Part 5
One of the great women of the world. Broad of vision, exalted of soul and absolutely free from selfishness that binds, Miss Barton was a rare human being.—CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, President National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1900–1904; 1913——; Ex-President International Woman Suffrage Alliance. ]
XVII
Clara Barton—soldiers of every battlefield since the Civil War have almost deified her. Mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts of the conflict have ever since held her name in the highest reverence.
Hartford (Conn.) _Post_.
The ears of the sick are strangely acute. CLARA BARTON.
A light heart lives long. SHAKESPEARE.
The burden becomes light that is cheerfully made. OVID.
A cheerful spirit is one of the most valuable gifts ever bestowed upon humanity by a kind Creator. AUGHEY.
Whatever comes, keep up cheerful and happy and hope for the best. CLARA BARTON.
YES, AND GOT EUCHRED
During the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, while the Federals lay again in Fredericksburg, Clara Barton one evening went to the hotel which from ground to garret was filled with wounded men. Five hundred of these were lying upon the bare floors. They had no food to eat, nor was there any food to give them. Clara Barton was struck with their fine soldierly figures and features, remarkable even in their terrible extremity, and stopping near one she asked: “Where are you from?” “Michigan,” he said. On to another—“Michigan,” and so on “Michigan”—“Michigan”—“Michigan.” Up one flight of stairs, then another, still “Michigan.” At length in her surprise, she said somewhat humorously and without reflection, “Did Michigan take up this hand and play it alone?” “Yes,” answered a poor fellow lying on the floor nearby, seriously wounded but one who evidently understood the game better than she did, “Yes, and got euchred.”
XVIII
With a strong, brilliant, cultivated mind was united a gentle, tender, loving heart, and nothing was too great, nothing too small to enlist Miss Barton’s earnest thought and tender sympathy.
HARRIETTE L. REED, _Past National Secy. Woman’s Relief Corps_.
Men are what their mothers make them.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
All I have, and am, I owe to my mother. A. LINCOLN.
All that I am my mother made me. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Work and words are for the individual soldier—what he does, sees, feels or thinks in the dread hours of leaden rain and iron hail.
CLARA BARTON.
I remember my mother’s prayers, and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. A. LINCOLN.
Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him. TENNYSON.
As the years sped on and the hands were stilled, there shone the gleam of the far sighted mother’s watchfulness that neither toil could obscure nor time relax. CLARA BARTON.
His sweetest dreams were still of that dear voice that soothed his infancy. SOUTHEY.
TO DREAM OF HOME AND MOTHER
At Decatur, Alabama, in a well-remembered scene of the Civil War many were the songs by southern chivalry started, but none finished. All efforts to sing one evening having been boisterously tabooed, there arose in the air a voice carrying the sentiment that thrills the camp, the field, the hospital. In gloom for today with foreshadowing for tomorrow, around a score of camp fires thousands of voices following the leader there broke forth pathetic, in full chorus, “Who will care for Mother now?”
While General Butler was digging Dutch Gap in 1863, a hospital boat was plying daily between Fortress Monroe and Point of Rocks. In the Civil War, among the wounded brought in from the battlefield to Point of Rocks was a lad about sixteen or seventeen years of age. One of his arms, and a leg, had been amputated.
Away from home! Crippled for life! Homesick, and no “tear for pity.” Hope gone! No, not all hope. He still has his Mother—“She floats upon the river of his thoughts.”
A Mother is a Mother still The holiest thing alive.
“Mother, come to me—thine own son slowly dying far away.” “No, you _can’t_ come. May I come to you, my dearest Mother?”
Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, Mother, O Mother, my heart calls for you!
His soldier chum heard his pleadings and interceded: “Miss Barton, can’t we _possibly_ find room for this boy on the boat going down to Fortress Monroe tonight? I think he has grit enough to live.” Miss Barton, turning to the boy said: “My dear boy, you _shall_ go, though they have sent word they can take no more.” The boy was taken down a long steep hill on a stretcher, tenderly placed in a nice comfortable cot way up on the hurricane deck, to dream of home and Mother.
