Transcripts For CSPAN3 Clara Barton And The Missing Men Project 20151018

Clara barton during the civil war. Miss stiehm argues that she played a major role in playing for caring for soldiers during and after the war. This talk was hosted by Georgetown Public Library and it is about an hour. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for coming out this rainy day. I am the librarian here at the peabody room. A special collection of georgetown neighborhood history and it is part of the District Of Columbia Public Library special collections which consists of the washingtonian and black studies. Both of those are located at the Martin Luther king jr. Library. I would like to welcome miss jamie stiehm back. She has become one of our regulars here talking about a disparate group from American History. She is a syndicate columnist and contributor to usnews. Com, today she will speak about clara barton remarkable civil war humanitarian work. [applause] ms. Stiehm this is the Perfect Place to be speaking about civil war washington. The room itself takes us there. I am happy to see all of you. I will speak for about 20 minutes and then open the floor to questions. You probably know that clara barton was a civil war nurse. There was much more to her than that. She was a humanitarian. If she were alive today she might have one the nobel peace prize. To pick up in 1861, clara barton was a 39 year old single woman with new england written all over her demeanor. She could not rest easy until she found a way to join the army. From the first day that the flood blood was spilled in civil war, in baltimore, four died in baltimore. She was an raged because several of her enraged because several of her School Friends were among the dead. She rushed to the regiments aid, and self defined herself as one of the on the people that was there just for the soldiers, outside the government to ease their pain and suffering. She left her job as a copyist. She was a single, selfsupporting woman who lived on 7th street here in washington. She left her good job to witness scenes of mass misery that broke all the record books. She did not sign up for the army nursing core organized by dorsey addicts dorsia dicks. She flew solo into the unknown. A rare civilian in the fog of war. She witnessed many of the most harrowing battles. For one day, that was the Bloodiest Day in Civil War History and military history. She got to the farmhouse on the firing lines and she went to work. She brought lots of supplies given to her by womens aid groups that wanted to help soldiers. They saw she had brought the latest thing, a lantern. To illuminate the house, the porch, the surgeries that could not wait until morning. Later, in a littleknown coda to her civil war career, she went on an army mission to andersonville. It was a nightmarish georgia prison, or war camp, where thousands of, seated corpses thousands of emaciated corpses lay in mass graves. She honored the dead with similar military burial. This is the thing that the president personally asked clara barton to undertake. Stanton was so tough that even president lincoln was afraid of him. It was a huge honor for her to go to andersonville. In 1861, the massachusetts sixth regiment after being stoned in the streets of baltimore, losing four of their ranks, they retired to the capital in the new Senate Chamber to recuperate. The building was eerily quiet because the southern senators had said their farewells like jefferson davis. Basically the capital was out of business. Although the chamber that we know well had just been built. The building was empty of lawmakers, and outside the capital had no crowning dome. It was still a work in progress. Barton arrived soon after with her spirits lifted in furious sympathy for her home state men and friends. She made herself quickly busy and indispensable in the chamber. She read the newspaper aloud from the senates president chair and she distributed which he had collected of her own volition. She gave encouragement and her clear, low voice. In itself a comfort. Later, soldiers start for a starved for a womans presence, fighting for their lives, said just listening to her comforted them. The episode in the capital served as a spark and a template for bartons resolved to go to the war front. Whether it was a bruising defeat at the second battle of bull run, or a dispiriting loss at fredericksburg, she came armed with relief supplies to treat the injured of the army of the potomac. Fredericksburg was especially bad because it was in the winter of 1862. The Confederate Army had set up a trap for the Union Soldiers. It was a losing battle with somebody injured that family so many injured that family members came to their site their side including walt whitman. Like clara barton, he was galvanized by the civil war. He was like a volunteer nurse to soldiers, whom he visited nearly everyday. Getting access to the camps was made easier for clara barton thanks to letters written by her ally, senator henry wilson. Even so, barton had to overcome cultural obstacles and bureaucratic resistance to requests to get passes to the front. She spent valuable time here on 7th street, anxious about delays go to the battlefield. Where the union and confederate armies crashed, she cooked gruel, soups and meals for hundreds. Her own apple pie made a good dessert. She changed bedsheets, even those covered with dysentery. She cleaned and tended to wounds. She walked along the ward and offered sips of