Barton's Lasting Impact (part 1)

 

 

One of Barton’s most impressive achievements was her founding of the Bureau of Records of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States.

 

After the war had ended in 1865, Lincoln appointed Barton to the position of Correspondent for the Friends of Paroled Prisoners. This job entailed responding to the inquries of nervous family members of missing soldiers, and locating the soldiers using prison and parole records and casualty lists. Because this was such an enormous job, Barton started the Bureau of Records of Missing Men to help locate missing soldiers and contact their loved ones (30).

 

While holding this position, and after establishing the Bureau, Barton responded to over 63,000 letters, and succeeded in identifying over 22,000 soldiers. In 1867, two years following the end of the war, the office closed, as it was no longer needed (31).

 

Before Barton, anonymous soldiers remained anonymous, as no one felt a need to identify them. Now, however, identifying lost soldiers is a major job of the military.