On the battlefields of the Civil War

Barton was in Washington, DC working for the Patent Office at the start of the Civil War. Seeing the faces of injured soldiers, Barton knew that they were in need of help and petitioned Northern families to send supplies for the troops. Numerous warehouses were filled and Barton began distributing supplies to soldiers, talking them through the pain, and being there for the troops when their own families could not take care of them. Barton's dedication went beyond the Union soldiers when she went to the battlefields and saw Confederate soldiers in the same condition. After the war, she helped soldier families locate missing soldiers as she attempted to heal the nation torn apart by war.

Shortly after the start of the Civil War, Northern soldiers from Massachusetts began the journey to the battlefields.  They passed through Baltimore in April receiving an unwelcome reception from the city’s Confederate loyalists. Riots broke out and wounded soldiers were sent to Washington to receive care.  Barton went to the makeshift hospitals to offer her assistance.  She saw the faces of boys she knew from back home and what little amounts of supplies the Union Army had to care for the wounded, and took it upon herself to send letters home to encourage the northern women to send supplies to the troops.  Her petitions were answered, and she stored all supplies in three warehouses in Washington, DC.[1]  

The letters, appealing to mothers, sisters, and daughters who could not be at the men’s side to offer help, and advertisements placed in newspapers to encourage donating goods were possibly the first accounts of Barton petitioning Americans for supplies and goods to help others.  Throughout the war, Northerners trusted Clara Barton to deliver goods and care for the soldiers like they were her own.  Barton petitioned the government for the permits to go to the fields and hand out supplies.  She often arrived at the battles, bringing up the end of the caravan, right before the medical personnel ran out of supplies, giving her the title of “Angel of the Battlefield.”[2]  Barton followed troops to many battles, including battles with the Army of the Potomac, and at Cedar Mountain, Chantilly, and Antietam.

Civil War Soldiers by a tent

In Washington, Barton saw the faces of injured soldiers and recognized the faces as men who had been in her classroom and who belonged to families back home and not on the battlefields of war.  Barton began to investigate how she could help the war efforts; while her sympathies sided with the Union, she never hesitated to help anyone, caring more about the human lives involved in the war.  She said the war side of war could never have called me to the field.  All through and through, thought and act, body and soul – I hate it. . . .  Only the desire to soften some of its hardships and allay some of its miseries ever induced me, and I presume all other women who have taken similar steps, to dare its pestilent and unholy breath.[3]  

In the final line, Barton connects herself to other women at the time, women who want to soften the impact of war on the soldiers and their families by doing everything to ensure a safe return home.  She went to the fields to make sure the sick and wounded were cared for, in hopes of returning all men home at the end of the war.  Concerned with the person rather than the fight, Barton insisted that “her ‘work and words…were for the individual soldier – what he does, sees, feels, or thinks in these dread hours of leaden rain and iron hail.’”[4]

Sign posted at the office of Clara Barton, advertising for her involvement in finding lost and missing soldiers of the Civil War

Clara Barton’s name and reputation as the organizer of supplies during the Civil War and as the woman who could travel to the fields to talk to the men opened another path in helping once the Civil War ended.  Letters sent to Barton asked for help locating soldiers who failed to return home after the war.  Barton set up the Office of Correspondence with Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army to help relatives track down missing soldiers.  This opportunity initially went unfunded by the government as leads on soldiers took Barton to Andersonville, Georgia.  In Andersonville, she located a Confederate Prison Camp and using records, helped mark graves of the deceased Union soldiers and inform relatives of their demise.  Families were concerned over the lack of knowledge on the whereabouts of their soldiers, and Barton stepped forward to answer the call to help people.  Just like any mother who was concerned for a lost child, Barton worked to uncover information for the writers of all her letters.  Again, she completed her tasks because of her drive and determination to help others.  When the war ended, Americans were content to go back to life before the war, return home to loved ones and pick up with work on the farm or in the cities.  However, for Barton, the war may have been over, but the work was not.  There were families in need of information and Barton refused to let them go without some detail or piece of information regarding their lost loved ones.

Barton (standing beneath the flag) at a Red Cross reunion of Civil War soldiers in 1887 on the Mall in Washington, DC