water or whiskey. She listened to the lovesick stories of a soldier whose real name was mary. A teenage runaway who ran from wisconsin to find her sweetheart in a regiment. A soldier begged clara barton to cut out an unbearable bullet from his cheek. All she had was a penknife, but she did it, with another Soldier Holding his head. In other words, barton did a lot of everything that desperately needed to be done. Nursing did not exist as a profession before the war. It was urgently invented on the job. The civil war, just passed it second summer, had already caused more bloodshed than either side ever anticipated with no end in sight. As the historian has observed, the American People had nothing to prepare them for the profound scale of death that the civil war brought. It affected lives in every remote city, even the island of nantucket which had stayed neutral. Clara barton held up pretty well under challenging conditions to say the least. She slept in a tent, or in the barracks. At other times, if Union Army Soldiers decided to take a more spacious break, living was easier. Those times were a winter both sides took a winter this is about the time she began to fall in love with a union army officer. Thats something they dont tell you in second grade. [laughter] for a period, starting in spring of 1863, barton dwelled on the island of hilton head, south carolina. It was the heart of rebel country. South carolina was the most intransigent of all the states. As the summer wore on, with hostilities raging between the sea islands have you ever been there . She described it this way we are being scorched by the sun, chilled by the waves, rock chilled by the waves, rocked by the trenches tempest, toiling day after day in the trenches. She was there until a summer day when union chips shelled the confederate held wagner on a nearby island. Barton watched them apartment the bombardment from lookout hill. She was a beautiful writer. She cut the scene so vividly. It was grand the armed description, despite the battle turning out badly for the union. Once again, a massachusetts regiment was making history. The famous 54th. Composed of africanamerican soldiers, commanded by a white officer, shaw. Formed shortly after the emancipation proclamation, the 54th led the leading brigades against shaw and roughly 200 of 600 of his soldiers died in this fierce engagement. Full dress, crossed the units and all bayonets and all. It was a testament to the bravery and gallantry of the 54th, because they went where no one else dared to go. In the south, this stoked the fire of racist hatred leading to a policy on paper that all black soldiers captured would be brutally treated and hanged. Certain death with no exchanges. The civil war cut uglier and uglier and demeanor meaner. It was an absolute nightmare that people considered it as a sporting event in the beginning, but then it escalated far past anyones nightmares. Tending to the wounded and dying soldiers at the beach hospital on bloodstained sand, she had a set exchange with an africanamerican soldier returning. A former slave who had and listed enlisted in 1854. In the 54th. He said, he knew that he was dying, but he thanked god that his children would be free. For me, that is the saddest line i have ever read about the civil war, and she was there to witness. This is according to bartons biographer. Such a man, barton felt, was a soldier of freedom. At the scene she told the dying black soldiers that they were soldiers for freedom. She caught the meaning of the word so beautifully. She was on the same page as Abraham Lincoln. Most people originally thought of the civil war as a way to keep the sides together, to save the union. But later it had expanded to liberty, freedom and justice. It was more about that than real estate. Tending to the wounded and dying soldiers at the beach hospital, she comforted and put down many dying soldiers. These were indelible images for the rest of her life that she told the public about later. Barton is often considered the civil war nurse who later founded the red cross. She was more than that. She is better understood as a forceful humanitarian who acted on her own, original, unorthodoxed, ideas. She helped establish the principle that the nations must remember, record, and bury its stead. Its dead. That comes from drews book called this republic of suffering. She is now the president of harvard. In 1865, clara barton was not taking a vacation. She opened up a small Correspondence Office in the boarding house where she lived on 7th street. It was called the friends of the missing men of the United States army. There was a waiting office where she met with hundreds of people over the course of a year. Thousands of people over the course of 23 years. She found a way to locate and identify with detective work where were these missing men. What battle where they in as they fell . At this time, she lost her job as a copyist at the patent office. It was kind of insulting. Nobody thanked her for all the work she had done. But you must see how resilient she was. Whatever slights she suffered, she always kept her eye on the larger cause. Here, i might add, that she ran on manic energy at the battlefield. She also suffered deep depressions. In a way she was alone in the world, but really not. She made the world her own. During the missing soldiers period of her life, she met a young man who not only survived andersonville, but he had saved a secret desk register. He was the