Clara Barton Timeline

On April 19, 1861, the Baltimore Riot resulted in the first bloodshed of the American Civil War, drawing Barton toward battlefield relief work.

Image source: Baltimore riot of 1861

Prior to distributing provisions directly onto the battlefield, Barton used her own living quarters as a storeroom and distributed supplies with help from friends in early 1862, despite opposition from the War Department and field surgeons.

After coming to the aid of an overwhelmed surgeon following the Battle of Cedar Mountain in Northern Virginia in August 1862, Barton became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield".

Image source: Battle of Cedar Mountain

In August 1862, Barton finally gained permission from Quartermaster Daniel Rucker to work on the battlefront lines.

In 1863, Barton rebuffed a request from a Copperhead Democrat, T.W.

In April 1863, Barton accompanied her brother David to Port Royal, South Carolina, in the Union-occupied Sea Islands after he was appointed quartermaster within the Union Navy. She resided there until early 1864.

Image source: Port Royal Experiment

In 1864, Union General Benjamin Butler appointed Barton as the "lady in charge" of the hospitals at the front of the Army of the James.

Image source: Benjamin Butler

From 1865 to 1868, Barton delivered lectures around the country about her war experiences, achieving widespread national recognition.

Barton spent the summer of 1865 helping find, identify, and properly bury 13,000 individuals who died at Andersonville prison camp, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia.

Image source: Andersonville Prison

In 1869, Barton closed the Missing Soldiers Office and headed to Europe for rest and travel.

Image source: Clara Barton

During her trip to Geneva, Switzerland, Barton was introduced to the Red Cross and Dr., setting the stage for her future humanitarian leadership.

Image source: International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

At the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Barton assisted the Grand Duchess of Baden in preparing military hospitals and gave the Red Cross society much aid during the conflict.

Image source: Franco-Prussian War

At the joint request of German authorities and the Strasbourg Comité de Secours, Barton superintended supplying work to the poor of Strasbourg after the Siege of Paris, and had charge of public distribution of supplies to destitute people in Paris in 1871.

Image source: Siege of Paris (1870–1871)

In 1878, Barton met with President Rutherford B. as part of her efforts to bring the Red Cross movement to America.

Image source: Rutherford B. Hayes

Barton became president of the American branch of the Red Cross society, which held its first official meeting on May 21, 1881, at her apartment in Washington, D.C.

Image source: American Red Cross

The first local society was founded August 22, 1881, in Dansville, Livingston County, New York, where Barton maintained a country home.

Image source: Dansville, Livingston County, New York

Between 1884 and 1888, Barton led Red Cross responses to the Ohio River floods, the Texas famine of 1887, the Illinois tornado of 1888, and that same year's yellow fever epidemic in Florida.

The Johnstown Flood of 1889 in Pennsylvania, which killed more than 2,200 people, was the first major disaster response for the American Red Cross under Barton's leadership.

Image source: Johnstown Flood

The physician in charge of medical relief in Zeitoun and Marash traveled with Barton's mission to the Armenian provinces in spring 1896, providing aid to victims of the massacres carried out by the Ottoman Empire in 1894–1896.

Image source: Hamidian massacres

Responding to the humanitarian crisis of the Hamidian massacres in the Ottoman Empire, Barton arrived in Constantinople on February 15, 1896.

At the age of 77, Barton worked in hospitals in Cuba in 1898 during the conflict period.

Image source: Spanish–American War

Barton's last field operation as President of the American Red Cross was helping victims of the devastating Galveston hurricane in 1900.

Image source: 1900 Galveston hurricane

Amid criticism over mixing professional and personal resources, Barton was forced to resign as president of the American Red Cross in 1904 at age 83, as her egocentric leadership style fit poorly into the organization's formal structure.

Though not formally a member of the Universalist Church of America, Barton identified herself in a 1905 letter to the widow of Carl Norman Thrasher as a "Universalist", aligned with her parents' church.

Image source: Universalist Church of America

Barton published her autobiography, The Story of My Childhood, in 1908.

On April 12, 1912, Clara Barton died in her Glen Echo, Maryland home at the age of 90 due to pneumonia.

In 1913, the third floor of Barton's old boardinghouse was boarded up, and the site was forgotten for decades.

Angel of Mercy, a biographical short film directed by Edward L., was released by MGM in 1939, depicting Barton's life.

Image source: The Angel of Mercy (film)

Barton was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973, honoring her pioneering contributions to nursing and humanitarian aid.

Image source: National Women's Hall of Fame

In Voyagers! season 1, episode 9, Phineas and Jeffrey rescue Barton from a burning wagon; Jeffrey applies mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, saving her life so she could go on to found the American Red Cross.

Image source: Voyagers!

Barton was featured in 1995 in a set of U.S. postage stamps commemorating notable Americans.

In 1997, General Services Administration carpenter Richard Lyons was hired to check out the old boardinghouse building before its demolition and rediscovered Barton's long-lost Missing Soldiers Office.

Clara Barton was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2008, recognizing her role in opening the state's first free school.

The Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office Museum, run by the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, opened in 2015.

In 2019, Barton was announced as one of the members of the inaugural class of Government Executive magazine's Government Hall of Fame.

In the HBO series The Gilded Age, Barton is played by actress Linda Emond, bringing her story to modern television audiences.

After closing in October 2015 for repairs and remaining shut through the COVID-19 pandemic into 2021, the Clara Barton National Historic Site reopened to the public in 2022, though its second and third floors remained closed due to structural concerns.

Image source: Clara Barton National Historic Site