Part 28

It was on Sunday morning, September 14th, 1862, in plumed hats, costly jewels, silken dresses and French-made shoes, that the ladies with their equally well-attired escorts were on their way to church. Adown Pennsylvania Avenue at the same time at our national capital, on an army wagon, the wagon loaded with well filled boxes, bags and parcels for the suffering—and seated with the driver—again there goes to the scene of war-carnage a woman, the woman self-styled as to theoretical religion a “well-disposed pagan.” For more than half a century past she has been, and for centuries to come the woman who went to the front on that Sunday morning—as to practical religion—will be known as the purest Christian womanhood.

“Chaste and immaculate in very thought,” chosen from above “by inspiration of celestial grace, to work exceeding miracles on earth!” “Inspiration of celestial grace!” That inspiration carried Clara Barton on an army wagon, through the night, past the sleeping artillery to the front of the battlefield of Antietam. There with her own hands she bandaged the wounds of the boys that were falling, falling and bleeding to death, herself escaping with a bullet through her clothes; carried her to another point on that battlefield, and there while supporting on her arm and knee a soldier his head by a cannon ball was severed from the body. That inspiration carried her with the soldiers under fire over the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg, amidst the hissing of bullets and exploding of shells; across the Rappahannock where a cannon ball tore away a part of the skirt of her dress and where a few moments later the officer, who had assisted her off the bridge, was brought to her shot to death.

It was that inspiration which gave her the strength with an axe to chop the ice from around the wounded “boys in gray”; to carry them to a negro cabin; to feed them gruel and to bind up their wounds; that nerved her with a pocket knife on the field of battle to cut the bullet from the face of a wounded soldier. It was that inspiration which gave her the courage to assist in a hospital where amputated human limbs were stacked in piles like cordwood. It was this scene to which General Butler referred, and of her in her presence at a public reception in Boston, to say, “I have seen those beautiful arms red with human blood to her shoulders.” Inspiration! “Inspired to save lives,” says of her the _London Times_.

“A great mind is an appreciative mind”; Clara Barton was appreciative. Of a simple New Year’s greeting she says: “’Twere worth the passing of the year to be so remembered.” At various periods in her life, from those she served and whose minds could appreciate, upon her honors fell thick and fast as fall the autumn leaves in your maple groves. As the daughter of the twenty-first Massachusetts Regiment stood on the banks at Aquia Creek by no divine command did the waters part that she might cross on dry land; but by command of a chivalric officer, in an instant and proud of the honor, on the left knees of that line of boys in blue with the soldiers’ helping hand Clara Barton crosses over. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she relates this incident and says “This is the most beautiful tribute of love and devotion ever offered me in my life.” On the three cheers given her as she entered Lincoln Hospital by the seventy soldier boys, boys she had served on the battlefield of Fredericksburg, she says “I would not exchange their memory for the wildest applause that ever greeted conqueror or king.”

From the days of Benjamin Franklin honors in Europe have been showered upon the dignity of the American office, on two ex-Presidents in private life, but high and above office-holders and ex-Presidents in the list of royal honors received stands Clara Barton. Her royal receptions, her royal decorations in all history have not been equaled. Czar and Czarina, Emperor and Empress, King and Queen, Prince and Princess, Duke and Duchess, all royalty so poor as to do honor to the richest in world-service. Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Geneva, Carlsruhe, Vienna, Baden-Baden, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Santiago,—no city too great, no city too unchristian, to open her gates to welcome Clara Barton.

At the great international sittings of the Red Cross in Geneva, in Carlsruhe, in Vienna, in St. Petersburg,—Clara Barton, the only woman officially representing any government among the representatives of forty nations. As the unpretentious woman of five feet three comes into the hall, the great men of the earth rise to their feet,—eyes eager, handkerchiefs in air, then huzzas that echo the heart throbs of a world humanity greet the ear and touch the heart of the “lonesomest-lone-woman” as she walks down the aisle of the auditorium to take her seat among the great world-humanitarians. Small in stature but great in deeds, a galaxy of deeds!

