Brilliant, Lonely Dr. Mary Walker, What Happened?

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
So many Civil War by-word personalities, you look them up, 90% of the web sites say the same thing. Dr. Mary? Here's what you get, watered down, disinterested, appalling for who she was: " Dr. Mary Walker was the first woman to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. She was a doctor during the Civil War and spy. Mary Walker was active in the Women's Right's movements and wrote several books. "
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Dr. Mary, during the war

The same woman who fought her way through medical school ( TWICE ) at a time when women simply were not accepted and later insisted on treating wounded under the harshest conditions bears no resemblance to someone decades later dying the eccentric, lonely old woman with few friends back home in Oswego, New York. Why? Because the same fight which got Mary Walker through so many tremendous struggles endured. There was nowhere to direct it. Who knows if I would have liked her, well not true, I like her hugely but suspect I would not have been able to form words around this formidable woman- I respect who she was and what she did. In fact am smitten by Dr. Walker. With reason.

Please excuse so much heavy reliance on one article. I do not think this military site will mind
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Mary Edwards Walker was born in 1832 in Oswego, New York, the daughter of Alvah, a physician, and Vesta Whitcomb Walker. Her family was abolitionist , and therefore much of Dr. Walker’s tendency towards non-conformity may be attributed to her parents education. Walker's degree in medicine Syracuse Medical College was received in1855.
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She wore that medal every day of her life, reportedly- I would think so!

There was a brief marriage, medical school classmate Arthur Miller. Having discovered in him a tendency to stray Mary resumed single life. Walker applied for a medical officer commission when war broke out, was denied and helped found the Women's Relief Organization istead- while working as a nurse in DC's Indiana Hospital. 1862 saw Dr, Mary working as a doctor for the Union Army in Virginia.


" When she was unable to find a position in Washington she went to the front lines, where she knew her services would be needed. She worked in a volunteer capacity at Warrenton, VA, and later at Fredericksburg, VA. She labored ceaselessly, receiving only a tent and food for her efforts. Without a commission, she had no status, which meant that her opinions and suggestions met with little respect. For example, she disapproved of the frequency of amputations conducted by Army physicians, believing some of them unnecessary. This attitude irritated her colleagues and did little to help her in her quest for a commission. "
http://www.womensmemorial.org/H&C/History/walker.html

This regiment, at winter quarters near Chattanooga, TN, was desperate for an assistant surgeon, the previous one having just died. Part of her responsibilities entailed caring for the surrounding civilian population. Courageously, Walker traveled to wherever she was needed, paying little attention to the line between Union and Confederate territory. On April 10, she took a wrong road, encountered an enemy sentry, and immediately surrendered. She was imprisoned in Richmond, VA, at a military prison named Castle Thunder. The prison was overcrowded and dirty. Many of the inmates were sick, but the authorities would not allow Walker to doctor them. Most of the food was spoiled, and Walker became ill. She was released in a POW exchange on Aug. 12, 1864. As a result of her incarceration, she suffered vision problems that later in life prevented her from practicing medicine.


She was assigned to the Louisville, TN, Female Prison to care for the inmates there. The prison housed Confederate women held on suspicion of spying and other anti-Union activities. Here she quickly annoyed prison officials by trying to help the inmates as much as possible. Her attitude did not make her popular with the patients, however, who disliked Walker simply because she was a woman. Women themselves believed that they should not be doctors. Fiercely trying to protect their own status as ladies, they were offended by the pants and full, knee-length tunic Walker wore to work in. Calling Walker an “anomalous creature,” they refused to trust her or take the medicines she prescribed. Many wrote letters of complaint to prison officials in Washington asking for “a man doctor or none at all.” '
http://www.womensmemorial.org/H&C/History/walker.html

Although there is no documentation, many believe that Walker served as a spy for the North. On January 24, 1866, Mary Edwards Walker received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Today, she is still the only woman to receive this award. "
http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/ead.html?id=PACSCL_DUCOM_WMSC126
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After the war, President Andrew Johnson granted Dr. Walker the Medal of Honor for her “untiring efforts” on behalf of the government and her “devotion and patriotic zeal to sick and wounded soldiers both in the field and in hospitals to the detriment of her own health.” Johnson’s order also mentioned the hardships Walker had endured as a prisoner of war. Walker was delighted with the medal, and wore it constantly.
walker dorothy hunt.jpg

With friend Dorothy Hunt, post war
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Mary became ever more eccentric and argumentative as she grew older, it is stated although it doesn't sound to me as if she changed all that much- she just wasn't working at a project or cause, so was interacting with the public. I think she had a pretty abrasive way with her- perhaps hard to get close to this woman.