XIX
The test of civilization is the estimate of woman.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
A woman who is resolved to be respected can make herself so, even amidst an army of soldiers. CERVANTES.
Clara: Go, if it is your duty to go. I know soldiers, and they will respect you and your errand. STEPHEN BARTON (_Her Father, an old soldier_).
To a gentleman every woman is a lady, in right of her sex.
GEORGE ELIOT.
Man pays deference to woman instinctively, involuntarily.
GAIL HAMILTON.
I gaze upon the men through blinding tears of admiration and respect, and sing in my heart “It is well to be a soldier.”
CLARA BARTON.
TRIBUTE OF LOVE AND DEVOTION
“I was young and strong and loved to walk,” says Clara Barton. “I had four great wagons loaded with supplies for sick and wounded soldiers coming in the rear, so I decided I would not get my feet wet, but wait for my wagons and cross in one of them. The soldiers splashed right through in solid ranks, the water being only about a foot deep. Suddenly the captain of a company in the middle of the stream called out to his men ‘Company, Fours, Left, March! Halt! Right, Dress! Front! Now, Boys, There stands Clara Barton. I want you to kneel down in the water on your right knees, and let Miss Barton walk across on your left knees.’ This order the soldiers instantly obeyed, and I stepped from knee to knee, the soldiers reaching up and holding my hands, and passed dry shod to the other shore.” As Miss Barton related this incident the tears streamed down her cheeks, and she said, “This was the most beautiful tribute of love and devotion ever offered me in my life.”
XX
All the elements of desolation have traced such lines upon that face as no mortal artist ever drew, and filled it with emotions that no music could incite. Oh, the power of the expression of the face of Clara Barton! CONGRESSMAN PORTER H. DALE.
Welcome ever smiles And farewell goes out sighing. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
Her smile which cheered—like the breaking day.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
A smile is a thankful hymn. GERALD MASSEY.
A smile—the effusion of fine intellect, of true courage.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
A tender smile, our sorrow’s only balm. YOUNG.
Smile and the world smiles with you. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
A smile that turns the sunny side o’ the heart On all the world. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
Duke of Marlborough—his fascinating smile and winning tongue, equally with his word, swayed the destinies of Empires.
WILLIAM MATTHEWS.
Smiles are the language of love. HARE.
Smiles more sweet than flowers. SHAKESPEARE.
Smiles are better teachers than mightiest words.
GEORGE MCDONALD.
Smiles are smiles only when the heart pulls the wire.
THEODORE WINTHROP.
Smiles, not allowed to beasts, from reason move. DRYDEN.
Sweet intercourse of looks and smiles, for smiles from reason flow.
MILTON.
There is no society where smiles are not welcomed.
WILLIAM MATTHEWS.
A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape. LAVATER.
Her smiles were like the glowing sunshine. BULLARD.
If He has a place and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. A. LINCOLN.
Clara Barton’s energy and humanity, with a “God bless you.”
Boston (Mass.) _Journal_.
A noble and attractive everyday bearing comes of goodness, of sincerity, of refinement. WILLIAM MATTHEWS.
I have no higher ambition than to work obscurely, and singly, where I can see the greatest necessity. CLARA BARTON.
CHEERING WORDS—ALWAYS READY—WEARS A SMILE
No being other than the human knows how to wear a smile. A smile is as significant as are words—the smile oft proclaims the mind. Wearing apparel is the gift of man; the smile, the gift of nature. Wearing apparel wears out; the smile that is genuine never wears off. Of a woman it is said her face is her fortune. It also may be said, to rob the world of woman’s smile would leave the human race poor indeed. Of Clara Barton an author has said, “her heart made music and her face radiated sunshine.” Of Clara Barton a soldier said, “No discordant word ever escaped her lips; in camp or on the field she always wore a smile.” Her smile and her cheering words won the heart of the private soldier, the heart of royalty—won the heart of the world.
