Page 32 - 21st Century Defense 100th Anniversary WW1

General Custer’s death struggle. The battle of the Little Big Horn,
H. Steinegger; S.H. Redmond del.; Lith. Britton, Rey & Co. S.F.
Photo contributed by H. Steinegger, Library of Congress.

Civil War surgeon Mary E. Walker in a full-length
studio portrait, facing left, hand resting on a book.
Photo by Holyland John, Library of Congress.
This time Dr. Walker served on the battlefield in tent hospitals
in Warrenton and Fredericksburg, Virginia. In the fall of 1863,
she travelled to Tennessee where she was appointed assistant
surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland by General George H.
Thomas, one of the principal commanders in the Western
Theater of the Civil War. In April of 1964, Dr. Walker was
captured and imprisoned by the Confederate Army. She
was released after being held for several months in
Richmond, Virginia.
In the fall of 1864 Dr. Walker accepted a contract as an acting
assistant surgeon with the Ohio 52nd Infantry and soon began
supervising a hospital for women prisoners and then an
orphanage. Dr. Mary Walker retired from government service
in June of 1865 and was later awarded the Medal of Honor
for Meritorious Service, the first and only woman recipient
to date. As the criteria for awarding the Medal of Honor
changed years later, the government withdrew Walker’s
medal in 1917 although she continued to wear the medal
until her death on February 21, 1919. In 1977, President
of the United States Jimmy Carter posthumously restored
Dr. Walker’s Medal of Honor.

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