I was only one woman alone, and had no power to move to action full-fed, sleek- coated, ease-loving, pleasure-seeking, well-paid, and well-placed countrymen in this war- trampled, dead, old land, each one afraid that he should be called upon to do something.
Clara Barton
Clara Barton (1821–1912), U.S. Civil War nurse and founder of the American Red Cross. As quoted in Angel of the Battlefield, ch. 9, by Ishbel Ross (1956).
Written c. 1870 on the coolness of Civil War General Burnside to her proposal that a headquarters be established in Brussels, Belgium for distributing American goods to combatants during the Franco-Prussian War.