Clara Barton

Clara Barton

My hero is Clara Barton. She was a nurse in the Red Cross who volunteered to help during the Civil War. She is my hero because she was able to help thousands of soldiers to get home afterwards.

Clara Barton was born in North Oxford on Christmas day in 1821 Massachusetts. Clara’s father worked in the military and always had stories to tell his daughter. His name was Captain Stephen Barton. His wife, Clara’s mother, was Sarah Barton. Miss Barton had four siblings: two sisters and two brothers. They were David, Sally, Stephen, and Dorothy.

When Clara was just seventeen she became a teacher in her home town. In 1859 she went away to college in New York. After her mother passed away she went on and moved to Washington D.C. There she got a job in a patent office but lost it because the men there didn’t like working with a woman.

Not even a year later, the Civil War started and Clara Barton volunteered to help men wounded in the fight. Finally after a while getting donations for supplies, she was allowed permission to help the soldiers on the battlefield. She was given the name “The angel on the battlefield” by one of the soldiers she nursed.

Sign

In the war she was almost shot and killed but luckily she didn’t have to worry any more because the war ended in 1865. After the war she helped over twenty-two thousand missing men that fought in the tragic war, get home. That’s why she is my Angel hero.

From that time afterwards Barton was a public speaker but soon began to get tired of her work and her doctor suggested a vacation. Clara went to Geneva, Switzerland for her vacation. A doctor there mentioned a nurse, Jean-Henn Dunnant, who had nursed men in European wars. The doctor who told her this, Doctor Appia, told her about the Treaty of Geneva. The volunteers created an organization called The Red Cross, a symbol for the people to wear that had helped in war. In her time there a war started in Europe and she became the first American to wear the Red Cross symbol.

When she returned home in America Clara asked the President to sign the Treaty of Geneva but President Hayes, who was President at the time, didn’t grant her permission. Within the year 1881, Clara Barton and a few friends formed the American National Red Cross Association. 1882 was the year President Arthur signed the Treaty of Geneva for Clara Barton’s heroic deeds. Sadly in the year 1912, Clara Barton passed away at the age 90 on April 13. Barton lived in between the years 1821 and 1912.

Clarissa Barton is my “Angel” hero because she wasn’t afraid to help others. She wasn’t afraid to walk on a battlefield to help someone in need. Clara Barton wasn’t afraid to be “An Angel on The Battle Field.”