EXTREMELY LARGE BROADSIDE LISTING MISSING CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS BY STATE, PART OF AN INTIATIVE SPEARHEADED BY CLARA BARTON
(BARTON, Clara). Broadsheet ["Roll of Missing Men.——No. 4."]. Washington, 1866. Single beige sheet, measuring 38 by 24 inches; p. 1. Framed, entire piece measures 27 by 41 inches. $4500.
Fascinating broadside listing the names of missing Civil War soldiers, one of several such broadsides published by Clara Barton, who ultimately located more than 22,000 missing men.
In 1865, as the Civil War approached its end, "Angel of the Battlefield" Clara Barton began to realize that her nursing efforts were also approaching their end. She immediately cast about for other ways to help. She was aware that thousands of men had been buried in mass graves in battlefields far from home without their families being notified. For Barton, whose pro-Union brother had died after he was arrested and imprisoned in North Carolina by Union forces, the issue was personal. "After the Civil War, there were thousands of men missing. Clara Barton took it upon herself to spearhead the search for missing Union soldiers. She received over 63,000 requests for help and ultimately located over 22,000 missing men, dead and alive. Barton used a variety of strategies to locate the missing: she reached out to friends that would have known the soldiers or their battalion, she knew some of the missing personally, others she had confirmation of their death in prison camps from burial records. For those she couldn't find, she published their names, organized by state, in a "Roll of Missing Men." These rolls were distributed around the country. People wrote back with information about the missing men, and she found countless others this way. Throughout her four year search, Barton published the Rolls of Missing Men four times" (National Museum of Civil War Medicine). Barton went on to become the head of the Red Cross, but it was her early work during the Civil War and searching for missing soldiers that cemented her saint-like reputation. Several pinholes from hanging.
Faint scattered foxing, original creases. Near-fine condition.