An Angel of Mercy,—her touch they will miss, That was felt by the Boys of the Blue and the Gray; But her name is still fragrant with Service, and this Will inspire their sons in the Cause of Today.
At Fredericksburg a shell shattered the door of the room in which Miss Barton was attending to wounded men. True to her mission, she did not flinch but continued her duties as usual. She found a group of Confederates with their garments frozen fast in the mud. As the wounded were helpless, Miss Barton got an axe and chopped them loose. She then built a fire in a negro cabin and, while the wounded were warming themselves she dressed their wounds, fed them gruel and otherwise cared for them as if they were her “Brothers in Arms.”
Upon my bosom lies A knot of blue and gray; You ask me why; tears fill my eyes As low to you I say:
I had two brothers once, Warm hearted, bold and gay; They left my side—one wore the blue The other wore the gray.
One rode with Stonewall and his men, And joined his fate with Lee; The other followed Sherman’s march Triumphant to the sea.
Both fought for what they deemed the right, And died with his sword in hand; One sleeps amid Virginia hills, And one in Georgia’s sand.
The same sun shines upon their graves, My love unchanged must stay; And so upon my bosom lies, The knot of blue and gray.
Clara Barton deserves first place in the living memory of the world today, and of generations to come.
She bore herself with a poise that lost for her no friends.
She had a faculty for seeing what needed to be done, and how to do it. _New York Examiner._
She accomplished what crowned heads failed in.
Things came to me as if ordered by a world-controlling power.
Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.
O God! that bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap.
The greatest attribute of Heaven is mercy; And ’tis the crown of justice, and the glory, Where it may kill with right and save with pity. J. FLETCHER.
Tact is not a single faculty, but a combination of faculties.
What men call “shrewdness” and “Common Sense” usually signify no more than tact. W. M. THAYER.
To know is power, but the power may be latent. Tact is skill, ever alert. Tact knows what to do, when and how to do it. Queen Elizabeth had tact, unerring. Her long reign was a series of tactful events. Tact was the basis of the supremacy of the Elizabethan Age.
