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IN THE NEWS
GENERAL SURGERY NEWS / FEBRUARY 2022
The Scientific Greats: A Series of Drawings
Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) By MOISES MENENDEZ, MD, FACS
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r. Mary Walker was an American abolitionist, a prohibitionist, a prisoner of war and a surgeon. She was a highly principled and passionate reformer who refused to recognize the oppressive social conventions of 19th-century America, and is the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor. Dr. Walker was the youngest of seven children, with five sisters and one brother. Her parents raised her and her siblings in a progressive manner, which was revolutionary for the time. This nontraditional parenting strategy nurtured Dr. Walker’s spirit of independence and sense of justice that she actively demonstrated throughout her life. After finishing primary school, Dr. Walker attended Falley Seminary in Fulton, N.Y. Falley was not only an institution of higher learning but a place that emphasized modern social reform in gender roles, education and hygiene. Its ideologies and practices further cemented Dr. Walker’s determination to defy traditional feminine standards on a principle of injustice. In her free time, she would pore over her father’s medical texts on anatomy and physiology, leading to an interest in medicine at an early age. Dr. Walker worked until she saved enough money for medical school. She attended Syracuse Medical College, in New York, and received her medical degree in 1855. She was the only woman in her class. Shortly after graduating, Dr. Walker married another medical school student, Albert Miller, in November 1855. They started a medical practice together in Rome, N.Y., but the practice did not succeed because of people’s unwillingness to accept a woman as a doctor. At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Dr. Walker volunteered with the Union army and served as a surgeon at a temporary hospital in Washington, D.C., even though at the time women and sectarian physicians were considered unfit by the Union army examining board. At the start of the war, Dr. Walker, one of the few practicing female doctors at the time, arrived in Washington, D.C., seeking a position as a surgeon in the army. She met with the secretary of war, Simon Cameron, wearing a bloomer-style outfit, which incorporated trousers and represented her interest in equal rights for women. She was offered the role of a nurse, but declined, and chose to volunteer as a surgeon for the army as a civilian. Inspired by her parents’ novel standard of dressing for health purposes, Dr. Walker was infamous for contesting traditional female wardrobe. In 1871, she wrote, “The greatest sorrows from which women suffer today are those physical, moral, and mental ones, that are caused by their unhygienic manner of dressing.” While Dr. Walker was able to successfully push boundaries with her style of dress and occupation, she was never able to become a commissioned officer within the army. However, she secured a paid position as a civilian-contracted assistant surgeon. During
Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) 2017 Work was done on velour paper, 9×12, using charcoal pencils and white chalk. Artist: Moises Menendez, MD, FACS
this period, she served at the first battle of Bull Run (Manassas, Va.), and at the Patent Office Hospital in Washington, D.C. She worked as an unpaid field surgeon near the Union front lines, and was happy to see women serving as soldiers, alerting the press to the case of a woman named Frances Hook who served in the Union forces disguised as a man. Dr. Walker was the first female surgeon of the Union army. She wore men’s clothing, claiming it to be easier for the high demands of her work. In September 1863, she was employed as a “contract acting assistant surgeon (civilian)” by the Army of the Cumberland, becoming the first female surgeon employed by the U.S. Army. Dr. Walker was later appointed assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry. During her service, she frequently crossed battle lines and treated civilians. On April 10, 1864, Dr. Walker was captured by Confederate troops and arrested as a spy, just after she finished helping a Confederate doctor perform an amputation. She was sent to Castle Thunder in Richmond, Va., and remained there until Aug. 12, 1864, when she was released as part of a prisoner exchange. While she was imprisoned, she refused to wear the clothes provided her, said to be more “becoming of her sex.” The most notable takeaway is Dr. Walker’s advocacy for dress reform, which included wearing pants
from the start of her career through her death in 1919, and the public criticism she endured for her bravery. After the war, Dr. Walker sought a retroactive brevet, or commission, to validate her service. Former President Andrew Johnson directed Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war, to study the legality of the issue, and he solicited an opinion from the Army’s Judge Advocate General, who determined that there was no precedent for commissioning a woman, but that a “commendatory acknowledgment” could be issued in lieu of the commission. This led Mr. Johnson to personally award the Medal of Honor as an alternative. “The grounds upon which the Medal of Honor could be awarded were broader than they are today and rather ambiguous in a number of cases,” said Edward Lengel, the chief historian for the National Medal of Honor Museum. “It did not necessarily have to be combat service to qualify for the award, i.e., not just wartime service, but service actually under fire. Although, in many cases, Mary Walker came close to that.” And so, Dr. Walker was not formally recommended for the Medal of Honor, and this unusual process may also explain why authorities overlooked her ineligibility, ironically on the grounds of lacking a commission. Dr. Walker’s wartime experiences took their toll, and she never returned to medical practice. For the rest of her natural life, she devoted herself to causes including women’s suffrage, public health, dress reform and temperance; writing books, articles and pamphlets; and giving lectures. Dr. Walker was outraged when, in 1917, her medal was revoked on the grounds that she had not been an active combatant. While in Washington, D.C., two years later, petitioning to have it restored, she fell and soon after died at the age of 86 years, on Feb. 21, 1919, in Oswego, N.Y. Nearly 60 years after her death, in 1977, Dr. Walker’s Medal of Honor was posthumously restored by former President ■ Jimmy Carter.
Sources Ferry G. Mary Edwards Walker: military surgeon who wore the trousers. Lancet. 2020;395(10220):263. Harness C. Mary Walker wears the pants: the true story of the doctor, reformer, and Civil War hero. Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books. Johns Hopkins University Press; 2013. Kassraie A. Civil War surgeon only woman in history to receive the Medal of Honor: the story of abolitionist, prisoner of war and physician Mary Edwards Walker. AARP. March 23, 2021. Lange K. Meet Dr. Mary Walker: the only female Medal of Honor recipient. DoD News, Defense Media Activity. March 7, 2017. Wikipedia. Mary Edwards Walker.
—Dr. Menendez is a general surgeon and self-taught portrait artist in Magnolia, Ark. Since 2012, he has completed a series of portraits of historical figures, particularly well-known physicians and surgeons.
