The Impact Of Clara Barton During The Civil War

Nursing made a big impact during the Civil War and Clara Barton helped make that impact. Clara Barton was born in North Oxford, Massachusetts, on December twenty-fifth, eighteen twenty-one. Her full name was Clarissa Harlowe Barton but they shortened Clarissa to Clara. She was raised with four older siblings, they were Dorothy(1804), Stephen(1806), David(1808), and Sally(1811). When she was six her oldest sister Dorothy suffered a mental breakdown and never regained her health. Clara’s older brother Stephen, taught her arithmetic, which helped her both in school and later in life. Her other brother David taught her to ride a horse and play outdoor games, David was her favorite sibling. When her brother David fell off a barn roof he

Clara liked school, but she was sad because she realized that her mother enjoyed getting rid of her for most of the day. As Clara entered her teen years she tutored poor children, and nursed the sick during the smallpox epidemic. Clara liked to work where she could help others. She started her career as a teacher, she opened the nation’s first free public school in New Jersey in 1852. She had her first experience of nursing at age 11, and she was also one of the first women to work in a government office (1854). She also wrote several books, including The Red Cross (1898), A Story of the Red Cross (1904) and The Story of My Childhood (1907). Clara Barton had a rough childhood but she didn't let that stop her from

Clara once said “While our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand, feed and nurse them.” During the war Clara went to the railroad station when the victims arrived, and nursed 40 men. Clara distributed supplies and nursed the wounded soldiers. One time when she was bringing supplies to the battlefield a bullet came so close to her it pierced through the sleeve of her dress, and killed the soldier she was working on. Clara soon became in charge of all the army hospitals. They then nicknamed Clara the “Angel of the Battlefield.” On the third night of the Battle of Chantilly came thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain, but the army wagons kept on bringing more dead and wounded soldiers to the tent. The tent then started to flood and the water got up to Clara’s knees! Clara wrote in her journal “I remember myself sitting on the ground, upheld my left arm, my head resting on my hand, impelled by an almost uncontrollable desire to lie completely down and prevented by the certain convicted that if i did, water would flow into my ears.” She then slept for two hours straight. Clara loved helping people, she fed wounded soldiers that she knew would not be able to eat for a while. She quickly recognized them as men she had grown up with, and some she had even taught. She would read books to