Barton was disappointed to learn that she was not needed at the front, but she found her niche elsewhere. As she traveled through France, she wrote to newspaper editor Horace Greeley that she had seen deserted fields, “crops spoiled ... by both friend and foe. Her producing population stands under arms or wasting in prisons—her hungry cattle slain for food or rotting of disease—her homes deserted or smouldering in ashes.” When Louise, grand duchess of Baden and a Red Cross patron, asked her to help establish hospitals and distribute clothing to destitute civilians, she undertook the work with zeal. Barton’s accomplishments during the Franco-Prussian War lay mainly in aid to civilians. Her most notable work was in Strasbourg, where she used her powers of organization and publicity to establish a sewing center to clothe the city’s destitute population. In a letter to a generous English philanthropist in May 1871, she wrote: “Thousands who are well to-day will rot with smallpox and be devoured by body-lice before the end of August. Against ... these two scourges there is, I believe, no check but the destruction of all infected garments; hence the imperative necessity for something to take their place. Excuse, sir, I pray you, the plain ugly terms which I have employed to express myself; the facts are plain and ugly.” _Continues on page 40_ Jean-Henri Dunant and the Geneva Convention On June 24, 1859, forces commanded by French Emperor Napoleon III and Austria’s Emperor Franz Josef, met on the battlefield of Solferino, in Northern Italy. More than 40,000 men were killed or wounded in the battle, and towns and villages throughout the area became temporary, crude hospitals. In nearby Castiglione, a stranger, dressed in white, watched with horror as dazed and suffering soldiers were slowly brought from the battlefield only to be met with a shortage of doctors, inadequate accommodations, and an appalling lack of food and supplies. With spirit and speed “the man in white” began to recruit local peasants for volunteer service and to procure badly needed bandages, water, and food. The “man in white”—Jean-Henri Dunant—was not new to philanthropic endeavors. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1828, he came of a well-to-do family with a strong religious background and a tradition of public service. As a young man Dunant had been an instigator of the movement that created the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), which he hoped would promote fellowship and understanding between young men of many cultural backgrounds. Until the age of 30, Dunant was a banker, with business interests throughout Europe and Northern Africa. In June of 1859, these financial affairs took him to Castiglione.