 Many leaders of nursing and soldiers' aid organizations hailed from Massachusetts, including Dorothea Dix, founder of the Army Nurses Bureau, the Rev.Henry Whitney Bellows, founder of the United States Sanitary Commission, and independent nurse Clara Barton, future founder of the American Red Cross.Massachusetts played a major role in the causes of the American Civil War, particularly with regard to the political ramifications of the antislavery abolitionist movement.