... this I conceive to be no time to prate of moral influences. Our men’s nerves require their accustomed narcotics and a glass of whiskey is a powerful friend in a sunstroke, and these poor fellows fall senseless on their heavy drills.
ATTRIBUTION:
Clara Barton (1821–1912), U.S. Civil War nurse and founder of the American Red Cross. As quoted in Angel of the Battlefield, ch. 3, by Ishbel Ross (1956).
In an 1861 letter to her cousin Elvira. Once an opponent of tobacco, Barton now recognized the value of it and other intoxicating substances in wartime and supplied it to the Civil War soldiers herself. During World War II, after her death, the Red Cross would send 87 million packages of cigarettes abroad to service people.
