Existing comment:
Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office occupied much of the third floor of a boarding house on 7th Street in Washington, DC. After the office closed, Barton's landlord, Edward Shaw, remained at the site. The rooms were nearly untouched until they were rediscovered by the US General Services Administration in 1997. Items belonging to both Barton and Shaw were found and recovered by the GSA. In 2012, the GSA and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine signed an agreement to create a museum in the space, ensuring that Barton's legacy of caring will be known for generations to come.
"Our war closed int he spring of '65. Almost four years longer I worked among the debris, gathering up the wrecks, and sometimes, during the lecture season, telling a few simple war-stories to the people over the country, in their halls and churches."
-- Clara Barton, excerpt from post-war lecture, from The Life of Clara Barton: Founder of the American Red Cross, Vol II.
"March 11, 1865.
To the friends of missing persons; Miss Clara Barton has kindly offered to search for the missing prisoners of war. Please address her at Annapolis, Maryland, giving name, regiment, and company of any missing prisoner.
A. Lincoln"
"My rolls are now ready for the press; but their size exceeds the capacity of any private establishment in this city, no printer in Washington having forms of sufficient size or a sufficient number of capitals to print so many names."
-- Clara Barton, May 31, 1865, letter to President Andrew Johnson asking if the Government Printing Office could print the missing soldier rolls. |