Wars of Clara Barton: One Woman's Fight for the Soul of America

From the award-winning historian and author of Longstreet, the first major biography of Clara Barton in over forty years, asserting her foundational importance in humanitarian work and American politics.

As a Civil War nurse and the founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton became one of the most powerful women in American history. Across her sixty years of public service, Barton sought nothing less the reinvention of America. She saw the Red Cross as an extension of the nation’s “new birth of freedom,” and women’s empowerment as the key to unlocking America’s potential.

Barton earned her leadership credentials on battlefields. She went to the front in three military conflicts—the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Spanish-American War—developing methods that she applied in her Red Cross relief work at disaster sites (fighting the “wars of the elements”). But Barton’s work did not end on the battlefield. She also waged an unrelenting fight on behalf of the causes she held most dear. She fought to fulfill the promises of the Union’s victory in the Civil War, and to establish the United States as a force for good on the global stage. Above all, she fought for women’s rights.

The Wars of Clara Barton brings to light Barton’s bold ideas and tactics, and her uncanny ability to appeal to people’s “better angels.” It traces her prolonged battles against the foes and rivals who fought against her example and her agenda. Her story is an inspirational one, about the power of an individual to change the world. But it is also a cautionary tale, echoing down to the present day, about the limits of Americans’ tolerance for female leaders.