Peasants,—Russians, German, Austrian, Turk, Greek, Swiss, Cuban, Spaniard, Armenian, American soldier,—all so rich in gratitude as to “God bless her,” the angel of the world’s battlefields. Was it mere pastime that moved the famous generals of Europe to kneel in front of her and kiss her hand, accompanied by greetings of the highest praise? Did the Czar of all the Russians honor himself most or her when he declined to permit her to kiss his hand, as is the custom in the presence of royalty? Of Puritan origin, in _peasant_ attire, she was recognized as royalty itself, American royalty, the highest type of royalty.

As “fame comes only when deserved,” would you know Clara Barton? Follow her into countless permanent and improvised hospitals, over nineteen battlefields of the Civil War,—from Cedar Mountain in ’62 through the Richmond Campaign in ’65; and I beg of you not to forget that twenty-mile ride on one night in June, ’64, as on to Petersburg astride her black horse in the darkness, in a rain storm amidst thunder and lightning that “lonesomest-lone-woman” goes on her mission to the relief of the thousands of victims of an explosion. Follow her into the malarial climate through the “Campaign before Charleston,” water deadly in character, on the barren sands under a tropic sun, sand granules transforming brown eyes to eyes swollen and bloodshot, feet calloused and blistered, where again she is seen under the fire of death-dealing guns, serving the whites and blacks alike. Follow her through nineteen national disasters,—from the Michigan forest fires in ’81 to the typhoid fever epidemic in Butler, Pa., in 1904. Follow her as she accepts the commission at the hands of President Lincoln and through the long, mournful months, searches the records, and walks the cemetery in the southland to identify the graves of the missing soldiers. Follow her over four of the great battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War; and then on the public highway as she walks into the city of stricken Paris.

Follow her again through numerous hospitals and on American relief fields. Follow her as on the relief ship State of Texas, to the strains of “My Country ’Tis of Thee” she leads the American navy into the torpedo-mined Bay of Santiago, and from Santiago into the war-stricken fields and the yellow fever camps of Cuba. Follow her as President of the American Red Cross through a score of national calamities and as President of the First Aid Association in untiring service. Follow her into an American audience where she receives the official greetings of Japan for her services in securing adhesion of the Japanese government to the Red Cross International Treaty. Follow her, as the official representative of our American nation, on four trips across the Atlantic, thence into the halls of world conference where not hate but love rules. Follow through half a century the woman whose deeds of love are as lighted candles for vestal virgins to keep burning on the altar in the Temple of Fame.

Of America’s heroine, Will Carleton sings:

A million thanks to one Who hath a million plaudits won For deeds of love to many millions done.

In having the fullest confidence of our Presidents, Clara Barton expressed herself in 1909 as follows: “I never before have so fully realized what a pleasure that privilege has been to me through half a century.” That confidence, by the record, existed between her and Lincoln, and Johnson, and Grant, and Hayes, and Garfield, and Arthur, and Cleveland, and Harrison, and McKinley, a record with presidents unequaled by any other American in public life. McKinley expressed the sentiments of nine presidents when he said: “What Clara Barton says and does is always honest and right.”

Nor might nor greatness in mortality Can censure ’scape; back wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes.

All streams reach the ocean and calumny in the limpid streams of truth is lost in the grand ocean of human thought. Whenever “back wounding calumny” the nation’s heroine strikes, paraphrasing the words of President Garfield to Secretary of State Blaine and relating to Clara Barton, “Will the American people please hear the truth from the truly great and good of America on the subject herein referred to?” General Nelson A. Miles says: “Clara Barton is the greatest humanitarian the world has ever known.” “Clara Barton rendered her country and her kind great and noble service,” says Speaker Champ Clark. “The greatest of American women, the whole world knew and loved her,” says Congressman Joseph Taggart. Says Carrie Chapman Catt: “Clara Barton has won the hearts of the women of the world.” Speaking of her, no less a scholar and statesman than Senator George F. Hoar said: “Clara Barton is the most illustrious citizen of Massachusetts, the greatest _man_ in America.”

