A Story of the Red Cross Glimpses of Field Work   By: Clara Barton (1821-1912)

[Illustration: CLARA BARTON

From a photograph taken in St. Petersburg in July, 1902, showing the decorations conferred upon her by the Czar and the Empress Dowager]

A STORY OF THE RED CROSS

GLIMPSES OF FIELD WORK

BY

CLARA BARTON

FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS AND PRESIDENT, 1881 1904

[Illustration: Logo]

NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY MCMIV

COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Published, June, 1904

PREFACE

Since the foundation of the Red Cross in America, many direful calamities have afflicted the country. In each of these visitations the Red Cross has acted in some degree as the Almoner the distributer and organizer of the bountiful measures of relief that have been poured out by the American people.

Its work has been accomplished quietly and without ostentation. All the relief has been administered not as charity but as God sent succor to our brothers and sisters who have been overwhelmed by some mighty convulsion of the forces of nature.

The wreckage has been cleared away, the stricken people have been wisely, tenderly, and calmly guided out of panic and despair on to the road of self help and cooperative effort to restore their shattered homes and broken fortunes; and then the Red Cross has retired as quietly as it came, and few, outside of the people immediately concerned, have realized the beneficent powers of help and healing that have fallen like a benediction upon the stricken wherever that sacred symbol of humanity has made its way.

It is my thought that a brief account of the work of the Red Cross during the past twenty five years will be of interest to the American people. In a volume of this size it must of necessity be but a brief outline, sufficient, however, to convey a clear impression of what the Red Cross really means to every individual in this great country of ours.

To the thousands of American men and women whose generous bounty has made the work of the Red Cross possible, to the stricken and distressed who because of it have been helped back to life and hope, and to all the friends of the great, universal humanity which it typifies, this small book is lovingly dedicated.

CLARA BARTON.

GLEN ECHO, MARYLAND, May 15, 1904.

CONTENTS

I PAGE EARLY HISTORY. 1880 1884 1

II

THE TEXAS FAMINE AND THE MOUNT VERNON CYCLONE. 1885 1888 30

III

YELLOW FEVER IN FLORIDA. 1887 38

IV

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 1889 54

V

THE RUSSIAN FAMINE. 1891 70

VI

THE SEA ISLAND RELIEF. 1893 77

VII

ARMENIAN RELIEF. 1896 94

VIII

CUBA. 1898 115

IX

GALVESTON. 1900 164

A STORY OF THE RED CROSS

I

EARLY HISTORY

1880 1884

"I have lived much that I have not written, but I have written nothing that I have not lived."

It was a little blue eyed girl of ten who sat on a low hassock at my feet, slowly drawing the soft auburn curls between her fingers, when, suddenly lifting her head and looking me earnestly in the face, she exclaimed: "What is the Red Cross? Please tell me about it; I can not understand it."

There was a pleading earnestness in the tone not to be resisted, and laying down my pen I commenced to explain to her the principles, history, and uses of the Red Cross. She listened anxiously, the pretty brow knitted; she seemed more and more perplexed, until, as if a light had broken over her, she exclaimed, half impatiently: