Her father was Captain Stephen Barton, a member of the local militia and a selectman who influenced his daughter's patriotism and humanitarianism.

In nursing her brother, she learned how to deliver prescription medications and perform the practice of bloodletting, in which blood was removed from the patient by leeches attached to the skin.

[13] Subsequently, under political opposition to women working in government offices, her position was reduced to that of copyist, and in 1858, under the administration of James Buchanan, she was fired because of her "Black Republicanism".

[13] After the election of Abraham Lincoln, having lived with relatives and friends in Massachusetts for three years, she returned to the patent office in the autumn of 1860, now as temporary copyist, in the hope she could make way for more women in government service.

The victims, members of the 6th Massachusetts Militia, were transported after the violence to the unfinished Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., where Barton lived at the time.

[13] Barton provided crucial, personal assistance to the men in uniform, many of whom were wounded, hungry and without supplies other than what they carried on their backs.

She learned how to store and distribute medical supplies and offered emotional support to the soldiers by keeping their spirits high.

[16] She worked to distribute stores, clean field hospitals, apply dressings, and serve food to wounded soldiers in close proximity to several battles, including Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.

"[19] In April 1863, Barton accompanied her brother, David, to Port Royal, South Carolina in the Union-occupied Sea Islands after he was appointed as a quartermaster within the Union Navy.

[20] Barton also became acquainted with Jean Margaret Davenport, an actress from England who was then residing on the Sea Islands with her husband, Union General Frederick W.

Among her more harrowing experiences was an incident in which a bullet tore through the sleeve of her dress without striking her and killed a man to whom she was tending.

[24] She was also known as the "Angel of the Battlefield"[14][25] after she came to the aid of the overwhelmed surgeon on duty following the battle of Cedar Mountain in Northern Virginia in August 1862.

This naming came from her frequent timely assistance as she served troops at the battles of Fairfax Station, Chantilly, Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Petersburg and Cold Harbor.

Motivated to do more about the situation, Barton contacted President Lincoln in hopes that she would be allowed to respond officially to the unanswered inquiries.

[27] After the war, she ran the Office of Missing Soldiers, at 437 ½ Seventh Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Gallery Place neighborhood.

She was also introduced to Henry Dunant's book A Memory of Solferino, which called for the formation of national societies to provide relief voluntarily on a neutral basis.

In 1878, she met with President Rutherford B. Hayes, who expressed the opinion of most Americans at that time which was the U.S. would never again face a calamity like the Civil War.

Barton finally succeeded during the administration of President Chester Arthur, using the argument that the new American Red Cross could respond to crises other than war such as natural disasters like earthquakes, forest fires, and hurricanes.

Barton became President of the American branch of the society, which held its first official meeting at her apartment in Washington, DC, May 21, 1881.

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

Once the Spanish–American War was over the grateful people of Santiago built a statue in honor of Barton in the town square, which still stands there today.

[38] Within days after the Johnstown Flood in 1889, she led her delegation of 50 doctors and nurses in response,[38] founding what would become Conemaugh Health System.

; two Special Field Agents, E. M. Wistar and C. K. Wood; and Ira Harris M. D., Physician in Charge of Medical Relief in Zeitoun and Marash, traveled to the Armenian provinces in the spring of 1896, providing relief and humanitarian aid to the Armenian population who were victims of the massacres done in 1894–1896 by Ottoman Empire.

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

As criticism arose of her mixing professional and personal resources, Barton was forced to resign as president of the American Red Cross in 1904 at the age of 83 because her egocentric leadership style fit poorly into the formal structure of an organizational charity.

[10] She had been forced out of office by a new generation of all-male scientific experts who reflected the realistic efficiency of the Progressive Era rather than her idealistic humanitarianism.

She continued to live in her Glen Echo, Maryland home which also served as the Red Cross Headquarters upon her arrival at the house in 1897.

In my case, it was a great gift, like St. Paul, I "was born free", and saved the pain of reaching it through years of struggle and doubt.

"[47] While Oates labels Barton a "committed feminist",[48] Silber compares her to other nurses such as Mary Ann Bickerdyke and Cornelia Hancock, who clung to patriarchal ideas of male hierarchical authority and the arrangement of "separate spheres" during the Civil War.

The National Park Service restored eleven rooms, including the Red Cross offices, the parlors, and Barton's bedroom.