sisters, she being the youngest of the family
of five. She learned something of business
methods by serving as book-keeper for her
brother Stephen, a majiufacturer. Adopting
at an early age the profession of teacher,
she taught school for several years in North
Oxford, and then attended the Clinton Liberal
Institute in Central New York, where she
studied the higher branches of learning. On
leaving the Institute she went with some
friends to New Jersey. In that State there
were then no public schools worthy the name.
At Bordentown she obtained permission of the local authorities to open a free school. The school began with six boys, others came in, and soon her room was filled. Before long the borough built a .school-house costing four thousand dollars, and a little later the free public school of Bordentown, with Miss Barton at its head, had six hundred pupils and eight teachers. On account of failing health she at length resigned her position as teacher and went to Washington to recuperate. A few months later she became a clerk in the Patent Office. This was in 1854. Losing her ])Osition when Buchanan was President, she regained it after the election of Lincoln. Immediately upon hearing of the assault on the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment at Baltimore, she offered her services to the War Department. Through her personal appeals and active effort train-loads of supplies were secured and forwarded ' to the front for the soldiers in the field.
She visited the hospitals, and went with the Army of the Potomac, ministering on the battle-fields to the wounded. She personally superintended the forwarding of supplies, often riding on wagon trains many days and nights, reaching the scenes of bloodshed in time to minister to the wounded and dying.
Although her sensitive nature shrank from these scenes of war, she continued her humanitarian work in the thickest of the conflict. She was in the siege of Charleston, and was at Fort Wagner, Petersburg, and some of the other most important fields of warfare. Her ability, good judgment, quick perception, and tireless energy were appreciated by surgeons, commanding generals, and the officials at Washington; and every facility possible was placed at her disposal by those in power, for they realized that her services were invaluable.
At the close of the Civil War there were eighty thousand missing men on the muster- rolls of the United States. The work of examining these rolls and locating the burial- places of the fallen who were left on the field was an undertaking that required skill, fortitude, and patience. Miss Barton, however, was equal to the task, and instituted the " Bureau of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States." This was a great comfort to the anxious friends of martyred thousands, whose records and names were secured and placed on the official rolls at Washington. Through her instrumentality stones were placed over the graves of twelve thousand, nine hun- dred and twenty soldiers at Andersonville and tablets erected in memory of the four hundred "Unknown."
Miss Barton continued this work four years, expen(Ung fifteen thousantl dollars of her own funds, for which she was reimbursed by Congress.
In order to extend the interest in the returned soldiers who had suffered for their country, she often related at public gatherings stories of her experiences on the field and in hospitals.
In 1869 she was advised by her physician to visit Europe and take a much needed rest. She intended leading a quiet life abroad three years, but her fame had ])receded her. Arriving in Geneva, Switzerland, in September, 1869, she was visited the following month by the President and members of the "Inter- national Conunittee for the Relief of the Wounded in War," who desired her co-of)eration in securing the adoption by the United States of the treaty of the Red Cross.
The idea of forming permanent societies for the relief of wounded sohUers originated with Henri Dunant, a Swi.ss gentleman who had been deeply impressed by the scenes of suffering following tlie liattle of Solferino in Jime, 1859. Lecturing in Geneva before the "Society of Public LTtility," he interested M. Gustave Moynier, its president. Dr. Louis A])pin, and others. At a meeting of the society held in February, 1863, the subject
