American National Red Cross; Red Cross and Red Crescent
March 10, 1866.
_A resolution providing for expenses incurred in searching for missing
soldiers of the Army of the United States, and for further prosecution
of the same._
_Whereas_, Miss Clara Barton has, during the late war of the rebellion,
expended from her own resources large sums of money in endeavoring to
discover missing soldiers of the armies of the United States, and in
communicating intelligence to their relatives; therefore,
_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That the sum of fifteen
thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated out of any
moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to reimburse Miss
Clara Barton for the amount so expended by her, and to aid in the
further prosecution of the search for missing soldiers, and the printing
necessary to the furtherance of the said object shall hereafter be done
by the Public Printer.
Approved March 10, 1866.
[14 Vol. U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 350.]
This, therefore, was not recompense for services; it was reimbursement
for money expended; it was money expended by a private citizen for
public uses, and this, mainly, after the close of the war. The
government recognized its value to the people, and refunded the money,
and that without solicitation on Miss Barton's part.
This work was a fitting, even necessary, result of her four years'
voluntary and unpaid services on the field, not as an ordinary nurse,
but as a sort of independent sanitary commission, whom the government,
the soldiers, and the people came at last to implicitly trust, for they
never found their trust betrayed nor themselves disappointed by any want
of discretion, sagacity, or energy on her part. It cannot be set forth
here, it can only be alluded to most briefly. In its details it must
form a chapter in the story of a life singularly original, successful,
and beneficent.
--[Report of the American (National) Association of the Red Cross of
1883.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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