Clara Harlowe Barton

Angel of the Battlefield The Story of Clara Barton
Clara Harlowe Barton played an important role in the Civil War. As a self-taught nurse, she had a natural compassion for those in need, and many an injured soldier saw her as a guardian angel during the War (Barton 1980). She was first there in 1861 to nurse the men wounded in the Baltimore Riot, where she tended to the men of the 6th Massachusetts Militia (Pryor 2018). She gave them more than just bandages and aid; she supported them morally and emotionally by reading to them—books, letters, whatever they wanted—and by writing their letters for them to families back at home (American Red Cross 2016).
Her contributions to the war effort were so significant that General Butler made her the “Lady in Charge” in 1864. In other words, she was put in charge of the Army of the James hospitals—all this without ever receiving any formal nursing education. The nickname that the soldiers gave to her—Angel of the Battlefield—was deserved because she would risk everything to minister to the soldiers wounded in the midst of battle, bringing them whatever comfort she could. She was devoted to them in a way few others ever were (Pryor 2018). She would often arrive at a battlefield seemingly just in the nick of time with necessary supplies to help surgeons save soldiers who had been wounded and might otherwise have died. This happened frequently time and time again—at the Battle of Fairfax Station, Harpers Ferry, Fredericksburg, South Mountain, Cold Harbor and many others (Tsui 2006).
Even at the end of the war, she was tireless in her devotion, running the Office of Correspondence with the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army
so as to assist families in finding out about soldier who never came home; thus, long before she started the American Red Cross, she showed that the true nursing spirit was to care as much for patients’ families as it was to care for the patient himself (Howard & Kavenick 1990).
Her impact on the Civil War was tremendous. Following the First Battle of Bull Run, she saw the need for nursing supplies and on her own volition she placed an advertisement in a Massachusetts newspaper—and a tremendous amount of supplies came in, which she then distributed wherever they were needed (Tsui 2006). Barton also showed the kind of spirit that Lincoln would later invoke in his 2nd Inaugural: compassion for both sides in the war. She nursed soldiers, whether they fought for the Union or the Confederacy. She did not bear anyone ill will; instead, she showed love and kindness for all people.
She became one of the most remarkable and well-known women through her contributions during the war because she was indefatigable: she never stopped, never begged off, never slouched, and showed more of what it means to be a nurse than any other formally trained nurse in the US at the time. She brought attention to the needs of the soldiers and may have even helped inspire the soldiers of the Union to continue fighting when the fighting seemed at its most hopeless early on.
Barton was personally devoted to the soldiers, and gave everything she could to them: clothing, food, supplies, care—whatever she could come up with. She inspired other women to do the same and thus she helped to spread a kind of fanatical devotion to the men fighting, bleeding and dying for their states and for their country in 19th century America.
Bibliography
American Red Cross. (2016). Who was Clara Barton? Retrieved from https://www.redcross.org/about-us/who-we-are/history/clara-barton.html
Barton, C. (1980). The story of my childhood. New York, NY: Arno Press.
Howard, A. & Kavenick, F. (1990). Handbook of American women’s history. New York, NY: Garland.
Pryor, E. B. (2018). Clara Barton. Retrieved from http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1200054;jsessionid=133CC1D7052A25878014724A371980C5
Tsui, Bonnie (2006). She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War. Guilford: Two Dot.