“They would stand with you now, as they stood with you then, The nurses, consolers and saviors of men." _The Women Who Went to the Field_
Clara Barton was familiar with these organizations, and, especially in the latter part of the war, often worked alongside them. But though she wrote publicly that their labor was always in “perfect accord, mutual respect and friendliness,” she chose to work alone rather than align herself too closely with the commissions. Barton’s natural leadership and difficulty in working with others prompted her to remain independent, where she would not be “compromised by them in the least.” Furthermore, she secretly scorned the commissions’ work, which she thought inexperienced and impractical: “an old fudge” she called the Sanitary Commission in her journal.
Barton also chose not to work with Dorothea Dix’s “Department of Female Nurses.” A compulsive humanitarian worker, Dix had volunteered her services to the War Department at the opening of hostilities. Her offer was accepted and Dix began the impossible task of collecting supplies, selecting nurses, and supervising hospitals for the Union army. Dix was a perfectionist and her dogmatic and strident opinions won her few friends. But her sharp altercations with physicians and officers resulted more from frustration because she could not relieve the massive misery, than from an over-bearing personality. Feeling that she had failed to achieve her mission, Dix wrote at war’s end: “This is not the work I would have my life judged by.”
The use of female nurses was an innovation during the Civil War and Dix was anxious for the women under her to be taken seriously. Fearful that nursing would become a sport among adventurous young women, she laid down stringent and inflexible rules for nurses. These rules would have greatly hampered Clara Barton’s independent spirit and this is one reason she chose not to join Dix’s force.
In addition to the official organizations there were numerous “unsung heroes” during the Civil War. Most notable were the religious orders such as the Sisters of Charity who calmly defied the army’s restrictions and worked both at the front and in hospitals. Despite the fact that such diverse groups inevitably caused conflicts and jealousies, the Civil War provided a field large enough for all of the humanitarian organizations which labored in it.