Mary Edwards Walker

Mary Edwards Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919), commonly referred to as Dr. Mary Walker, was an American abolitionist, prohibitionist, prisoner of war in the American Civil War, and surgeon. She is the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor.

In 1855, she earned her medical degree at Syracuse Medical College in New York, married and started a medical practice. She attempted to join the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War, but was turned away. She served as a surgeon at a temporary hospital in Washington, D.C. before being hired by Union Forces and assigned to Army of the Cumberland and later the 52nd Ohio Infantry, becoming the first female surgeon in the US Army. She was captured by Confederate forces after crossing enemy lines to treat wounded civilians and arrested as a spy. She was sent as a prisoner of war to Richmond, Virginia, until released in a prisoner exchange.

After the war, she was approved for the Medal of Honor, for her efforts to treat the wounded in battle and across enemy lines during the Civil War. Notably, the award was not expressly given for gallantry in action at that time, and in fact was the only military decoration during the Civil War. Walker is the only woman to receive the medal and one of only eight civilians to receive it. Her name was deleted from the Army Medal of Honor Roll in 1917 (along with over 900 other recipients); however, it was restored in 1977.

After the war, she was a writer and lecturer supporting the women's suffrage movement until her death in 1919.

Early life and education

Mary Edwards Walker was born in the Town of Oswego, New York, on November 26, 1832, the daughter of Alvah (father) and Vesta (mother) Walker. She had four older sisters and one younger brother. Alvah and Vesta raised both their son and their daughters in a progressive manner that was revolutionary for the time. Their nontraditional parenting nurtured Mary's spirit of independence and sense of justice that she actively demonstrated throughout her life. While they were devoted Christians, the Walkers were Freethinkers who raised their children to question the regulations and restrictions of various denominations. The Walker parents also demonstrated non-traditional gender roles to their children regarding sharing work around the farm: Vesta often participated in heavy labor while Alvah took part in general household chores. Walker worked on her family farm as a child. She did not wear women's clothing during farm labor because she considered it too restricting. Her mother reinforced her views that corsets and tight lacings were unhealthy.

Her elementary education consisted of attendance at the local school that her parents had started. The Walkers were determined that their daughters be as well-educated as their son, so they founded the first free schoolhouse in Oswego in the late 1830s. After finishing primary school, Mary and two of her older sisters attended Falley Seminary in Fulton, New York. Falley was not only an institution of higher learning, but a place that emphasized modern social reform in gender roles, education, and hygiene. Its ideologies and practices further cemented Mary's determination to defy traditional feminine standards on a principle of injustice. In her free time, Mary would pore over her father's medical texts on anatomy and physiology; her interest in medicine is attributable to her exposure to medical literature at an early age. As a young woman, she taught at a school in Minetto, New York, eventually earning enough money to pay her way through Syracuse Medical College, where she graduated with honors as a medical doctor in 1855, the only woman in her class.

She married a fellow medical school student, Albert Miller, on November 16, 1855, shortly before she turned 23. Walker wore a short skirt with trousers underneath, refused to include "obey" in her vows, and retained her last name. They set up a joint practice in Rome, New York. The practice did not flourish, as female physicians were generally not trusted or respected at that time. They later divorced, on account of Miller's infidelity.

Walker briefly attended Bowen Collegiate Institute (later named Lenox College) in Hopkinton, Iowa, in 1860, until she was suspended for refusing to resign from the school's debating society, which until she joined had been all male.

American Civil War

Walker volunteered at the outbreak of the American Civil War as a surgeon – first for the Army, but was rejected because she was a woman (despite having kept a private practice for many years). She was offered the role of a nurse but declined and chose to volunteer as a surgeon for the Union Army as a civilian. The U.S. Army had no female surgeons, and at first, she was allowed to practice only as a nurse. During this period, she served at the First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, and at the Patent Office Hospital in Washington, D.C. She worked as an unpaid field surgeon near the Union front lines, including at the Battle of Fredericksburg and in Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga. As a suffragist, she was happy to see women serving as soldiers, and alerted the press to the case of Frances Hook, in Ward 2 of the Chattanooga hospital, a woman who served in the Union forces disguised as a man. Walker was the first female surgeon of the Union army. She wore men's clothing during her work, claiming it to be easier for high demands of her work.

In September 1862, Walker wrote to the War Department requesting employment as a spy, but her proposal was declined. In September 1863, she was employed as a "Contract Acting Assistant Surgeon (civilian)" by the Army of the Cumberland, becoming the first female surgeon employed by the U.S. Army Surgeon. Walker was later appointed assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry. During her service, she frequently crossed battle lines and treated civilians.

On April 10, 1864, she was captured by Confederate troops, and arrested as a spy, just after she finished helping a Confederate doctor perform an amputation. She was sent to Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia, and remained there until August 12, 1864, when she was released as part of a prisoner exchange. While she was imprisoned, she refused to wear the clothes provided her, said to be more "becoming of her sex". Walker was exchanged for a Confederate surgeon from Tennessee on August 12, 1864.

She went on to serve as supervisor of a female prison in Louisville, Kentucky, and as the head of an orphanage in Tennessee.

Later career

After the war, Walker was awarded a disability pension for partial muscular atrophy suffered while she was imprisoned by the enemy. She was given $8.50 a month, beginning June 13, 1865, but in 1899 that amount was raised to $20 per month.

She was awarded the Medal of Honor on Saturday, November 11th, 1865.

She became a writer and lecturer, supporting such issues as health care, temperance, women's rights, and dress reform for women. She was frequently arrested for wearing men's clothing, and insisted on her right to wear clothing that she thought appropriate. She wrote two books that discussed women's rights and dress. She replied to criticism of her attire: "I don't wear men's clothes, I wear my own clothes."

Walker was a member of the Central Woman's Suffrage Bureau in Washington, DC and solicited funds to endow a chair for a female professor at Howard University medical school. She attempted to register to vote in 1871, but was turned away. The initial stance of the movement, following her lead, was to claim that women already had the right to vote, and Congress needed only to enact enabling legislation. After a number of fruitless years advocating this position, the movement promoted the adoption of a constitutional amendment. This was diametrically opposed to her position, and she fell out of favor with the movement. She continued to attend suffrage conventions and distribute her own literature, but was virtually ignored by the rest of the movement. Her penchant for wearing masculine clothing, including a top hat, only exacerbated the situation. She received a more favorable reception in England than in the United States.

In 1907, Walker published "Crowning Constitutional Argument", in which she argued that some states, as well as the federal Constitution, had already granted women the right to vote. She testified on women's suffrage before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1912 and 1914.

After a long illness, Walker died at home on February 21, 1919, at the age of 86. She was buried at Rural Cemetery in Oswego, New York, in a plain funeral, with an American flag draped over her casket, and wearing a black suit instead of a dress. Her death in 1919 came 544 days before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote.