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The Medal of Honor, the United States highest award for valor, was established by the United
States Army in 1862 to recognize those soldiers who distinguished themselves
by gallantry and intrepidity in combat with an enemy of the United States.
Since that time, 3,459 Medals of Honor have been awarded,
and only one has gone to a woman, Dr Mary Edwards Walker. And hers is a story worth remembering.
Mary Edwards Walker was born in 1832 in upstate New York, the youngest of seven children. Her
parents were farmers and free thinkers. The Free Thought Movement was a movement that challenged
authority and tradition, and thought that truth should be derived from logic and reason,
and it was that upbringing that not only allowed her to escape traditional
gender roles of her time but to develop a fierce sense of independence and justice.
Mary's parents were determined to give all of their children a good education and she
studied at Valley Seminary in Fulton New York. She always had an interest in physiology and anatomy
and so she worked as a teacher in order to earn enough money to be able to attend medical school,
graduating with honors from Syracuse Medical College in 1855, the only woman in her class.
She struggled though to build a successful practice,
as female doctors were very rare in that time, and often not trusted.
When the war started she volunteered with the Union Army, seeking a commission as a
field surgeon. But the union army didn't hire female surgeons, and so she was only
allowed to serve as a nurse, which is how she served after the battle of First Bull Run.
She then started volunteering her services as a field surgeon, and treated soldiers after the
battles of Fredericksburg and Chickamauga. But finally, in 1863, she was hired as a contracting
acting assistant surgeon, the first female surgeon in the Union Army, with the pay of a lieutenant,
although she was still a civilian. She didn't much care about rules or the enemy line, she would go
where she needed to go to treat people and she would frequently travel behind enemy lines to
treat civilians in need, say to deliver a baby or treat someone that was sick. And that's what she
was doing in April of 1864 when she was captured and arrested by the Confederate Army as a spy.
She was held as a prisoner of war until August of that year when she was finally exchanged.
She continued in federal service and was made acting assistant surgeon to Ohio's 52nd
Infantry Regiment. She also managed a hospital for female prisoners, and later managed an orphanage.
She was recommended for the Medal of Honor by General William Tecumseh Sherman and General
George Henry Thomas, “The Rock of Chickamauga”. There's no record of the original nomination,
but when the medal was awarded by President Andrew Johnson in 1865, and commended her
because “she dedicated herself with patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers, both in
the field and in the hospital, to the detriment of her own health”. She always said that she got
the award because she was the only doctor brave enough to go behind enemy lines to treat people.
Throughout her life she showed the independent thought of her upbringing, and one of her great
causes was dress reform. She believed that women's fashion of the day was injurious to health.
She complained that corsets were restricting, and that large skirts with multiple petticoats were
not only uncomfortable and restricting, but they also collected dust and dirt.
She wrote two books on the subject of dress reform complaining that women's fashion was not just
dangerous to the health but also expensive. She would often dress in a mid-length skirt and men's
trousers which she felt was much more practical, and protected the woman's modesty. But later in
life she would often give speeches in full men's formal dress attire. She said, “I don't wear men's
clothes, I wear my own clothes”. While she was passionate about that cause it was one of many.
She was also part of the Temperance Movement, she was an abolitionist and she was a suffragette,
and she testified before congress several times on the issue of women's suffrage.
In 1917 the army did a review of their Medal of Honor roles and removed 911 names, including
Mary Edwards Walker. The reason they revoked her medal was that she was actually a civilian
at the time and that her deeds were not in combat. But her medal was returned posthumously by Jimmy
Carter in 1977. In her life she had so many causes, for example during the war she realized
that there were lots of women who were coming to Washington DC to visit injured soldiers,
brothers or husbands. And so she started a society to help women who were visiting the capitol,
find a safe place to stay and to find their loved ones in all the many area hospitals.
And after the war she passionately advocated to provide pensions to civil war nurses and
argue that they should be given the right to vote in gratitude for their service.
All her life she had to struggle to make a living. She was never able to establish a
successful medical practice because, sadly in her time, people just did not trust
female physicians. She finally passed away on the family farm in 1919 at the age of 86.
Even in her time she was more known for her eccentricities
than her accomplishments, and she's largely forgotten today. And that's just wrong,
because her accomplishments were astounding, especially with what she had to face in her day.
And darn it, the the only female winner of the Medal of Honor deserves to be remembered
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