CLARA BARTON¹Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton (1821–1912) was an educator, battlefield nurse, public lecturer, founder and first president of the American Red Cross, and, arguably, one of the most famous women in the world at the time of her death. Born in Massachusetts, she demonstrated throughout her life an iron will, a true empathy for sufferers, and the efficacy of political lobbying in accomplishing her goals. She first gained public attention during the Civil War with her valuable efforts to raise, organize, and distribute donated medical supplies and provisions to wounded Union soldiers on battlefields of the eastern theater. In the closing months of the war, Barton received approval from President Abraham Lincoln to establish an office that served as a clearinghouse for information on missing soldiers. Despite stiff resistance from the military bureaucracy, she worked effectively at this task through 1869 and was reimbursed $15,000 by Congress in recognition of her efforts. This letter to Douglass reveals Barton’s attempts in early 1869, as her missing-soldier project was drawing to a close, to convince Congress to purchase suitable Washington property and establish an industrial school for freedmen, with her as its head. Her efforts proved ineffectual, and so in September 1869 she left on a European vacation. During this time, she learned that the International Committee of the Red Cross had been formed in Geneva in 1863, and that the U.S. State Department was firmly against American participation in its activities. Barton vigorously lobbied Washington for more than a decade; the United States finally signed and ratified the Geneva Treaty in 1882. From then until 1904, Barton served as the first president of the American Red Cross, the organization with which she is still commonly associated. Elizabeth Brown Pryor, (Philadelphia, 1987), 153–54; , 1: 103–07. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Washington, D.C. 26 Jan[uar]y 1869.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS ESQ

MY MOST ESTEEMED FRIEND

Although my tired hand has swung its pen into the “wee sma hours” I cannot let it rest till it has fulfilled the promise to let you hear of my interview
with Genl Butler,²Benjamin Franklin Butler (1818–93) was a five-term member of Congress, the most notorious of President Lincoln’s political generals, and a long-term political patron of Clara Barton. The two natives of Massachusetts liked each other upon their first meeting, in June 1864, when Barton arrived at Butler’s Army of the James headquarters at Bermuda Hundred, south of Petersburg, Virginia. Butler staunchly supported Barton’s work in his army hospitals for the remaining six months that he served as its commander; afterward, he repeatedly brought her concerns before Congress, cabinet members, and even President Johnson as a member of the House of Representatives after the war. Although Butler was loyal to Barton, his stormy relationship with the Republican party meant that his power in Washington waxed and waned considerably. In truth, Barton’s most powerful, consistent, and trusted ally in Washington was always Massachusetts senator Henry Wilson, who served from 1855 to 1873. Stephen B. Oates, (New York, 1994), 249–50, 289, 353–54, 365, 367; Pryor, , 75–76, 110–11, 126–27, 130–33, 144–45, 178, 191, 222–23. which I was only able to gain today.

The Genl is favorably impressed, and offers any assistance in his
power, and desires me to ascertain what property or facilities may be had
here for the commencement of the work, and he will institute such a Bill,
or resolution as will secure the same from Congress—And Mr Brown³George T. Brown (1820–80) was sergeant at arms of the U.S. Senate from 1861 to 1869, spanning almost exactly the presidential administrations of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Born in Scotland, he moved with his family to Alton, Illinois, in the early 1830s, where as a young man he studied law and entered local and state politics under the tutelage of Lyman Trumbull. Along with Trumbull and Abraham Lincoln, Brown played a prominent role at Illinois’s first Republican state convention, in 1856. Trumbull served as U.S. senator for Illinois from 1855 to 1873, using his clout as chairman of the Judiciary Committee to ensure that Brown was elected the first Republican sergeant at arms on 6 July 1861. Though always concerned with the security and good order of the Senate, the sergeant at arms’ official duties were heavily entwined with partisan interests during this era; thus, Brown often performed special tasks for Lincoln, Republican senators, and their patrons. Brown’s efforts to assist Clara Barton to find property for a freedmen’s industrial school seemed to fit that pattern. For reasons now unclear, Brown was not reelected by the Senate in March 1869. He returned to Alton, where he died in relative obscurity. “George T. Brown, Sergeant at Arms, 1861–1869,” Senate.gov.
the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate has taken it upon himself to look up
the property, if it is to be found—Commencing <inquiries> with Genl
Howard⁴O. O. Howard. —and ending with Genl Grant⁵Ulysses S. Grant.—if need be—

This has been the work of today—rather a day of promises it must
be confessed, but if it lead to performances in the future, not all loss
perhaps—

My imagination points to you making the final arrangements for that
long Western War, and my very soul sympathyses with you, and yet it
is pleasant, with all its weariness.— I have between 500 & 800 applications this season from the Posts of the Grand Army over the entire United
States, a lack of my customary sound health has thus far prevented me
from speaking this winter but I had intended using the months of February & March as my strength returns,—but if this field of home labor
opens favorably before me—I shall not feel justified in leaving it for a
day—and I should count my pecuniary loss no sacrifice if thereby I add to
the well being of others—⁶Clara Barton’s primary means of financial support between 1866 and 1868 came from delivering a public lecture titled “Work and Incidents in Army Life.” Encompassing hundreds of communities throughout the North and the West, these speaking tours taxed Barton’s health almost as much as her wartime experiences did—thus her reference to “that long Western War.” Members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) proved to be the most enthusiastic supporters of Barton’s lecture tours. The GAR was the largest and most influential fraternal postwar organization of Union veterans. Established in Decatur, Illinois, in April 1866, the organization was initially little more than another Republican party campaign club. As the northern population wearied of Reconstruction in the 1870s, the GAR floundered somewhat, but rebounded in the 1880s when its focus shifted to attaining veterans’ pensions, lobbying for “loyal” history in school textbooks, and promoting American nationalism. The GAR reached its apogee in 1890, when it consisted of 490,000 members organized into hundreds of local posts located in every state. The organization formally dissolved upon the death of its last member in 1956. Stuart McConnell, (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), xiii–xiv, 24–25, 237; Oates, , 374–75.

Please give me your good wishes and your prayers, as you have thus of

Your most sincere friend

CLARA BARTON.

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 425R–26L, FD Papers, DLC.