Female Civil War Doctor and Congressional Medal of Honor Winner: Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

    Dr. Mary Edwards Walker refused to relinquish her Congressional Medal of Honor when told she had to return it; she wore it until the day she died.  The Medal of Honor was tangible evidence of her contribution during the Civil War.  Walker was one of a few women to serve as a physician in the war; most women who were trained physicians served as nurses, but Walker refused to be classified as a nurse. However, Walker’s medical degree is neither the most unusual thing about her nor is it the most infamous.  She was a suffragist who worked alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott in the struggle for women’s rights.  She was a writer and a lecturer.  In her own words she was the “‘most prominent woman in the United States Army’.”  She was a “woman of exceptional determination and perseverance” whose actions and beliefs put her at odds with the Victorian ideal of womanhood.  

   Mary Edwards Walker was born to Alvah and Vesta Walker 26 November 1832.  Her sisters, Aurora Borealis; Vesta; and Luna, were named after constellations, but Mary Walker was named for an aunt.  Many of Walker’s ideas and beliefs that she lived by can be traced back to her childhood on her parents’ farm in Oswego Town, New York.  The Walker parents did not allow their children to sit idly by while they worked the farm; Alvah Walker put his daughters to work along with his son and Walker and her sisters were expected to perform the same tasks.