ANGEL OF BATTLEFIELD

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3211, 2 August 1932, Page 7

ANGEL OF BATTLEFIELD

DURING AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Who: Clara Barton.. Where: The United States. (When: Nineteenth to twentieth centuries. Why famous: An American humanitarian. Coming of sturdy New England parents, born on a farm, she wos somewhat incongruously christened Clarissa Harlowe, after the heroine of Samuel Richardson’s eighteenth century romance. But the simple Clara proved more practical, the middle name being dropped altogether. As a child she was filled with fear for herself; yet she was accustomed to activity of mind and of body and, where the welfare of others was concerned, could move quickly and courageously. For a time shetaught in New Jersey, ‘‘a teacher dyed in the wool” as she said of herself. Later, as she had been a pioneer in public school work so she was a pioneer among government employees at the Patent Office in Washington. Then, at about 40, her real work began.

Clara Barton was a born nurse. During the first year of the Civil War she remained in Washington, ministering to the wounded who were brought there. When finally she resolved to go to the front, it was no easy task to procure the necessary pass; but she succeeded in the summer of 1862. By her deeds of mercy towards the soldiers throughout the innumerable campaigne, seiges and battles, she won for herself the title, “Angle of the Battlefield.” Like Florence Nightingale, whose contemporary she was but whom she never knew, Clara Barton manifested' astonishisg powers in her task. Having observed at first hand the functioning of the Red Cross Society during the Franco-Prussian War she was instrumental in inaugurating the movement in America. For 22 years she as president of the American Red Cross, directed its activities. On two continents she herself ministered to suffering humanity not in warfare only, but likewise in various catastrophes.