aide to the commandant who kept records and stole the records. He wanted the world to know what had happened here. It was obviously a fate worse than death to be a andersonville. There was terrible disease, polluted water. It was unspeakable. The commandant of andersonville was hanged for war crimes after the civil war. She made it her personal mission, her destiny, to identify the roughly 13,000 Union Soldiers who perished there. An Army Expedition was ordered by stanton. A gruesome errand in the summer of 1865. You can imagine how hot it was in georgia under the blazing sun. It was a rough ride, because they were not happy to have her. In part, thanks to her urging, a new National Cemetery was quickly underway. When it was finally settled, in the hot georgia son, nearly all the union dead were identified. Some with emaciated remains. Along with 450 unknown soldier headboards. On an august day in 1865, that was recorded by harpers weekly, the american Stars Stripes parades over andersonville to reclaim the ground, the land itself, from the confederacy. Clara barton race the colors in the dedication ceremony, front with formal victory, but also with the hope of healing the torn human spirit. Thank you. [applause] i visited where clara barton lived on 7th street just yesterday. I can tell you, if youre curious about that. The rest of her life was very full as well because she went to switzerland where the red cross and the Geneva Convention were already in place. She came back to the United States with a determination to found the american chapter of the red cross. To persuade our leaders to be part of the Geneva Convention because she had personally witnessed some of horror and misery in wartime. She went through the crucible of the United States and lived to tell many stories about it. She lived on 7th street, near e, and in her later years in flynn echo. She really never stopped until she was in her 90s. She died at the age of 90. She retired about four years before her death. She was a very damn yankee, in my book. She was indefatigable. Want to know about her family or her education or what brought her to that moment where she was ready to take it on. Ms. Stiehm she was born and raised in north oxford, mississippi. Her family had a farm. In those days, there was no college for women, but she did go to a coed academy. Massachusetts girls were almost certainly the best educated in the whole United States, because it championed education for both. She was unusual to begin with coming to the south. This is the self. South in those days. She was close to her father and her brothers, she did not get along with her mother at all. She nursed one of her older brothers through a sickness for a year when she was young. This all came natural to her. She was a single woman. She never married. She was unusual in being a single, selfreliant woman here in washington. That gave her a seat at the spectacle of the civil war, and she was drawn into it. Does that answer your question . [indiscernible] could you talk more about how that became so they she got as well, and how common that was . Ms. Stiehm nursing was womens in work, or girls work. Growing up, a lot of girls knew how to nurse just the way that they knew how to milk a cow. It was something that was part of their skill set. During the crimean war, it was established as a profession for women, alongside teaching, being a governess, running a boarding house those were about the only avenues for advancement for women who were not married. The crimean war and the civil war were close in time and both established the need for more trained nurses, in emergencies, under pressure, in an organized hospital setting. My great aunt was a nurse and world war i. It was a female dominated profession for decades. It was an honorable one that women could undertake, if they could stand the sight of blood. Does that answer your question . There are a lot of Nursing Schools that universities that tried to elevate it to more than just bandaging wounds. When she went to geneva, did she meet the founder of the red cross . Ms. Stiehm im sure that she did. I know that she met with red cross officials. She was not that well aware of the red cross. When she got there, going to switzerland on a wellearned vacation, that she became acquainted facetoface with the red cross. That really became her most Lasting Legacy to this day. In her lifetime she was more famous than she is now as the civil war figure. Florence nightingale was the lady with the lamp, the angel of the battlefield. There was a period for a couple years where she was on the lecture circuit giving stories of her experiences in the civil war and she demanded the same lecture fee that Ralph Waldo Emerson received. She had a strong sense of her own dignity and duty. Did she helped establish the red cross in this country . Ms. Stiehm i dont know. You mean the same kind of resistance to the Geneva Convention . I dont think so. She was absolutely, completely determined and undaunted. It might take years to a compass what she set out to do. Have you seen pictures of her . She seems ageless and dignified. I saw a hand on this side of the room. No . You mentioned that she suffered from depression. Was there any indication of how she could get herself out of it . Ms. Stiehm there was the talk there was not the talk therapy and modern medicines that we have today and she has a few confidants and she wrote letters, detailed, deep, descriptive and flowing letters. I