Barton helped locate over 22,000 missing soldiers

On January 1st of 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and in May of that year, Barton resumed her work as a teacher. She imparted expertise to recently liberated slaves this time.

Barton recognized there was no centralized system in place to keep track of Union soldiers as the war came to an end. In addition to being hospitalized, a large number of Union soldiers were also released from Confederate prisons. Those who had passed away were buried in unmarked graves. Families have no idea if their loved ones were hurt, dead, or just freed from prison. In 1865, Barton established the Office of Correspondence with Friends of the United States Army Missing Men. The office, which operated out of the boarding home where Barton resided in Washington, D.C., received more than 63,000 letters asking for missing family members, all of which were responded to by the agency's 12 clerks. 22,000 lost troops were found by Barton's outfit; 13,000 of them had died in Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prison. The government built a national cemetery at Andersonville as a result. (Congress also paid back the $15,000 she spent on starting the office.)