In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton  and Adolphus Solomons
founded the American National Red Cross, an organization established to
provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in
congruence with the International Red Cross.

Barton, born in Massachusetts in 1821, worked with the sick and wounded
during the American Civil War and became known as the “Angel of the
Battlefield” for her tireless dedication. In 1865, President Abraham
Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war, and with
the extensive records she had compiled during the war she succeeded
in identifying thousands of the Union dead at the Andersonville prisoner-
of-war camp.