think that was just therapy. Day by day. Interestingly, Florence Nightingale and clara barton lived to be 90. They were very close in age. One was born in 1821 and the other in 1820. On christmas of 1861, she had her 40th birthday the civil war coincided with her age 40 to 44. She was well into adulthood. She had done some teaching as far as womens professions, they not run forld office said were not formally involved in politics. They do not have as much of a civic identity as a community or domestic role. Called thetually doctrine of separate spheres. Women had one and men had another and those should not intertwine that is neither here but if you are single that is neither here nor there. Yes. Could you say a little bit more about Florence Nightingale and the clara barton, their relationship or how they reviewed by society at the time . They were both very important, powerful people. Ms. Stiehm they carved out their own civic identity. They were not close, i wouldnt say they had a friendship, but obviously they knew of each other. The idea of the lady with the lamp happened in the 1850s with the crimean war. She came shortly after that so it was not completely a radical concept. They were both very headstrong and if they had been married, they might not have done what they did. You mentioned the author who is a great scholar of ethical medical advances. Are there biographies that you think are particularly good . This biography, which i have here, i found very valuable. There is an earlier one by elizabeth prior from the 80s and this one is in the 90s. I found it very illuminating and it would be nice to have a collection of letters. The one he quotes at length in here really brings her voice alive i think if she didnt become extinguished for distinguished for humanitarian work, she might have been a wonderful writer. We know that Louisa May Alcott also signed up to be a nurse in the civil war and found her greatest economic sensation in artistic inspiration in hospital sketches. Is that open to the public . Is it a historical sales Historical House . Is quiet and unassuming but there is a missing sign if you office signoldiers if you look for it. It is open thursday, friday, and saturday and there is a fee for rent in entrance. Play periodes music. Every time i had gone before, it was closed. I can tell you that it gives you a real feel for her everyday life. It is hardly touched. It has high ceilings, beautiful windows and it is right in the heart of the city near city hall and post office. It gives you a sense of her everyday walking, where she could get to on her own two feet. There are a few beds in the boarding house and that reminds you that that was a way of life in the 1860s. And Abraham Lincoln they went across the street to take him to a boarding house in this city, i think it is well worth going. It has the wallpaper that she liked. It doesnt have much furniture, but it is very evocative if you she was not for. Poor. S not she was from a welloff massachusetts family. She was well educated. She received a small inheritance from her father. She wanted to be somebody in the city, that is why she came here. It wasnt her ambition to get married and live on a farm house. The city was essential to her. You said that she fell in love with a general. What is the evidence of that . Letters or jacket ms. Stiehm he wasnt a general, he was a lieutenant. The evidence is very the love letters. We have a picture of him here. He wasnt married, but in wartime, rules tend to evaporate. You live very much in the moment, which is heightened and intensified. That was the love of her life. It was clear when the war ended that they would go their separate ways. [inaudible] ms. Stiehm i think he may have been a little older. He really cherished her. It was for her a great fountain for the expression of her deepest feelings. He spoke about how her voice was fragrance and love. It sounds a bit victorian flowery, but she was quite profound in her tenderness toward him and that she received back from him. That was her great romance of her life. In the middle of the civil war. Thats romantic, isnt it . Hilton head . Why didnt they marry . Ms. Stiehm it was clear that once the war was over they would go back to their everyday civilian lives and he was not going to leave his wife. [laughter] one little detail. What year did she found the red cross . You said she was in switzerland and then came to the United States . Ms. Stiehm she went on a twoyear voyage. It was important for her wellbeing to leave the scenes of the carnage. I think it was 1881. 60 or 70 . Ms. Stiehm 60. I said earlier that was her greatest legacy. That was her last legacy. I believe it to you to say if it i beat it to you to say if it leave it to you to say if it is the greatest. Clearly it was in concert with Everything Else she had done in her life. She was the perfect person to understand what a difference the red cross can make, and she was also the person who coined the term emergency preparedness. She thought big. She did not bring 100 bandages, she brought 1000 bandages. Do you think that had anything to do with her depression, that she never found anybody . Ms. Stiehm no, i think that her depression was with her for a lot of her life. Whenever she had a severe disappointment, like many of us, she needed to be by herself and put salve on the wound. She was able to rally after 23 days of being depressed, and maybe she wept and stayed home for a few days after the love affair