. Of the great painter Leonardo da Vinci, his biographer says: "He always saw four things he wanted to do at once." Our friend always saw many more. Her mind was teeming not only with ideals as beautiful as those of the great artist, but with practical plans to educate the ignorant, and lift them to self-support and self-protection. Her being was instinct with constructive and spiritual force.
It would be hard to find any sphere of woman"s activity in which she had not been leader. Believing that "the manifest intention of nature is the perfection of man," she faithfully did her part. In the laborious and the menial she served the colored poor, while she neglected no opportunity to open their spiritual vision. She fed, warmed, and clothed them; ministered to the sick; attended the dying; procured their coffins; spoke the comforting words, and sung the hymns at their funerals. She instructed them in their Sunday meetings, and gained release for those in prison for petty offences, or for those unjustly accused. Soldiers often appealed to her to a.s.sist and aid them. Her work at the jails was very wearing, for the poor creatures, not unfrequently the mother of an infant left at home, arrested for an imaginary offense, or for _stealing_ bread to avert starvation, would _plead_ so hard for her to get them released, and had such full faith that she could, that it was a constant tax upon her sympathy and strength, as was all her work connected with them.
Josephine Griffing had to deal too much with the realities of life and death to make many records of her work, save those required in the routine of her office. These were mostly kept by her daughter Emma, her official a.s.sistant. But the substance of what was done in these years may be found in the archives of the Government. On the calendar of both Houses of Congress, in the _Congressional Globe_, in the War Office, in the Freedman"s Bureau, in the offices of District Government and District Courts, and perhaps in the prisons, the future historian may find abundant records of the patient and humane labors of this merciful, vigilant, and untiring woman. Whether he finds them in her name is not so certain!
Mrs. Griffing not only devoted to these people the six days of the week allotted to labor, but her Sundays were given to public ministrations as well as private visits to the distant and aged, unable to come to the Relief rooms during the week. But for a real picture of the condition of these people, nothing can be more graphic or full of feeling, than her own account in a letter to Lucretia Mott,[29] intended as an appeal to the Society of Friends in Philadelphia. It, with others, had early responded, and with its contributions in part, she had established the soup-houses before noted. Her account is also in connection with the Bureau, of historical interest. During this long struggle her evenings were spent in writing letters to the North, framing bills, pet.i.tions, and appeals to amend the laws of the District. As she was interested in all the reforms of the day, she was frequently called upon for active service in conventions and political gatherings.
Of the public men whom she consulted, two at least, I know, made everybody and everything yield when she appeared; these were Secretary Stanton and Chas. Sumner--so interested were they in the objects of her devotion, and so sure that Mrs. Griffing would not take their time without sufficient reason. Benj. F. Wade and Henry Wilson would not yield the palm in their respect to her, and Senator Howard, of Michigan, was also one of her most friendly helpers. Stevens, Julian, Dawes, Ashley--all the friends in Congress--could tell of her great achievements, and their unbounded confidence in her, as the following letters show:
WASHINGTON, D. C., _March 11, 1865._
_To the Commissioner of the Freedman"s Bureau_:
SIR:--I take pleasure in giving my influence to this application for a place at the head of freedmen"s affairs in the District of Columbia for Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, believing her to be eminently qualified to develop the resources of the freed people in this District, most of whom are women and children--secure the national interest, and give satisfaction to the country. Mrs.
Griffing has given successful public and private efforts in behalf of the colored race for many years, and has devoted the entire time of the last year to an investigation of the condition and best method of giving relief to the mult.i.tudes of freed people in and around the National Capital. Finding many thousands of women with families without employment or the means of self-support, she has conferred with the President and Governors of the Northwestern States upon the practicability of encouraging their emigration. To meet the dest.i.tution of these people in this city during the past winter, Mrs. Griffing has disbursed from the Government about $25,000 in wood and blankets and rations, and $5,000 in clothing and money from the public charity. I believe the appointment of Mrs. J. S. Griffing to a chief clerkship or general agency for the District in this Bureau will be creditable to the Government and satisfactory to the freed people.
Z. CHANDLER.
I fully concur with my colleague. Mrs. Griffing is both worthy and capable, and I trust her services will be secured.
J. M. HOWARD.
If I had this appointment to make, I would make Mrs. Griffing Commissioner.
J. M. ASHLEY.
I know Mrs. Griffing to be capable and humane, and very devoted to the colored race. I hope that her services may be secured.
CHARLES SUMNER.
I most cheerfully join in this recommendation.
H. WILSON, J. N. GRIMES.