A woman without effort may receive a “windfall,” in wealth; but success is achieved through personal qualities, by effort. Said a writer: “The life of Clara Barton should be familiarized to every child. Her history and work should be as well known to the young of the nation as those of the great Presidents. Her history should be taught in the public schools for the enlightenment of all pupils, boys and girls, that they may realize how great a task for humanity was undertaken and accomplished, by a weak woman.”
It was at Fredericksburg. The rising sun was casting its rays aslant the eastern sky. The boys had just come off picket-duty. Their fingers were stiff with cold; their clothes, wet and frozen. Five or six of the comrades went to the rear; there they discharged their rifles. Then they went to a brick house one quarter mile distant—where they found Clara Barton. In anticipation of their proposed call, Clara Barton was ready. She had not forgotten, when a little girl, how she suffered from the cold, fell unconscious in a pew at Church and was taken home with frozen feet. She had for them a “blazing-hot” fire, and also had prepared for them plenty of hot ginger tea. In the gloom of war’s woes all must wear “sorrow’s crown of sorrows;” but, seeing them approaching the house, she met them at the door with a smile—with greetings as kindly as if they had been her long-ago friends, of happier days.
At a recent annual reunion of _her_ regiment Comrade Vincent, in tears while relating the incident, said “THAT’S CLARA BARTON. I will never forget that smile and that welcome.” In speeding her parting guests, at the door she said: “God bless you, my boys! If I can do anything for you at any time, call on me—it is never too late nor too early. I want you to know you will always find me ready.”
XXI
From the days of earliest cravings for “fairy stories” there have been recounted to young people the wonders wrought by that noble woman of New England. Oakland (Cal.) _Tribune_.
Clara Barton’s work in Cuba, in 1898, added still greater luster to her glory. Holyoke (Mass.) _Telegram_.
We have heard soldiers, who faced death green-eyed, tell with quivering voice of Clara Barton’s services before the Battle of Santiago when, perched on a gun-carriage, she gave directions to the doctors and nurses. Lexington (Ky.) _Herald_.
Miss Barton, when your country was in trouble (1776) Spain was the friend of America; now Spain is in trouble, America is her enemy. GENERAL BLANCO (_In a Salon, Santiago de Cuba_, 1898.)
Miss Barton, you will need no directions from me, but if any one troubles you let me know. ADMIRAL SAMPSON.
God will not call me home until my work is done.
CLARA BARTON.
There was an Overruling Providence when the “State of Texas” was loaded for Cuba. CLARA BARTON.
I have with me a cargo of 1400 tons, under the flag of the Red Cross, the one international emblem of humanity known to civilization. CLARA BARTON.
A man said to me “The Red Cross has been a fairy godmother to us.” CLARA BARTON.
Wherever men fight and tear each other to pieces, wherever the glare and sound of war are heard, there the Red Cross aims to plant the white banner that bears the blessed sign of relief.
CLARA BARTON.
The Red Cross has come to quicken into fresh new growth the best things in life. CLARA BARTON.
Our Red Cross century tree blossomed in the smoke, and valor, and wails of the Spanish-American War. CLARA BARTON.
The highest and best in the land stood under the cooling shade of the Red Cross, and breathed its atmosphere of peace, love and help. CLARA BARTON.
The Red Cross recognizes no features other than the relief of the victims and the mitigation of the horrors of war. CLARA BARTON.
The Red Cross is founded in the soundest and noblest principles, in the deep needs of human nature and in the enduring instincts of mankind. CLARA BARTON.
Men do not go to war to save life; they might save life by keeping the peace, and staying at home. CLARA BARTON.
Men go to war solely with the intent to inflict so much pain, loss and disaster on the enemy that he will yield to their terms.
