Clara Barton was born on Christmas day in the year 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts. She began working early in life, teaching school in Oxford for ten years. Clara then taught in a girl's academy in Clinton, New York, and later in one of the first "free" schools located in New Jersey. After two years, she resigned and went to work in the Patent Office in Washington, DC, where she was working when the Civil War began.

At once she saw the plight of enlisted men and solicited friends for supplies to help soldiers in the field. Clara was at several battles in December 1862, giving out food, supplies and friendship, and she gained the names of "The Angel of the Battlefield," "Daughter of the Regiment" and "Their Florence Nightingale of America."

After the war, she turned her attention to the thousands of missing soldiers. Clara became a nurse and later founded the American Red Cross, becoming its first President. Clara died April 12, 1912, at the age of ninety years, in New York. She joined the DAR and subsequently became the First Surgeon General, NSDAR.