11/05/2025
They stripped her Medal of Honor in 1917. She refused to return it, wearing it daily on her men's suit until she died in 1919. It was restored 58 years later. She was right all along.
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was the only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor. The U.S. government tried to take it back. She told them to go to hell—not in those words exactly, but in every action for the rest of her life.
She was born November 26, 1832, on a farm in Oswego, New York. Her parents were abolitionists and educational reformers who believed daughters deserved the same opportunities as sons. Radical idea for 1832. Mary's father taught her carpentry, mechanics, and medicine. Her mother taught her that corsets were instruments of torture designed to keep women weak.
Mary rejected corsets at age 15. She started wearing "reform dress"—shorter skirts over trousers, modeled after Turkish women's clothing. She was mocked constantly. She didn't care. She'd decided that fashion designed to restrict women's movement was fashion designed to restrict women's lives.
At 21, she enrolled in Syracuse Medical College. One of the only women in America pursuing medical education. Her male classmates harassed her. Professors questioned whether women had the intellectual capacity for medicine. She graduated in 1855 with her M.D.—one of the first women doctors in the United States.
Then she discovered that having a medical degree meant nothing if no one would hire you.
She opened a private practice with her husband, Albert Miller (also a doctor). Patients refused to see a female doctor. The practice failed. Her marriage failed too—Miller had affairs, and Mary divorced him in 1869. Scandalous for the era. She kept her maiden name. Even more scandalous.
By 1861, Mary was 28, divorced, struggling financially, and then the Civil War started. She saw opportunity.
She traveled to Washington D.C. and volunteered as a surgeon for the Union Army. The Army said no. Women could be nurses—cleaning, cooking, comforting. Not surgeons. Not officers. Not equals.
Mary went to the front anyway. Unpaid. Unofficial. She set up near battlefields and treated whoever needed help. After the First Battle of Bull Run (July 1861), she worked in a temporary hospital in the Patent Office building, treating hundreds of wounded soldiers.
Army officials couldn't deny she was skilled. In 1862, they hired her—as a nurse. She took the job because it got her near the wounded. But she didn't just nurse—she diagnosed, prescribed, operated. Surgeons who initially resented her began requesting her assistance.
She also wore what she wanted: modified officer's uniform with trousers. Male officers complained. She ignored them. "I don't wear men's clothes," she said. "I wear my own clothes."
For two years, she worked in field hospitals, often under fire. She assisted in surgeries where men screamed and limbs were sawed off without anesthesia (supplies were limited). She walked through battlefields pulling wounded men to safety. She contracted typhoid fever and nearly died. She recovered and returned to work.
In September 1863, she was finally appointed as Army surgeon—civilian contract, but official recognition. She was assigned to the 52nd Ohio Infantry. She became the first female U.S. Army surgeon.
But Mary wanted to do more. She started crossing into Confederate territory to treat civilian wounded—women, children, elderly left behind in war zones. Dangerous work. She was a Union officer behind enemy lines.
On April 10, 1864, near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Confederate soldiers captured her. They accused her of being a spy. She wasn't—she was treating civilians. But she was wearing a Union officer's uniform in Confederate territory, so they imprisoned her.
She was held at Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia—a notorious Confederate prison. Conditions were brutal: overcrowded, disease-ridden, minimal food. Male prisoners of war were beaten and starved. Mary, as the only female officer prisoner, was kept in slightly better conditions (separate cell) but still endured four months of hunger, isolation, and uncertainty.
In August 1864, she was released in a prisoner exchange—traded for a Confederate officer. She'd lost significant weight and her health was damaged permanently. She returned to duty immediately.
November 11, 1865: President Andrew Johnson awarded Mary Edwards Walker the Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War. The citation praised her "valuable service" including "devoted[ness] to the sick and wounded" and her capture while "furnishing medical assistance to the wounded."
She was the first and only woman to receive it. She wore it every day for the rest of her life.
After the war, Mary became a writer, lecturer, and activist. She campaigned for:
Women's suffrage (right to vote—wouldn't be achieved until 1920)
Dress reform (opposed corsets, promoted practical clothing for women)
Women's property rights (married women couldn't own property in many states)
Temperance (alcohol prohibition—she'd seen alcohol destroy families)
She was considered eccentric, radical, difficult. She wore full men's suits with top hat. She was arrested multiple times for "impersonating a man" (it was illegal in some cities for women to wear trousers). She'd show up in court wearing her Medal of Honor and lecture the judge about women's rights.
People mocked her. Newspapers called her "a crazy woman in men's clothes." Cartoonists drew cruel caricatures. She didn't stop. She gave speeches across the country, wrote books, testified before Congress.
Then came 1917.
Congress passed a law revising Medal of Honor standards. They wanted to make it more exclusive—only for combat valor involving "risk of life above and beyond the call of duty" in direct combat with enemy forces.
They reviewed all previous recipients. They revoked 911 medals—mostly Civil War era awards given for non-combat service. Mary's was among them.
The Army Board for Correction of Military Records sent her a letter: return the medal.
Mary Edwards Walker, 84 years old, wrote back: No.
She wore it every day until she died. On her suit lapel. To lectures. To the grocery store. Everywhere. Pinned over her heart like armor.
She died February 21, 1919, at age 86. She'd tripped on the steps of the Capitol building (she was there lobbying for women's suffrage) and never fully recovered.
She was buried in her black suit, with her Medal of Honor pinned to her chest.
For 58 years, the revocation stood. Mary Edwards Walker was officially not a Medal of Honor recipient, despite the medal being buried with her, despite her service, despite everything.
Then, in 1977, a campaign by her descendants and supporters reached President Jimmy Carter. He reviewed her service record. On June 10, 1977, Carter signed legislation restoring her Medal of Honor.
She remains the only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor.
Here's what her story actually shows:
She wasn't recognized because she was exceptional. She was exceptional despite never being recognized—at least not in her lifetime. She served as a surgeon for years before the Army officially acknowledged it. She received the Medal of Honor, then had it stripped, then restored 58 years after her death.
She spent her entire life fighting for the right to simply exist as she was: a woman who wore practical clothes, practiced medicine, spoke her mind, and refused to apologize.
The world called her crazy. History calls her right.
Every woman who became a military surgeon after her walked a path Mary cleared—usually without credit. Every woman who wears pants without arrest walks in freedom Mary fought for. Every female Medal of Honor debate references the woman who wouldn't give hers back.
She didn't wait for permission. She didn't wait for society to approve. She didn't wait for the rules to change.
She just lived as if the rules didn't apply to her. And eventually—decades after her death—the world admitted she'd been right.
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker died in 1919 wearing the medal they'd tried to take. She was buried with it pinned to her chest. And in 1977, the United States government finally admitted: she'd earned it all along.
She was the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor. They tried to take it back. She refused.
And 58 years after she died, they admitted she'd been right to refuse.
Sometimes being ahead of your time means dying before your time catches up. But it catches up eventually.
And when it does, the medal's still pinned to your chest—exactly where you knew it belonged.
