Wings of an Angel

“THE PROSPECTS OF A SPEEDY PEACE either in the conquest or the submission of the South has never been so cheering,” The New York Herald triumphantly declared on January 1, 1865. To delay its imminent defeat, the Confederacy reestablished the practice of prisoner exchange in early 1865. A result of the resumed exchanges was the arrival of thousands of emaciated and desperately ill former Union prisoners from infamous camps like Andersonville and Belle Isle at a designated drop-off point known as Camp Parole, near Annapolis, Md.

Clara Barton had returned to Washington to nurse her brother, Stephen, and nephew, Irving Vassall, who had both fallen ill at the beginning of 1865. While Barton was in Washington, Vassall, a government employee, had heard news that exchanged Union prisoners were returning in poor condition and that the government needed help notifying the relatives of those who were missing or had