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Uncommon circa 1902 boudoir card photograph showing Clara Barton flanked by American Red Cross supporter B. F. Tillinghast and Russian Admiral Nikolai Kaznakoff, taken during an International Red Cross conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June 1902, 6 x 8.75, signed and inscribed on the reverse in ink, "To Princess Agnes of Salm Salm, from her sister friend, Clara Barton." Below, Barton pens a marvelous poem in four six-line stanzas, signed again at the conclusion, "Clara Barton." The poem, in full:
"It's the Fourth of July. My dear sister,
The day we were taught to love;
With the soft-green grass beneath our feet
And the clear blue sky above.
With never a shadow or cloud to stay
The true child joy of the beautiful day.
Does she remember the sad same day
In the far away sixty one,
When the forces met in the mortal fray
Of the pitiless ‘First Bull Run’?
There were shadows enough in that dreadful fray
To darken forever the beautiful day.
Does she remember when peace had come
And the swords were sheathed, and the troops were free,
How we gathered anew at Liberty's shrine
And the nation held its jubilee!
And the hearts, not swords stood in battle array—
God keep forever our national day.
Once more it is with us, this ‘Fourth of July’,
In a far distant land that knows not its name;
To keep its remembrance are just you and I.
But we’ll keep it dear sister, in full faith the same;
And with hands clasped in love, we will fervently pray—
God keeps forever our national day."
In very good to fine condition, with a light stain to the poem, and a scratched out identification notation beneath the image. Agnes of Salm-Salm (1844–1912) was the American wife of Prince Felix zu Salm-Salm, a Prussian military officer and royal by birth whose scandals forced him to emigrate to the United States. During the Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a colonel and later as a brigadier general by brevet. Meeting Felix at an event hosted by President Lincoln in Washington D.C in 1861, Agnes and Felix married the following year. She soon joined him on the battlefield when he became adjutant of Louis Blenker in the Army of the Potomac. During her time in the field she learned to take care of the sick and wounded; eventually crossing paths and forming a friendship with Barton.
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