She marked over twelve thousand. So when these
letters came imploring her aid, she began the search, visiting the old
prisons, and trenches and hospitals, until she removed from twenty
thousand names the possible suspicion that the men who bore them had
been deserters.
"No wonder that she came to Europe completely broken down in health, so
exhausted by her long, severe labors that her physician told her she
must rest several years. But hardly was she settled here in Switzerland
when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, and the Red Cross sought her
aid, knowing how valuable her long experience in nursing would be to
them. She could not refuse their appeals, and once more started in the
wake of powder smoke, and cannon's roar.
"But I'll not start on that chapter of her life. I would not know where
to stop. It was there I met her, there she nursed me back to life; then
I learned to appreciate her devotion to the cause of humankind. This
second long siege against suffering made her an invalid for many years.
"The other nations wondered why America refused to join them in their
humane work. All other civilized countries were willing to lend a hand.
But Clara Barton knew that it was because the people were ignorant of
its real purpose that they did not join the alliance, and she promised
that she would devote the remainder of her life, if need be, to showing
America that as long as she refused to sign that treaty, she was
standing on a level with barbarous and heathen countries.
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