General W. R. Shafter says: “She was absolutely fearless. Miss Barton is a wonder; the greatest, grandest woman I have ever known.” Mrs. General John A. Logan, says of her: “One of the noblest, if not the noblest, woman of her time—the greatest woman of the nineteenth century.” Says Senator Charles E. Townsend: “The modest, unselfish and yet undaunted Clara Barton did as much for the highest good of the world as any single individual since the birth of civilization.” Says General Joe Wheeler: “The good work done by Clara Barton will live forever and her memory will be cherished wherever the Red Cross is known.” Mrs. General George E. Pickett says of her: “A veteran of the ’60’s, with all the years since filled with noble deeds, she is a marvel to the world; with all of our executive women, social figures and ambitious Zenobias, we shall never produce her like.”

Living at the same time, and serving in the same great struggle for humanity, the two names alike adored and which for all time will be associated in American history are ABRAHAM LINCOLN and CLARA BARTON. Lincoln was born in obscurity, reared on the farm; so was Clara Barton. Lincoln was inured to poverty, self-educated in mature years; similarly, Clara Barton. Lincoln stands alone,—no type, no famed ancestors, no successors; true of Clara Barton. Lincoln, in the opinion of Robert G. Ingersoll, had the brain of a philosopher and the heart of a mother; likewise Clara Barton. Lincoln was gracious to social aristocracy, but did not court it; far from it, Clara Barton.

As was true of Lincoln, Vice-President Henry Wilson said of Clara Barton: “She has the brain of a statesman, the heart of a woman.” Lincoln was a many-sided man; Clara Barton a many-sided woman. Lincoln had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride and religion without cant; so had Clara Barton. Lincoln stood the test of power, the supremest test of mortal; so did Clara Barton. Lincoln worked seventeen years, paying in instalments a debt incurred in a mercantile adventure; Clara Barton, while serving humanity, disbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars without the appropriation of a penny to her personal use.

Oblivious of titles, epaulettes, clothes, rank and race, Lincoln saw only the weak mortal; not less so Clara Barton. Lincoln was an orator,—clear, sincere, natural, convincing. In her hundreds of lecture engagements, made through the same literary bureau, speaking from the same platform, Clara Barton was classed with Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, John B. Gough, and Henry Ward Beecher, the greatest orators of half a century ago.

Lincoln broke the shackles of the blacks in bondage; Clara Barton broke the shackles of education in America, as Pestalozzi in Europe, and transformed “pauper schools” into public schools. She broke the shackles of her sex, and her name was placed on the payroll as the first woman in the government’s service at the nation’s capital. She broke the shackles of war-ethics, and was the first woman “angel” on the battlefield.

She broke the shackles as to national lines, and was the first woman to traverse the ocean to minister to the war stricken of another continent. She broke the shackles as to national disasters, and was the first human being to organize a system to relieve human distress in times of peace, this now the system of every Red Cross organization in the world. She broke the shackles of women in educational life, in military life, in social life, in humanitarian life. Through the centuries Clara Barton, as Abraham Lincoln, will stand as the sentinel on the parapet between the warring forces of humanity and inhumanity.

Lincoln advocated the admitting of “all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding females.” Clara Barton advocated “the admission of women of whatever race to all the rights and privileges—social, religious and political—which as an intelligent being belongs to her.” Lincoln directed the greatest political organization of his time; Clara Barton, the greatest humanitarian organization. Lincoln bore malice toward none,—charity for all; equally so Clara Barton. Lincoln is the strongest tie that binds together all classes of Americans; Clara Barton is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds together humanitarians. Lincoln was the grandest man in the Civil War, is now receiving the highest homage; Clara Barton, the grandest woman, and now the most beloved.

Lincoln was denounced a failure, inefficient as an executive and disloyal to the Union. Clara Barton was accused of “inharmony, unbusinesslike methods and too many years.” Lincoln passed without warning and could make no defense; in her own words Clara Barton says: “When it becomes necessary for _me_ to defend _myself_ before the _American people_, let me fall.”

