buried there. Soon afterwards she
was placed by President Lincoln in charge of the search for missing men
of the Union armies--a work of the first importance, to which she
devoted all her energies, and which she carried on for some years after
the war closed, raising the necessary money by lectures and appeals for
donations. Thousands of families at the North have reason to thank her
for definite knowledge as to the fate of their loved ones.

Her health broke down under the strain, at last, and she went for a rest
to Switzerland, but the outbreak of the Franco-German war, in 1870,
called her again to duty, assisting the grand duchess of Baden in the
preparation of military hospitals, and giving the Red Cross Society the
benefit of her experience. In 1871, at the request of the German
authorities, she superintended the supplying of work to the poor of
Strasburg, after that city had been reduced by siege; and after the fall
of Paris, she was placed in charge of the distribution of supplies to
the destitute of that great city. At the close of the war, she was
decorated with the golden cross of Baden and the iron cross of Germany.

Although the Red Cross societies in Europe had been established as early
as 1863, and an international organization completed six years later,
the society was not officially recognized by the United States until
1882. The American Association of the Red Cross was at once organized,
and Miss Barton chosen its president, a position which she held without
opposition for many years. Its object as stated by its constitution is
"to organize a system of national relief and apply the same in
mitigating suffering caused by war, pestilence, famine and other
calamities." Since then, every such occasion has found the society in
the forefront of relief work, and it has distributed many millions in
assuaging human suffering.

* * * * *

Still another great reform, ridiculed at first, but now recognized as
one of the most beneficent movements of the age is associated with a
single name. The reform is the protection of dumb animals, and the name
is that of Henry Bergh.

Born in New York City in 1823, the son of a wealthy ship-builder and
inheriting his father's fortune at the age of twenty, Henry Bergh, after
spending some years in Europe, a portion of them in the diplomatic
service of the United States, returned to this country, determined to
devote the remainder of his life