Clara Barton was raised in Oxford, Massachusetts. She always had a desire to help others in need. During the Civil War, she became a nurse and helped many wounded soldiers. Once the war was over she continued her work of helping others by creating the American Red Cross. Clara Barton was an American nurse, suffragist and humanitarian who is best remembered for organizing the American Red Cross.
On Christmas Day 1821, Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born in Oxford, Massachusetts. After her oldest brother David's accident, Clara found the need to tend others with serious injuries. At the age of 15, Clara became a teacher, later opening her very own public school in Bordentown, New Jersey. In the early 1850s, Barton moved to Washington D.C.
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She was also one of the first volunteers to show up in the Washington Infirmary in 1861. Barton parted the city hospital after her father's death and went on to help the wounded on the battlefield. She wasn't pleased being on the sidelines, so she started serving as an independent nurse in early 1862 in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Clara also took care of many other wounded soldiers in the Battle of Antietam. She had strong and healthy men help her carry water, and prepare food for the injured. Barton and her supplies in wagons traveled throughout the war with the Union Army helping and healing the wounded soldiers, Union casualties, and Confederate prisoners. She soon became known as "the angel of the battlefield" because of so many peopled she had helped during and after the Civil War.
In 1863, Clara moved from Hilton Heads Island to Morris Island to care for the rising amount of ill and wounded. She worked trying to figure out the cause of the disease on the Island and despite her hard work, she too became very ill and was in need to evacuate to Hilton Head Island. In 1865 Clara went back North when her brother and nephew had passed away. She then worked helping the War Department reuniting dead or missing soldiers and their loved