Dr. Mary Edwards Walker – The Sole Female Recipient of the Medal of Honor
By traceylyles
– June 3, 2015Posted in: U.S. Army
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only female recipient of the Medal of Honor, was born on Nov. 26, 1832, in Oswego County, N.Y., and graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855. She married fellow medical student Albert Miller, but declined to take his name. The couple set up a medical practice in Rome, N.Y., but the public wasn’t ready to accept a woman physician. The practice and the marriage floundered.
When the Civil War started, the Union Army wouldn’t hire women doctors, so Walker volunteered as a nurse in Washington’s Patent Office Hospital and treated wounded soldiers at the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia. In 1862, she received an Army contract appointing her as an assistant surgeon with the 52nd Ohio Infantry.
As the first female doctor to serve with the Army Medical Corps, Walker treated the sick and wounded troops in Tennessee at Chickamauga and in Georgia during the Battle of Atlanta. Additionally, Dr. Walker advocated dress reform for women and frequently adapted men’s clothing for professional and personal comfort and utility.
http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2015/06/dr-mary-edwards-walker-the-sole-female-recipient-of-the-medal-of-honor/
