XVI
Clara Barton carried on her work in the face of the enemy, to the sound of a cannon, and close to the firing line.
Boston (Mass.) Transcript.
So long as the Republic lives the name of Clara Barton will be honored. Roswell Record.
Clara Barton—Glorious Daughter of the Republic!
The Buffalo News.
Clara Barton performed work for wounded soldiers often at the risk of her life. Phebe A. Hanaford, Author.
Clara Barton—right into the jaws of death she went, ministering to the wounded, soothing the dying.
Chaplain Coudon (of G. A. R.)
National House of Representatives.
Follow the cannon. Clara Barton.
The soldier has been supposed to die painlessly, gloriously, with an immediate passport to realms of bliss eternal. Clara Barton.
The soldier who has fallen in battle “with his face to the foe” has been regarded as a subject of envy, rather than pity.
Clara Barton.
If wounded and surviving, the honor of a soldier’s scars has been cheaply purchased, it has been supposed, though he strolled a limping beggar. Clara Barton.
Only a small portion of the thought of the generations of the past has been devoted to the subject of devising, or affording, any means of relief for the wretched condition resulting from the methods of national and international strife. Clara Barton.
The pitiable neglect of men in war appears to have constituted one of the large class of misfortunes for which no one is to blame, or even accountable, assuming that wars must be. Clara Barton.
Go card and spin,
And leave the business of war to men. Dryden.
I am a U. S. soldier and therefore not supposed, you know, to be susceptible to fear. Clara Barton.
The Bravery of Women — Clara Barton’s Bravest Act
When asked where occurred her bravest act, Clara Barton replied: “At Fredericksburg.” She made headquarters at the Lacy House, just north of the Rappahannock River. While there, the surgeon in charge of the wounded on the south bank of the river sent a special messenger to Miss Barton to come across with her assistants and supplies at once. As a soldier and as an American patriot, she obeyed orders and followed the flag over the bridge and on to the battle field. In later years describing the women who went to the war Clara Barton sings:
The women who went to the field, you say,
The women who went to the field;—what did they go for—?
Did these women quail at the sight of a gun?
Will some soldier tell us of one he saw run?
In referring to the incident, in her experience at Fredericksburg, she said: “As I walked across this bridge with the marching troops, the bullets and shells were hissing and exploding in the river on either side of me, the long autumn march down the mountain passes—Falmouth and old Fredericksburg with its pontoon bridge,—sharp-shooters—deserted camps—its rocky brow of frowning forts—the one day bombardment, and the charge!” There, unperturbed, among the men was Clara Barton, there in the broad glacis, the one vast Aceldama, where—
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Were mingled war’s rattle
With the groans of the dying.
REPRESENTATIVE SUFFRAGE LEADERS