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Good evening, Twitter. Because it’s Women’s History Month, here’s a (long) thread on Dr. Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919), the only woman awarded the Medal of Honor to date. Thanks to @JimLaPorta for the inspiration! 1/
Walker was born to progressive, abolitionist parents in Syracuse, NY. She became an advocate of dress reform—particularly of the right for women to wear a shortened skirt over trousers, an offense for which women could be arrested at that time. 2/
After a 2-year stint as a teacher, she was accepted into Syracuse Medical College—one of the few medical schools to accept women. She graduated w/honors in 1855, at age 23; married classmate Albert Miller; and set up a joint practice w/him. He was unfaithful; they divorced. 3/
During the Civil War, women physicians were accepted for service only as civilian contract nurses. Walker refused to serve as a nurse, & went to Washington, DC, in October 1861 to ask the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, for a military commission as a surgeon. 4/
Her “reform dress” skirt/trousers & the idea of commissioning a woman were just too much for him! He denied her request. She then volunteered as an assistant to Dr. J. N. Greene, director of Indiana Hospital in DC. His previous assistant had died "of overwork." 5/
During this time, Walker traveled to northern VA several times & treated casualties from the First Battle of Bull Run (21 July 1861). A tireless patient advocate, she saved many soldiers from unnecessary amputations. Greene offered her part of his salary but she declined it. 6/
Based on her performance, he proposed that Army Surgeon General Clement Finley commission her as a contract surgeon. Finley said no. Assistant Surgeon General Robert C. Wood told her he’d have commissioned her if he’d been acting surgeon general when she asked—but couldn’t 7/
since his boss had already refused. She returned to NY for a 2nd medical degree—this one in the new science of medicine & hygiene. She'd seen firsthand the results of caring for wounded in filthy, unsanitary conditions. 8/
After casualties from the Second Battle of Bull Run (28-30 August 1862) overwhelmed Union hospitals in DC, Walker returned. Unable to secure employment, she went to the front lines at Warrenton, VA. 9/
Upon discovering a number of soldiers wounded & weakened from typhoid, she informed Major General Ambrose Burnside that they could not be cared for due to lack of supplies & must be returned to DC. 10/
On 15 November she put the wounded on a train for DC. There was too little space for them all; those in better shape had to sit atop the cars in the cold. Walker escorted them. Confederate raids were expected; moving the wounded by train was so new that 11/
the Army didn’t know if the train would be targeted. The conductor delayed, claiming there was no officer on board to authorize the trip. Since Walker had written authorization from Burnside to move the patients, she gave the order. 12/
She also volunteered at the front among the 13,000+ Union casualties of the Battle of Fredericksburg (11-15 December 1862), directing that patients on stretchers be evacuated feet first instead of head first to minimize further damage. 13/
Again denied a commission, she designed her own uniform: an officer’s greatcoat, a shortened skirt, trousers w/gold stripes down the outer seams, & the green sash which identified physicians. 14/
She returned to the front lines at the Chattanooga battlefield hospital to perform surgeries & deliver care after the Union defeat at Chickamauga (19-20 September 1863; 16,000+ Union casualties). 15/
In January 1864, Walker wrote directly to President Lincoln to request an officer’s commission to work on the women’s ward at Douglas Hospital. He also declined, saying that the controversy of commissioning a woman would “not subserve the public interest.” 16/
Finally Congressman John Franklin Farnsworth, a former brigadier general who left the Army in 1863 due to battle injuries, recommended that Assistant Surgeon General Wood commission her. She had to go through a Medical Board review conducted by Army medical officers. 17/
During her evaluation by the Department of the Cumberland Medical Board, Army medical officers who disliked contract physicians & women physicans asked her only questions about women’s health—not about treatment of wounded soldiers. /18
Walker called the eval a “farce”; Dr. G. Perin, the director, claimed her medical skills were “not greater than most housewives possess.” Finally General George H. Thomas, who’d seen her work treating Union wounded after Chickamauga, overrode the board. /19
On 14 March 1864, he assigned Walker as a contract surgeon to the 52nd Ohio Volunteers, at lieutenant pay ($80/month). She would be the only woman so assigned during the war. Walker reported to Union Army headquarters in Gordon’s Mills, North GA, under Colonel Daniel McCook. /20
McCook sent Walker across Confederate lines to treat civilians suffering from deprivation. During these missions she also conducted reconnaissance in preparation for General Sherman’s march on Atlanta. The intelligence she collected led Sherman to modify some of his ops. 21/
Her luck ran out on 10 April 1864, when she was taken prisoner by Confederate soldiers & sent to Castle Thunder Prison in Richmond. Guards were brutal; at least 1 woman prisoner at the prison was chloroformed, raped, & killed. Richmond newspapers ridiculed Walker. /22
Rations of cornbread, beans or peas, & (rarely) bacon were inadequate & maggot-ridden; water was limited. Prisoners got 30 minutes’ daily exercise. At one point she was near starvation; malnutrition and dim light from gas lamps in her cell ruined her eyesight. /23
Finally, on 12 August 1864, she was exchanged for a Confederate surgeon from TN. She returned to service in Louisville, KY, to care for Confederate women in the military prison. The women prisoners harassed her & wrote letters requesting “a man doctor or none at all.” 24/
After the war, President Andrew Johnson awarded her the Medal of Honor. Created in 1861, at that time the medal was given for “gallantry in action, and other soldier-like qualities, during the present insurrection (Civil War).” 25/
The citation says she “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, 26/
and has also endured hardships as a prisoner of war four months in a Southern prison while acting as contract surgeon.” /27
In 1917, a review board changed the award criteria to make the medal more prestigious. Nine hundred and eleven Medal of Honor recipients were dropped from the list—including Walker, because as a contract surgeon she was technically a civilian. 28/
Walker, now living on a farm in Oswego, NY, ignored the letter stating that her medal had been revoked. She refused to return it, & wore it almost daily until her death in 1919. 29/
In 1977, the Army Board of Corrections posthumously restored the Medal of Honor to Dr. Mary Walker: /30
her acts of “distinguished gallantry, self sacrifice, patriotism, dedication & unflinching loyalty to her country despite the apparent discrimination because of her sex” made the award “appropriate.” 31/x
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I was pretty tired last night, but credit is due to some great sources. First: amazon.com/Dr-Mary-Walker…
And the Special Collections in the library at @SyracuseU, which holds Dr. Walker’s unpublished vignettes of her Civil War experiences. You can read excerpts of them in: amazon.com/Its-Country-To…
