Dr. Mary Edwards Walker: she was
Civil War’s woman who wore pants

By Dr. Judy C. Pierce
Bugle Staff Writer

The people laughed and snickered at the strange looking woman walking down the street wearing pants. One onlooker remarked, “Outrageous!” Another person said, “Scandalous! You need to be put in jail.”

“What is that fancy medal she is wearing on her coat?” one man asked.

Little did these people know that this strange person was Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman veteran of the Civil War who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Dr. Walker, the youngest of five daughters and one son, was born Nov. 26, 1832 in Oswego, N.Y., to Alvah and Vesta Whitcomb Walker. Her father, Alvah, was a carpenter and a self-taught amateur physician. Vesta was a teacher. The Walkers lived in New York during the 1820s and 1830s when there were reform movements advocating abolition and sexual equality. Therefore, they supported the idea of equal education for boys and girls and urged their children to work towards professional careers and personal independence.

Mary attended a local school operated by her parents. Later, she attended a seminary in Fulton, N.Y. She left the seminary in 1852 to teach. After two years, Mary decided to become a doctor, challenging society’s belief that teaching was the only appropriate job for a woman. She enrolled in Syracuse Medical College in 1853 and graduated in 1855 after completing three 13-week semesters of medical training in which she paid $55 for each.

Dr. Walker set up practice in Columbus, Ohio for a brief period before relocating to Rome, N.Y. It was here that Mary married a fellow doctor named Albert Miller, and together they set up a medical practice. Regrettably, most people were not ready to accept the idea of a female doctor and the practice soon failed. This affected the marriage and, in 1859, Mary and Albert separated and divorced 10 years later.

It is interesting to note that several years earlier, Mary enthusiastically embraced the emerging reform movements in the United States.

One of the first confrontations was over women’s clothing, which at the time included tight corsets and awkward, ankle-length hoop skirts. Her father believed that “Corsets were coffins.” Mary had always felt constrained by such attire and was very resentful of having to conform to what society deemed acceptable for a proper lady.

Thus, when the “bloomer dress,” invented by feminist Amelia Bloomer, became a political statement for radical women’s rights advocates during the early 1850s, Walker was among the first to hem her skirt to just below the knees and replace her petticoat with a pair of long, full trousers that eventually became known as “bloomers.”

Dr. Walker’s activities on behalf of the dress-reform movement utilized increasing amounts of her time during the rest of the decade. During 1857, she contributed to the group’s newspaper, The Sibyl: A Review of the Tastes, Errors, and Fashions of Society. Later that year, Mary attended a convention of dress-reform in Middletown, N. Y. By 1860, she began to address other controversial issues such as education, marriage, abortion, and the concept of “equal pay for equal work.”

In 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, Mary Walker headed to Washington, D.C., where she tried to obtain an official commission to serve as a surgeon in the U. S. Army. She was refused a commission, but decided to stay in the nation’s capital to serve as a volunteer to the Indiana Hospital, a makeshift facility that had been set up in a crowded section of the U. S. Patent Office. There she treated wounded and sick troops from Indiana.

Mary could not afford to work without pay, and in early 1863, she left Washington to take some classes at New York Hygeio-Therapeutic College hoping that additional schooling would enhance her change of obtaining a commission. In the fall of that same year, she began working unofficially as a contract surgeon at some field hospitals in Virginia.

Once again, Mary found herself in need of a more dependable source of income, so she turned to providing other kinds of assistance. She organized the Women’s Relief Association, a group that helped female visitors to Washington find a safe place to stay. Dr. Walker also established a service that helped women locate their loved ones in the various hospitals around Washington. Her attempts to set up a private practice once again failed.

After the Battle of Chickamauga, one of the bloodiest confrontations of the war, Mary headed to Tennessee to provide medical aid to the survivors. Denied permission to work as a doctor, she served as a nurse instead until early 1864, when her persistence, combined with the army’s desperate need for medical personnel, paid off. Over the loud objections of male army doctors, she received a long-awaited appointment as a surgeon to the 52nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was part of the Army of the Cumberland.

By the time Dr. Walker received her appointment, the troops of the 52nd Ohio Infantry were in good health. However, the same could not be said for the civilians living in the communities around the camp. So, she routinely crossed over into Confederate territory to deliver babies, treat various diseases, pull teeth, and perform medical care for the local citizens. Some people believe that Mary worked as a Union spy for General Sherman, however, there is no evidence to support that claim.

It was also during this time that Dr. Walker quit wearing women’s clothes entirely and donned male attire. She made slight modifications to a typical officer’s uniform and wore that instead to make it easier to move around and work in the field hospitals.  However, society did not see it quite that way and she was arrested many times for disturbing the peace by “strutting around” in men’s clothing.

On April 10, 1864, Dr. Walker was captured when she rode along and unarmed into Confederate territory south of Gordon Mills, Tenn. The commanding officer, General Daniel Harvey Hill, ordered her to Richmond for trial. Upon arrival in Richmond, Mary was greeted with hostility. Confederate B. J. Simmes summed up the feelings toward her when he wrote: “We were all amused and disgusted too at sight of a thing that nothing but a debased and depraved Yankee national could produce – a Female Doctor.” She was found guilty and imprisoned in “Castle Thunder,” a warehouse that had been converted into a prison.

After serving four months in prison, Mary was exchanged with two dozen other Union doctors for 17 Confederate surgeons. She was released back to the 52nd Ohio as a contract surgeon and paid $766.16 for her wartime service. Mary accepted the post of “surgeon-in-charge” of a hospital for female Confederate prisoners in Louisville. Due to resentment and criticism from the staff, she requested a transfer in 1865. She was sent to Clarksville, Tenn., to run a home for orphans and refugees.

In November 1865, President Andrew Johnson signed a bill to present Dr. Walker with the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service. She was the only woman ever to receive her country’s highest military award. Her name was removed in 1917, along with others, when terms used to designate eligibility for the award were reappraised. She vehemently refused to surrender her medal, and continued to wear it the rest of her life. This honor was restored in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

After the war, Mary again tried to secure a commission as a peacetime army surgeon, but was turned down. She worked as a journalist for a short time for a New York newspaper, but soon found herself heavily involved with the women’s movement.

Mary traveled to England where she delivered speeches on various women’s suffrage topics such as temperance, dress reform, and her Civil War experiences. Upon returning from England, she lectured on these topics throughout New England, the Midwest and the South.

As Dr. Walker grew older, she became more eccentric in dress and behavior. She was successful in obtaining a pension from the government of $8.50 a month which was later increased to $20.

In 1890, Mary returned to the family homestead in New York. She remained there for the rest of her life and ran the farm along with a sanatorium near Oswego for tuberculosis patients.

During a visit to Washington in 1917, Dr. Walker fell on the Capitol steps and suffered injuries from which she never fully recovered. She died two years later at her home in Oswego at the age of 86.

In 1982, a 20-cent stamp was issued honoring Dr. Walker in Oswego.

Officials of the post office said: “Dr. Mary Walker was a humanitarian devoted to the care and treatment of the sick and wounded during the Civil War, often at the risk of her own life. A patriot dedicated and loyal to her country, she successfully fought against the sex discrimination of her time. Her personal achievements, as much as her vocal support, significantly contributed to the struggle for women’s rights.”