was over, but that was not a special causal reason. It was with her all her life . Ms. Stiehm very likely she may have had manic depression. Her life story speaks of it. [inaudible] ms. Stiehm there was not a name for it then. Could you say more about andersonville . I dont know how you even begin to identify what is there now . Is there a big cemetery or museum . Ms. Stiehm as a matter of fact, yes. There is going to be a live Event Next Week in andersonville to mark the flag being raised by sarah barton, clara barton, and the soldiers being honored. Cspan is going to cover that, too. How do you identify thousands of emaciated corpses . I dont know. Maybe they had a name or a badge papers on their clothes. She was not doing this alone, she was working with a lot of soldiers that were infuriated and devastated by what they were witnessing. It was a way to pay homage to them. To this day, andersonville sends chills through peoples spines because, it was not just any war camp, it was human rights abuses. It was disgusting water. Being closed in close quarters when there were beautiful forests. They couldve gotten trick of could have gone a mile away and got in a drink of water, it was almost like they were trying to turn these men into corpses. It will be the marking of the 150 Year Anniversary of the dedication of andersonville. I have a picture that harpers weekly published of barton raising the colors. I can show you afterward, but to me that is her most outstanding legacy. That took sheer resolve, stamina, and love of country to be facing that kind of absolute wreckage of the human body, and trying to bring the human spirit to it. I am happy to take more questions, if you have them. About her temperament, her letters. Her prose is very touching and moving. She felt things very deeply and she lived at both extremes. [inaudible] ms. Stiehm letters to her family, letters to john elwell, who was her lover. She wrote a lot of letters. People did in those days and she lived right near the post office. [laughter] in fact, there is a 1948 commemorative stamp, which is on the flyer. Jerry found it. As it happens, my father was a stamp collector in the 30s and 40s growing up, he says i remember that stamp. It was in my collection. A nice circle. I wonder if you could say more about how well known she was at the time in the civil war. You said when it started she was working in the patent office. How did she become so well known . Ms. Stiehm she started out unknown and then gradually comforted so many soldiers that they went home with memories of her, if they got home. By wordofmouth, and that she was doing something so extraordinary. She wasnt a government nurse, it was her own gift to the union. And saving the union. By 1865, the fact that stanton had asked her to undertake this mission was remarkable. The fact that she met it with such courage by that time she was a national figure, in 1865. I dont think it was her goal to be famous, but that was incidental. She became the only woman doing what she did. Dont get me wrong, she had her vanity and her ambition for sure. She was conscious of slights, took them to heart. She didnt just rise smoothly, creamy it was not an easy path for her. There were obstacles and barriers along the way that really hurt her. She felt, i am just a woman. She wrote a very sarcastic letter, denigrating being a woman, when she was refused an advance that she asked for. She struggled. That they dont tell you how much she struggled for what she accomplished, and for her legacy, and for her vision. In these talks we have been giving, many of them are outsiders who follow their own voice and their own vision. Nobody more so than clara barton. You mentioned stanton. Did he have anything to do with cady stanton . Ms. Stiehm it would be her brother Elizabeth Cady stanton was not a stanton originally, so many she married into that family and they were distantly related. That is perfectly possible but i do not know for sure. Strong personalities in that family. Her husband was also famous. He was an abolitionist. They were a wellknown American Union family. Did she have a religious upbringing, and do you think that affected her or not . Ms. Stiehm no. Protestant, but not religious. Like Abraham Lincoln who went to church once and a while just to go. He wasnt a big believer in her. He wasnt a big believer either. In those days, being religious was fine, but it wasnt respect expected or required. War was going on, and that war came to washington first. This capital was in crisis. I told you that the capitol dome had not yet been built, by 1861. By 1863 it was about half finished, and by 18 62 when lincoln was inaugurated the second time it was done. He knew the power of that 1865 when lincoln was inaugurated the second time it was done. He knew the power of that symbolism. He refused to take a break or stop construction, we will see what happens. No, Abraham Lincoln wanted the unions capitol dome to be finished in four years, just inaugurated the second time it like the war. Otherwise, this capital was just it was like an army camp. At wasnt nice for it wasnt nice for ladies to step in the streets. It was a station for mobilization. Once the union got organized, than they were going to win the war. But for the first 1. 