Newly Erected Clara Barton Statue Hagerstown Maryland

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Anyone who knows about the Battles of Gettysburg or Antietam has heard of Hagerstown, Maryland but I wonder how many “Civil War Tourists” have stopped there except to buy some gas? I went to the Civil War Institute at the beginning of June, 2024 and I had heard that a newly erected statue of Clara Barton had been dedicated in May. After the conference I took a forty-five minute ride down to Hagerstown to photograph the new monument. This monument is on the Hagerstown Cultural Trail near Park Circle next to the railroad track.

Toby Mendez is the sculptor of the work. The Clara Barton Memorial Committee raised more than $600,000 to complete the project from both public and private donors. The site was selected because in 1862 Barton left her work with the Federal government to set out to provide relief to soldiers involved in the Antietam Campaign and went through Hagerstown and then on to Antietam.

According to the sculptor, the National Park Service showed little interest in having the monument inside the park’s boundaries. Because of Barton’s presence in Hagerstown and because the city is the seat of the county, the committee decided to erect it there.

The sculptor says that this is the first monument dedicated to Barton of this sort. However, there may soon be another monument to her in Dansville, New York near Buffalo. Toby Mendez says that the sculpture is twice life-size and he says that unlike other statues of nurses, Barton is looking up at the viewer rather than down at her patient.

When I visited the monument on a late Spring morn, I was wondering why she was gazing into the distance rather than looking at the soldier she holds. I wondered if he was dead. However, from Mendez’s statement, it is so the figure can make eye contact with the viewer.

The pedestal for the monument, with its bold lettering, caught the attention of passersby.

Similarly, the back of Barton’s dress captures the viewer.

The soldier’s hand is anchored to the monument where it rests on his kepi.

Clara Barton was born in North Oxford, Massachusetts on Christmas Day in 1821. As a young adult she became a teacher and went to college. In 1855 she moved to Washington and became a Patent Office employee. She became a Republican and lost her job for her radical views. However, under Lincoln she could return to the Patent Office.

When the war broke out, Barton threw herself into relieving the needs of the soldiers passing through Washington. As battles began, she became one of the first female nurses to work with the Army.

After the war, Barton founded the American Red Cross.

On the same triangle where Clara Barton’s statue is located, there is another memorial to another women, the town librarian. She helped found a mobile library drawn by horses that could bring books to poor farmers living nearby.