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Mary Edwards Walker was born on November 26, 1832 in Oswego Town, New York. Mary’s father, Alvah was a farmer, abolitionist, and self-taught doctor. He thought that women’s fashion at the time was unhealthy. Women often wore tight corsets, which restricted their breathing. Mary agreed with her father’s assessment of the restricted fashion and adopted a style of wearing loose fitting clothing over trousers called “bloomers.”
Mary had the desire to enter the medical profession and become a doctor like her father. She graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1853. After graduation, she practiced medicine with her husband, whom she met at medical school. Their practice was in Rome, New York. The practice did not flourish, because the people of the city were not accepting of a woman physician. Walker and her husband were divorced in 1869.
At the beginning of the Civil War, Dr. Walker worked as an unpaid hospital volunteer in the United States Patent Office Hospital. For two years, she worked as field surgeon on the Union front lines in places such as Chattanooga and Fredericksburg. In 1863, she was appointed an assistant Army surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland. Shortly afterwards, she was appointed assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry. She was the first woman surgeon in the United States Army. In addition to treating the soldiers, she treated civilians. Because she traveled outside of Union lines, she was considered to be a spy. She became a prisoner of war and was exchanged with other Union doctors for Confederate surgeons after being imprisoned for four months. After her release, she served as supervisor of the Louisville female prison and head of an orphanage in Tennessee.
On November 11, 1865, she received the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service. She was the first woman to receive the Medal. A portion of the text of the award reads,
"Wheareas it appears from official reports that Dr. Mary E. Walker, a graduate of medicine, has rendered valuable service to the Government, and her efforts have been earnest and illustrious in a variety of ways, and that she was assigned to duty and served as an assistant surgeon in charge of female prisoners at Louisville, Kentucky, upon the recommendation of Major Generals Sherman and Thomas, and faithfully served as contract surgeon in the service of the United States, and has 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, and has also endured hardships as a prisoner of war four months in Southern prison while acting as contract surgeon.
Whereas by reason of her not being a commissioned officer in the military service, a brevet or honorary rank cannot, under existing laws, be conferred upon her; and whereas in the opinion of the President an honorable recognition of her services and sufferings should be : It is ordered, That a testimonial thereof shall be hereby made and given to the said Dr. Mary E. Walker, and that the actual medal of honor for meritorious services be given her."
The Congressional Medal was taken away from Dr. Walker in 1917 because Congress revised the standards to award the medal only to military service that included only "actual combat with an enemy." The decision to take away the medal was also due to the discrimination against females during this time. Dr. Walker did not return the medal and wore it every day until her death. On June 10, 1977, President Carter reissued the Medal posthumously to Dr. Walker. The Army Board reinstated the award for her "distinguished gallantry, self-sacrifice, patriotism, dedication and unflinching loyalty to her country, despite the apparent discrimination because of her sex."
Walker became a lecturer and writer after her service in the Civil War, supporting issues such as health care, temperance, women's rights, and dress reform. She served as president of the National Dress Reform Association and wore men’s clothes exclusively. She wrote two books, "Hit," a biography, and "Unmasked, or the Science of Immortality."
She died on February 21, 1919. A historical marker is placed on her birthplace on Bunker Hill Road in Oswego, New York. On June 10, 1982, a 20-cent stamp was issued in Oswego, New York in honor of Dr. Mary E. Walker, the first woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor and the second women medical school graduate in the United States. In 1997, Walker was honored at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial.
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