5 years, it didnt look good for that union. Lincoln could not find the right general. He said to mcclellan, if you are not going to use your army, may i borrow it . [laughter] then fredericksburg. Thankfully, the emancipation proclamation followed just days later. That shifted the whole round and meaning of the civil war. She caught on to that very quickly. I want you to realize that, not everybody was an abolitionist in 1861, including walt whitman. They just wanted to save the union. I heard that there were several hundred women who disguised themselves as men to be soldiers in the civil war. Is there any indication that shows she ever attempted to that . Ms. Stiehm did she want to cross dress . A lot of them were girls who were following sweethearts, like mary. There were a lot of girls who just wanted to be fight and be part of it. Clara barton never had that desire. She knew that her contribution was unique and that if she didnt do it, nobody else would. The pictures that you see of her, in some ways she looks very stately and refined and delicate. She went to the camps, she went to the battles. I dont think she ever wish she was fighting in them ever wished she was fighting in them. Did she ever receive any public accolades and her lifetime . Any medals or recognition from the government . Ms. Stiehm like the medal of freedom . The honor that stanton gave her to go to andersonville, that was the highest honor she could have gotten. She had to work for that one. But, through the rest of her life, she was considered to be a woman of remarkable talent and contribution and work ethic. That protestant work ethic that i kept hearing about growing up. My mother was a professor. She just had so much of it. When she was on her best game, when there was an emergency, when there were lives to be saved, she could not be stopped. It should make sense that there would be a ceaseoff between one woman and another, see saw between one woman and another. But she knew herself that she had these storms. Thank you very much. [applause] ms. Stiehm i appreciate your presence and your interest in clara barton. She deserves it. I have some pictures up here if you would like to take a look. And jerry found her address on 7th street in the city directory. [laughter] she and walt whitman in 1862. They did cross paths at fredericksburg. She was tending patients. He never wrote a poem about her. [laughter] he wrote a description of the scene under a tree with piles of legs and arms that had been cut off. That shocked his sensibility, and that is when he realized he was going back to washington. I enjoyed telling you about clara barton. Thank you so much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute,which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [indiscernible] known as the city of good neighborhoods, this weekend our cspan cities to her, joined by cable time warner explores the history and literary life of buffalo, new york. We will visit the mark twain room at the Buffalo County whose centerpiece are pages of the original handwritten menu of the adventures of huckleberry finn. Then we will see to book against the grain, about the history of buffalos first ward. The irish were desperate after the famine things were not great. It would take one relative to find out about jobs along the working in the Grain Elevators are in the mills, and then word would go back to ireland, do you want to come to buffalo . You werent going to cut become rich but you were going to have steady employment. They came to this neighborhood called the first ward, it has its name because when buffalo was first created in 1832 it was divided into five political wards. This area along the waterfront, along the river has always been the first ward. On september 6, 19 01, president William Mckinley was assassinated buffalo. We will tour the Buffalo History Museum exploring the mckinley exhibit that features events around his death and the gun it used to shoot the president. Then discover the history of the buffalo waterfront and how it has adopted from the nations green ascender to modern redevelopment. Right now we are at silo city. Originally built for different companies, but today all owned by rick smith. Besides being regenerated for many different purposes, for art, for music, we do history tours, we take people around the Grain Elevators and tell the story. There are productions that here, opera, poetry reading, also to different uses for these historic silos. Programs fromour buffalo today at 2 00 on American History tv on seas and three. The cspan cities to her, working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. Beginning, iom the look in the mirror and i dont see a president. My response to that was, quit looking in the mirror. But from the very beginning he just said, this is nothing i have ever thought about. Tonight former Public Relations executive on his book, run mitch run. I became convinced as we came towards the end of the process competitive, and i think if he had made a decision to do it he would have had his heart and soul and from the very beginning, it is not something he ever really thirsted after. Tonight at 8 00 eastern pacific on cspans two and q a. Next, San Diego State University Professor Elizabeth Cobbs talks about Alexander Hamiltons role in government. She describes how after the american revolution, state operated as separate countries, which often created problems. Hamilton argued during the Constitutional Convention for a strong, Central Government to mediate between states. This class is about 50 minutes. Elizabeth i think one of the most exciting things about history and World History is the way we discover how they are big