Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was a Civil War era surgeon, and a women’s rights and dress reform advocate. She’s the only woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
Mary Edwards Walker was born in Oswego, New York to parents that encouraged her to think freely. They allowed her to wear “bloomer” pants instead of skirts and corsets.
Walker graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855. She married fellow medical student Albert Miller, and they set up a joint practice in Rome, New York. The practice failed, probably because the public would not accept a woman as a doctor. She and Albert later divorced.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Walker wanted to join the Union’s efforts, but she was not allowed to serve as an army medical officer because she was a woman. Instead, she served as an unpaid volunteer surgeon at the U.S. Patent Office Hospital in Washington, DC. A year later she went to Virginia to treat wounded soldiers near the front lines.
In 1863, the Army finally accepted her request to practice as a surgeon and commissioned her as a “Contract Acting Assistant Surgeon (civilian)”. She became the first woman to serve as a U.S. Army surgeon.
Walker often crossed battle lines to care for wounded soldiers. In 1864, she was captured by Confederate troops and held for four months as a prisoner of war at Castle Thunder near Richmond, Virginia. She was freed in a prisoner exchange and spent the remainder of the war serving at the Louisville Women’s Prison Hospital and at an orphan asylum in Clarksville, Tennessee.
President Andrew Johnson presented Walker with the Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service in 1865 based on the recommendation of Major Generals Sherman and Thomas. The medal was stripped from her – and several others – by government action in 1916 because she was a civilian at the time of her valor.
Walker opposed society’s expectations of traditional women’s dress codes and often wore “men’s” clothing because she found this attire more practical, comfortable, and sanitary. In the 1860s, she wore a knee-length dress with trousers underneath. Later in life, she wore jackets and trousers most of the time. She was often mocked, punished, and treated as an oddity for her clothing choices.
Dr. Walker died on February 21, 1919. Through the efforts of her grandniece and some members of Congress, the Medal of Honor was officially restored to her by President Jimmy Carter on June 10, 1977.