In 1917, two years before Walker’s death, the Medal of Honor Board removed Walker’s name and 911 others from the list of recipients. In an attempt to make the medal more prestigious, the Board rewrote the qualifications, so that the medal would be awarded only to those who distinguished themselves “in actual combat with the enemy, by gallantry or intrepidity, at risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty.” Since Walker had not engaged in combat, she was ineligible for the medal. Walker, living on her farm in Oswego, NY, simply refused to return her medal and continued to wear it until the day she died. In 1977, the Army Board of Corrections posthumously restored the Medal of Honor to Dr. Mary Walker, stating that her acts of “distinguished gallantry, self sacrifice, patriotism, dedication and unflinching loyalty to her country despite the apparent discrimination because of her sex,” made the award of the Medal of Honor to Walker “appropriate.”http://www.womensmemorial.org/H&C/History/walker.html

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More war or just post war- Mary developed her own ' Look ' for comfort she said, not to be contrary.


" Walker was a member of the central woman's suffrage Bureau in Washington, and solicited funds to endow a chair for a woman professor at Howard University medical school. She attempted to register to vote in 1871, but was turned away. The initial stance of the movement, following Walker's lead, was to claim that women already had the right to vote, and Congress needed only to enact enabling legislation. After a number of fruitless years advocating this position, the movement promoted the adoption of a constitutional amendment. This was diametrically opposed to Walker's position, and she fell out of favor with the movement. She continued to attend suffrage conventions and distribute her own literature, but was virtually ignored by the rest of the movement. Her penchant for wearing masculine clothing, including a top hat, only exacerbated the situation. She received a more favorable reception in England than in the United States.


In 1907, Walker published "Crowning Constitutional Argument", in which she argued that some States, as well as the federal Constitution, had already granted women the right to vote. She testified on women's suffrage before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1912 and 1914.
walker2.jpg

Good way to remember a scholar, fighter for the underdog and friend of the needy. She may have hated the lace but she's sharp and vibrant here, ready for the fights ahead.


After a long illness, Walker died at home on February 21, 1919, at the age of eighty-seven. She was buried at Rural Cemetery in Oswego, New York, in a plain funeral, with an American flag draped over her casket, and wearing a black suit instead of a dress Her death in 1919 came one year before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote. "
From Wiki, Dr, Mary Walker page





 
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Thanks, JPK! I learned a lot from this post. So much of what she worked for we take for granted these days. Thank you, Mary, and all the other female pioneers for equality. You are very much appreciated!
 
Here's the one that really inspires me. There are pictures of her on-line.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_73.html


OH my goodness yes, apples and oranges, personality wise, too. Thanks very much for the reminder, must see what is out there on Dr. Crumpler. Have to investigate the photos- see if they're Pinterest generated? May have shown up through research- the dot gov site said there are none although who knows, may not be true. Have noticed several instances where someone will begin circulating a photo which turns out not to be the person at all- gets picked up then spreads like wildfire. You know Pinterest.
 
Surely Dr. Walker is someone we would recognize as dealing with gender dysphoria today, and that must have added stress to her life. Like many women in the era, she wanted respect and opportunity equal to a man, but as she got older, and perhaps braver, she dressed as a man, in clothes that must have felt natural to her. A bloomer costume might have been more practical on the battlefield, but a top hat and trousers in everyday life set her apart as not quite female, probably to her quiet satisfaction.
 
Surely Dr. Walker is someone we would recognize as dealing with gender dysphoria today, and that must have added stress to her life. Like many women in the era, she wanted respect and opportunity equal to a man, but as she got older, and perhaps braver, she dressed as a man, in clothes that must have felt natural to her. A bloomer costume might have been more practical on the battlefield, but a top hat and trousers in everyday life set her apart as not quite female, probably to her quiet satisfaction.


Yes, she must have. Cannot imagine, for real James, what she suffered because of this. It never broke her, thankfully. It has stayed with her for 150 years though, little maddening, that she is some oddball we should dismiss as such. It's unfortunate she isn't more feted in our century, you know? Talk about going her own way. When her husband was unfaithful, Mary wasted no time in reproaches and flinging herself about in tears- she simply severed the relationship. I'm afraid one of the ' takes' on Mary we see in 2016 is that she wore what she did to just annoy people, and I don't think Mary ever did that- she did what she did because this woman quite simply walked her own path, tough if someone disliked it. There's so much made of her ' eccentricities ', her genuine good works ( not to mention flat fearlessness ) is so, so overlooked!! Asking to be put in harm's way, to help wounded, they sent her to a female hospital instead. Those women asked she be removed- disliking a woman/man, although even that account is suspect. Mary expected women to behave up to better standards, the women there were not. From accounts, Mary tried to improve their lives from the ground up. It was not wanted.

I've come across other women ( and men ) who chose to express their gender identity in dressing to be not the gender society felt them to be, who were arrested, sometimes beaten- I'd have to guess Mary at least avoided this through sheer strength of character. I'm pretty smitten with Mary Walker, taught to be her own person from birth, 2 medical degrees, several crushing blows, acerbic mien her only defense against society's barrage of disapproval. Also very smitten with her refusal to give back the medal- she did indeed earn it although I've also read snarky explanations that Congress only gave it to her because she pestered them into it. What a load of nonsense- as if that were possible. All of Congress being pestered into this? Piffle. Mary Walker earned her medal. Gee whiz. 150 years later the snark on her is everywhere. Dr. Walker deserves better.
 
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