Clara Barton, 20 years before founding the American Red Cross in 1881, came to the aid of soldiers fighting in the Civil War. At the war's outbreak, Barton worked as a U.S. Patent Office clerk and collected provisions and medical supplies for the Union Army. Restless with her limited role and undeterred by War Department regulations and prevailing stereotypes, Barton (1821-1912) became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield" as she distributed supplies and tended to the wounded and dying. Barton kept notes during the course of the war that documented the appalling carnage and medical conditions of the wounded transported to Fredericksburg, Va., from the Wilderness campaign.

From Clara Barton, angel of the Civil War battlefield, to retired Rear Adm. Marsha Johnson Evans, who heads the organization today, the American Red Cross has been led by courageous and inspirational women. Barton's papers have been in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division since the 1940s.