Mary Edwards Walker with her Medal of Honor
This
story is as unique as they come. It involves a woman who was ahead of
her time in many ways, who offered herself in service of the nation
voluntarily during the Civil War and won the nation’s highest military
honor, the Medal of Honor. She is first and only woman to have been
awarded the Medal of Honor in our nation’s entire history.
From the Family Farm to the Front Lines
Her
name was Mary Edwards Walker. She was born in Oswego, New York on
November 26 1832. She was the youngest of five daughters and had a
younger brother. She was educated at the school her mother taught at and
later taught there herself to earn money to be able to attend medical
school at Syracuse Medical College. She married a fellow medical student
and upon graduation they set up a medical practice together in Rome,
NY. Because she was female and female doctors, at the time, were not
trusted or respected by the general population, their practice did not
flourish. Their marriage ended in divorce after thirteen years.
Portrait of Mary Edwards Walker wearing Medal of Honor
When
the Civil War broke out, Mary Edwards Walker went immediately to
Washington, D.C. and tried to get a military commission as a doctor in
the Union Army. She was denied, of course, because she was a woman. She
volunteered anyway and was given a position as an assistant surgeon as a
civilian contractor. Throughout her service, she was never paid, even
though she served on the front lines and in hospitals in some of the
wars most harrowing battles. She was at the battle of Chickamauga among
many others.
During
her time she also acted as a spy for the Union. While doing this, she
was captured by Confederate troops and was held as a prisoner of war for
the last four months of the Civil War. When the war ended she tried,
again, to get a military commission, but was again denied. But in
November of 1865, she was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Andrew
Johnson. The citation read, in part, “She devoted herself with much
patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers, both in the field and
hospitals, to the detriment of her own health. She has endured hardships
as a prisoner of war for four months in a Southern prison.” With this,
she became the first — and the last — woman ever to receive the Medal of
Honor. So far.
Sharon
Harris authored a book about Mary Edwards Walker entitled Dr. Mary
Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919, in which she writes, “She wore
that medal every day of her life from the moment she received it to the
day she died.” But this story takes a turn in 1917, that Mary Walker
would meet with her usual, inimical confidence and toughness of nature.
A Force to Be Reckoned With
In
1917, over 50 years after she had been awarded the Medal of Honor, a
high ranking military board decided to change the criteria for that
medal. They changed the criteria so it would be awarded to only those
who had been in actual combat with the enemy. As a result, they
rescinded almost 1,000 of the medals, including hers. In accord with her
nature, she refused to send it back. As was said before, she wore it
until the day she died. Her award would be reinstated some 60 years
later in 1977 by an act of Congress.
Mary
Edwards Walker was a force to be reckoned with throughout her life.
After the Civil War she was involved with the Women’s Suffrage Movement
and Prohibition. She would die in 1919 at the age of 87.
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