CLARA BARTON.
It is a wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war. It is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war. CLARA BARTON..
In no other country, as in ours, have the people so often risen from a state of unreadiness and accomplished such wonderful results—at _such a sacrifice_. CLARA BARTON.
As friends of humanity, while there is still a possibility of war or a calamity, it behooves us to prepare. CLARA BARTON.
The memories of pitiful Cuba would not leave us.
CLARA BARTON.
To those who could not understand, Heaven came; to those who could, “Cuba Libre.” CLARA BARTON.
Not with the booming of cannon; not with the shouts of victory, but with the singing of Christian hymns and the outstretched hand of help,—never before in the history of warfare was there triumphant entry such as this. WM. E. BARTON, D.D.
Oh, the horrible, useless, tragic waste which no Peace Congress has yet been able to avert! O treacherous fate! That made the great woman of peace wait to see men of blood go before her to kill, to wound, to devastate. ALICE HUBBARD.
Could it be possible that the commander would hold back his flagship and himself, and send forward, and _first_, a cargo of food on a plain ship, under direction of a woman? Did our commands, military or naval, hold men great enough of soul for such action? It must be true, for the spires of Santiago rise before us. How sadly the recollection of that pleasant memorable day has since recurred to me! CLARA BARTON.
HORRIBLE DEED—LEADS AMERICAN NAVY—ANGEL OF MERCY
“Go to the starving Cubans!” She went. She had been entertained by Captain Sigsbee and his officers on the Maine the evening before the explosion. “Remember the Maine!” became the war cry.
War was declared. The Government wired: “Take no chances; get out of Cuba.” She returned to Florida to await events. The blockade of Cuban ports followed; the war was on. Let Clara Barton draw a picture of the war scene:
“War has occurred four times in the United States in 120 years. Four times men have armed and marched; and its women waited and wept. But we cannot always hold our great Ship of State out of the storms and breakers. She must meet and battle with them. Her timbers must creak in the gale. The waves must dash over her decks; she must lie in the trough of the sea. But the Stars and Stripes are above her. She is freighted with the hopes of the world. God holds the helm; and she is coming into port.”
REPRESENTATIVES RESPECTIVELY OF THREE WARS
Bullets had done their ghastly work; disease had run riot amidst filth and squalor. Starvation had stalked ruthlessly over the island. “May I return to the starving,” asked Clara Barton, “with my relief ship of supplies now in waiting?”
“Not so,” replied Admiral Sampson, “I go first; I am here to keep supplies out of Cuba.”
“I know, Admiral, my place is not to precede you. When you make an opening I will go in. You will go in to do the horrible deed. I will follow you and, out of the human wreckage, restore what I can.”
Cervera’s fleet was at the bottom of the sea, or wrecked on the shores. Spanish Cuba doomed, the enemy had raised the white flag, capitulated; soldiers, sailors, civilians, women and children, the human wreckage. Fateful days! Enough crime and misery rampant to satisfy the God of War and the imps of regions infernal.
Fair land of Cuba! on thy shores are seen Life’s far extremes of noble and of mean; The world of sense and matchless beauty dressed, And nameless horrors hid within thy breast.
Cuba! Thou still shalt rise, as pure, as bright As thy free air—as full of living light;—
The American navy, with flags flying, in triumph was ready to enter the Bay of Santiago. The Red Cross Flag floats from the flagstaff of the State of Texas. The Admiral gives the order that the “Red Cross Ship” is to lead; that now “flag-ship” moving majestically, is commanded by a woman—that woman “The Angel of the Battlefield.” Moving over the smooth waters of the Bay that Angel with her cospirits thrilled the ear with the patriot’s song “My Country ’Tis of Thee;” and there too the little band of crusaders, while nearing the holy wreckage they would rescue, touched the human heart with the grandest of all hymns of gratitude, “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.”
As on the Island of Corsica nearly three decades before, again there goes in spirit to Heaven the prayer of Clara Barton: “And I pray, Oh! how earnestly, once more to battle with error; to help sever the shackles of the oppressed of every name and kind; to hold firm the right and to set right the wrong; to raise up the weak against the power of the mighty; to make our country what it should, and must, be—true and just as well as great and strong. Once more to comfort the afflicted; to give rest and shelter to the weary, water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry; to stay the tide and bind the wounds that bleed, or to take the farewell message and point the glazing eye to hope and heaven.”
There is a woman, it’s the Red Cross! My God, boys, it’s Clara Barton! now we’ll Get something to eat. (_Starving children._)
“Majestic in simplicity” and of more heraldic splendor than that of the army and navy, with their thousands of heroes, stands the little woman overlooking the scene of woe’s misery. There on the peaceful waters are the destroyers that had done the “horrible deed;” there on the bridge of the Peace-Ship, leading all others, stands the “Angel of Peace,” who will restore what she can; and before the eyes of all lay the “Gem of the Ocean,” strewn with life’s woes—a scene of pathetic grandeur unequaled in the annals of history.
Miss Barton: Admiral Sampson, I wish to express to you my sincere appreciation of your exceeding courtesy in permitting my ship to precede the battleships into Santiago.
Admiral Schley (in a side remark): Don’t give the Admiral too much credit, Miss Barton; he was not quite sure how clear of torpedoes the channel might be. Remember that was a _trial trip_.
XXII
Clara Barton dressed the wounded of both armies indiscriminately—a practice which first annoyed and sometimes angered the Union officers—from whose headquarters she worked. IDA TARBELL.
Be generous and noble. CLARA BARTON.
War is in its very nature cruel—the very embodiment of cruelty in its effects—not necessarily in the hearts of the combatants.
CLARA BARTON.
As the daughter of a Mason my Father bade me to seek and comfort the afflicted everywhere, and as a Christian he charged me to honor God and love mankind. CLARA BARTON.
Baron Thomas B. Macaulay thought it not a mitigation but an aggravation of the evil that men of tender culture and humane feelings, with no ill will, should stand up and kill each other.
CLARA BARTON.
It is comforting, in our reflections upon the past, to know that the idea of humanity to an enemy in distress is not entirely modern; for Xenophon in Cyropaedia, about 400 B.C. represents Cyrus the Great as ordering his surgeons to attend the wounded prisoners.
CLARA BARTON.
A wounded Confederate that Clara Barton had been serving whispered to her, “Lady, you have been kind to me—every street and lane in the city is covered with cannon. When your entire army has reached the other side of the Rappahannock, they’ll find Fredericksburg only a slaughter pen. Not a regiment will escape. Do not go over or you will go to certain death.”
PERCY H. EPLER.
AT GALVESTON FLOOD
Major McDowell, ex-Union soldier, wounded—assistant to Clara Barton: Comrade, here is some clothing for you.
Ex-Confederate: But, Major (hesitating), I am an ex-Confederate soldier....
Major McDowell: God bless you, poor suffering soul; what difference does that make—here, will this fit you?
Love and tears for the Blue Tears and love for the Gray. FRANCES MILES FINCH.
CONFEDERATES AND FEDERALS ALIKE TREATED
Quite a number of wounded Confederate officers were brought to us. They shared alike with our own men. They were amazed, said C. M. Welles, at the kindness of northerners, particularly at a Massachusetts lady (Clara Barton) devoting herself to them as freely as to her own neighbors. One of them, a captain from Georgia, needed shirt, coat, stockings and something to eat. After being supplied, he said to me, while tears were streaming down his face, “Sir, I find that I have mistaken you; and, if I live to return, I will never fight against such a people any more.”
An Angel of Mercy,—her touch they will miss, That was felt by the Boys of the Blue and the Gray; But her name is still fragrant with Service, and this Will inspire their sons in the Cause of Today.