Clara Harlow Barton (1821-1912)
Clara Barton taught school for nearly two decades before becoming one of the first female employee of the federal government, working in the Patent Office. After viewing the unprepared Union troops and inadequate care of the sick following the Battle of Bull Run, she organized donations and shipments of supplies to battlegrounds in Virginia and Maryland during 1862. While Dorothea Dix and the U.S. Sanitary Commission concentrated on organizing nurses, Barton worked with procurement and distribution. In 1865, with President Abraham Lincoln's support, she opened an agency to search for missing soldiers and marked the graves of nearly 13,000 men who died at Andersonville prison camp in Georgia. Following the Civil War, during a trip to Europe, she learned about the International Committee of the Red Cross, formed in Switzerland in 1863. She supported the cause of international cooperation and sought congressional approval for governmental support for the Red Cross, which was finally granted in 1882.
Additional Information Can Be Found At...
Clara Barton -- American Civil War Women
Creative Quotations from Clara Barton