CLARA BARTON WITNESSES THE SINKING OF THE MAINE. Autograph Not...

Women in Literature and Politics
CLARA BARTON WITNESSES THE SINKING OF THE MAINE.
Autograph Note Signed ("Clara Barton"), in pencil, the original draft of the dispatch sent to New York after Barton witness the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor, 1 p, 5 3/4 x 3 3/4 inches, [Havana, February 15, 1898], sheet laid down to fragment of American National Red Cross stationery, both sheets darkened and brittle, with some loss.
Provenance: the estate of Clara Barton, by descent to Dr. Julien Hubbard; by descent through Hubbard's heirs to the present.

REMEMBER THE MAINE! CLARA BARTON WAS THERE. This scrap of paper reads: "Bible House / New York / Maine entirely destroyed / two hundred fifty lost / am with the wounded. / Clara Barton." In her 1912 memoir, The Red Cross in Peace and War, Barton describes the explosion that sunk the Maine: while she and a colleague were working quietly at their desks as part of the effort to aid Cubans during the insurrection leading up to the Spanish-American War, "suddenly the table shook from under our hands, the great glass door opening onto the veranda, facing the sea, flew open; everything in the room was in motion or out of place—the deafening roar of such a burst of thunder as perhaps one never heard before, and off to the right, out over the bay, the air was filled with a blaze of light, and this in turn filled with black specks like huge spectres flying in all directions" (p 524). Later that afternoon, Barton scribbled this note, likely a draft of a telegram to be sent to colleagues at the American Bible Society.

The cause of the explosion aboard the Maine was never decisively uncovered: the Spanish investigation concluded that the cause was internal while other investigators suspected an underwater mine. In any case, the sinking of the USS Maine propelled the United States toward war with Spain that year.