Fun Fact # 292 Angel Of the Battlefield

 Fun Fact #292

Angel Of the Battlefield

In a blood filled rail station Clara Barton worked to treat the victims of The Baltimore Riot, with many of them becoming the first casualties of the American Civil war. This was Clara’s first taste at being a nurse but it would be far from her last. She would spend the rest of the war organizing Ladies’ Aid Soldiers Societies (L.A.S.S. –quick sidenote they had to have planned that one out, I mean a women’s society called Lass, that's ingenious!--) across the North, attending to the wounded and even getting permission for nurses to be present at battles to treat the wounded quicker, often descending upon the wounded moments after they were injured.  

By the end of the war she was a national Hero having started “The Search For Missing Men Commission” which identifies bodies on battlefields, and given the title of “Lady in Charge” which gave her command over military hospitals. Using this new title, and her L.A.S.S. Network connections, She started up The American Red Cross, and later The American First Aid Society which still serves the US to this day. 

Image from: “The Dansville Area Historical Museum”