This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, a story about the founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton,

otherwise known as the Angel of the Battlefield. Here to tell the story is Kalia Ryder of the

Bill of Rights Institute. You can check out their wonderful curriculum on American history

at mybri.org.

Take it away, Kalia.

September 1862.

A 40-year-old woman and her team of mules pushed tirelessly through the night.

It may have seemed out of the ordinary at the time for a middle-aged woman to be heading directly into the teeth of a pending conflict, but Claire Barden was no ordinary woman, not by any stretch

of the imagination.

The clash would finally come near Antietam Creek in Maryland, pitting some 87,000 Union soldiers against 45,000 Confederates.

By the time the smoke cleared, some 12,410 Union troops and 10,337 Confederates would lay either dead or wounded.

The battle of Antietam would go down in history as the single bloodiest 37 Confederates would lay either dead or wounded.

The battle of Antietam would go down in history as the single bloodiest day of the Civil War,

and Barden would earn the nickname, the Angel of the Battlefield.

Antietam was just the latest example of Barden's selfless, dogged determination and the deep sense of responsibility she felt toward others, traits that can be traced back to her earliest

roots. Clara Barton was born in rural, North Oxford, Massachusetts on Christmas Day 1821,

to Sarah Stone Barton and Captain Stephen

Barton, who had served in the military.

Both her parents were abolitionists and instilled in young Clara the same virtues of patriotism

...