Clearly foreseeing that the end of the war was in sight, Clara Barton, who had gone from City Point, where she was serving with General Butler’s army, to Washington, where she witnessed the death of her brother Stephen, brought to the attention of President Lincoln the necessity of instituting some agency for the finding of missing soldiers. She knew what her own family had suffered in the anxious months when Stephen was immured within the Confederate lines, and his relatives did not know whether he was living or dead. President Lincoln at once approved her plan, and issued a letter advising the friends of missing soldiers to communicate with Miss Barton at Annapolis, where she established her headquarters. President Lincoln’s letter was dated March 11, 1865, the day following the death of her brother Stephen. This was followed, March 25, by a letter from General Hitchcock: WASHINGTON, D.C., March 25, 1865 FOR THE COMMANDING OFFICER AT ANNAPOLIS, MD. SIR: The notice, which you have doubtless seen, over the name of Miss Barton, of Massachusetts, proffering her services in answering inquiries with respect to Union officers and soldiers who have been prisoners of war (or who remain so), was made by my authority under the written sanction of His Excellency the President. The purpose is so humane and so interesting in itself that I beg to recommend Miss Barton to your kind civilities, and to say that any facilities which you may have it in your power to extend to her would be properly bestowed, and duly appreciated, not only by the lady herself, but by the whole country which is interested in her self-appointed mission. With great resp. your obt. servant (Signed) E. A. HITCHCOCK Maj. Gen’l. Vols. Although she was backed by the authority of the President, it took the War Department two months to establish Clara Barton in her work at Annapolis with the title “General Correspondent for the Friends of Paroled Prisoners.” A tent was assigned her, with furniture, stationery, clerks, and a modest fund for postage. By the time she was established at Annapolis, she found bushels of mail awaiting her, and letters of inquiry came in at the rate of a hundred a day. To bring order out of this chaos, and establish a system by which missing soldiers and their relatives could be brought into communication with each other, called for swift action and no little organizing skill. For a time difficulties seemed to increase. Discharged prisoners returned from the South by thousands. In some cases there was no record, in others the record was defective. Inquiries came in much faster than information in response to them.