Fleeing the scene of his crime, and referring to Lincoln, there emitted from the lying tongue of the assassin: “_Sic semper tyrannis_”; in answer from the regions of the dead to the woman with the serpent’s tongue, Clara Barton replies: “Truth is eternal; evil conspiring and their kindred are doomed to die at last—my own shall come to me.” If Lincoln dead may yet do more for America and Americans than Lincoln living, so Clara Barton dead may yet do more for America and world humanity than Clara Barton living. Abraham Lincoln and Clara Barton, humanity’s martyrs, the two immortals.

A score of “the Immortals” lost to memory in any nation and that nation might well exclaim: “I have lost my reputation, I have lost the immortal part of myself.” Efface from memory the twenty, or fewer, immortals of Carthage, of Greece, of Rome, of Italy, of France, of Germany, of England, of America, then in the centuries hence over the tomb of every such nation only could be written “Nation Unknown.” In all the world destroy a score of “the Immortals” respectively in religion, in literature, in science, in art, in the heroic,—a hundred names and their influence,—and wealth greater to the human race shall have been destroyed than if were destroyed every public structure possessed by one billion six hundred millions of people now living.

Whether real or imaginary, the heroes of Homer and Virgil are worth more to the literature of that ancient period than all the physical wealth of Greece and Rome. What legacy to a nation could be greater than to have inherited the name and influence of a Homer, a Socrates, a Michael Angelo, a Queen Victoria, a Washington, a Franklin, a Lincoln, a Florence Nightingale, a Clara Barton? In the long centuries ago, of fame it was decreed: “Fame (’tis all the dead can have) shall live.” Through the centuries, Church and State have fought for their respective heroes and heroines not unlike Peter the Hermit and his followers, in the cause of Him on whom depended their future happiness. Now, as in all the past, the chiefest of a nation’s enduring wealth are the immortal names that were not born to die.

As an inspiration to the millions yet to be, the name of America’s Angel of Mercy will live—live heroic in the deathless songs of peace and of war. There is Second Bull Run, and Chantilly, and Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and Petersburg, and Strasburg, and Sedan, and Paris, and Johnstown, and Santiago, and Galveston,—there on tablets of memory her heroism is inscribed, there to remain forever. Neither will the millions forget, nor cease to cherish, The American Red Cross and The American Amendment and The National First Aid,—forever theirs and their children’s, through the constructive genius of the American philanthropist. If “gratitude is the fairest of flowers that springs from the soul,” perennial must spring millions of fairest flowers over her whose services to the millions are unending, and world-wide.

At Glen Echo on the Potomac when the world-humanist received her final orders, sustained by an unfaltering trust, she exclaimed: “Let me go, let me go!” Thence, as if by imperial summons called, the spirit of Clara Barton arose triumphant and on Easter Morn winged its flight to that undiscovered bourne amid the Islands of the Blest.

In yonder Silent City, Pointing heavenward, Stands a granite shaft; Above that shaft of gray, The granite Cross of Red,

and there a shrine for the human race till the end of time.

[Sidenote: CLARA BARTON]

_Clara Barton_

Born at Oxford, Massachusetts

Christmas Day, 1821

Died at Glen Echo, Maryland

Easter Morn, 1912

President of the American Red Cross Society

from

1881 to 1904

President of the National First Aid

Association of America

from

1905 to 1912; now, The President

In Memoriam.

[Sidenote: ABRAHAM LINCOLN]

Born at Hodgensville, Kentucky

February 12, 1809

Died at Washington, D. C.

April 15, 1865

President of the United States

from

1861 to 1865

“Clara Barton joined the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man’s search To vaster issues. So has she joined the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 40, changed “she would could and recount” to “she would count and recount”. 2. P. 274, changed “responded to a Red Cross call for $ 00,000,000.” to “responded to a Red Cross call for $100,000,000.”. 3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 4. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 5. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and moved to the bottom of the paragraph. 6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.