Dr. Mary Walker, Civl War Surgeon

DR. MARY WALKER (1832-1919)

Mary Edwards Walker was a civilian doctor in Oswego, New York when the Civil War broke out. Because she was a woman, she was refused a commission as an army surgeon, but served on a volunteer basis at a Washington D.C. hospital. She worked as a field surgeon near the Union front lines for almost two years, including Fredericksburg, the Battle of Bull Run, and in Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga, then was appointed assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry. Captured by the rebels and imprisoned for four months in a Richmond prison, she was part of a prisoner exchange, the first known instance of an American woman being exchanged.

         She spent the rest of the war practicing at a Louisville female prison and an orphan's asylum in Tennessee. During her stay with the 52nd Ohio she may also served as a spy while in the civilian community to treat the sick and starving. She was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865, the only woman of the Civil War, or any war, to have been awarded this honor.
         Mary was certainly an unusual woman: she added trousers under her skirt, wore a man's uniform jacket and carried two pistols at all times. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, wrote of Dr. Walker: "She lived a life of determined unconventionality; being a bloomerite from her younger years, she preferred to dress in pants. Later on in life, still practicing medicine, she could be seen wearing men's top hats and top coats as well as pants."
         Dr. Walker's medal was rescinded in 1917, along with some 900 others. The official reason was that medals had been too liberally issued and should be restricted to those who actually fought, but some believed her unconventional lifestyle and support for suffrage prompted her inclusion. She refused to return the Medal of Honor, and wore it until her death in 1919.

Dr. Walker late in life, wearing her medal

The war left her scarred both physically and emotionally, but she continued to strive for women's rights for many years. She died alone, and almost penniless, at the age of eighty seven. She is buried in Oswego at Rural Cemetery. Her birthplace on Bunker Hill Road is noted with a historical marker, and some of her personal belongings can be seen by appointment at the Oswego Historical Society. Fifty-eight years later, the U.S. Congress posthumously reinstated her medal, and it was restored by President Carter on June 10, 1977.

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