Mary Edwards Walker

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Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) defied the conventions of her era. Born and raised on a farm in Oswego, New York, Walker became one of a handful of female physicians in the nation-and became a passionate believer in the rights of women.
Despite the derision of her contemporaries, Walker championed freedom of dress.

She wore slacks-or “bloomers” as they were popularly known-rather than the corsets and voluminous ground-dragging petticoats and dresses she believed were unhygenic and injurious to health. She lectured and campaigned for woman’s suffrage and for prohibition, and against tobacco, traditional male-dominated marriage vows, and any issue involving the sublimation of her sex.
From the outset of the Civil War, Walker volunteered her services as a physician.

Despite almost universal opposition from army commanders and field surgeons, Walker served at Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, and other bloody theaters of the war.

She ministered to wounded and maimed soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict. Captured by Confederates near Chattanooga in 1864, she served four months in a Southern prison hellhole where she nursed and tended to wounded prisoners of war.
For her services in the war, in 1865 Mary Edwards Walker was awarded the Medal of Honor, becoming the only woman in American history to receive the nation’s highest award for military valor.

Reviews

“In my 60 years of journalism. I’ve broken a lot of big stories but I’m green with envy at what Dale Walker has done. He’s got the scoop of a lifetime-discovering one of America’s greatest unsung heroes, a woman to rank with our greatest soldiers, explorers, and scientists. In a biography of grace and passion, Dale Walker rescues Mary Edwards Walker from the ash-heap of oblivion.” —Jack Anderson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

“A remarkable story about an extraordinary woman. A heroine in every sense of the word. Even without the Congressional Medal of Honor, Mary Edwards Walker was a tenacious, determined “Quiet Professional”. She ventured or was trust into experiences that few would dare. A great story by a most talented writer.” —Major General Sid Shachnow (U.S. Army, Ret.), author of

Hope and Honor

“It’s a tragedy that one of America’s greatest heroes, a battlefield nurse and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, lies unknown in an unvisited grave, and that no one has thought to write a book about her in the 100 years since she died. That Dale Walker has taken up her cause and written a book of such power and passion is a credit to both his skill and humanity. Walker does a profound service to us all-and to Mary Edwards Walker.” —David Nevin, New York Times bestselling author of Dream West

“There are more familiar heroines from the 19th Century-Julia Ward Howe, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Florence Nightingale, to name a few-but none were more important in advancing medicine and advocating women’s rights than Mary Edwards Walker. Eccentric but lovable, she led the way at tremendous personal cost, with amazing personal courage.” —Walter Boyne, New York Times bestselling author of Operation Iraqi Freedom

About the Author

Born in Illinois, the son of a career army sergeant, Dale L. Walker is a journalism graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso whose many books reflect his varied historical interests: military and Western history, 19th century "Golden Age" journalism, biography, and Jack London studies. Among his books are Januarius Macgahan: The Life and Times of an American War Correspondent; Legends and Lies: Great Mysteries of the American West; The Boys of '98: Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders; Bear Flag Rising: The Conquest of California; Pacific Destiny; and Eldorado: The California Gold Rush. He is a four-time winner of the Spur Award from Western Writers of America, the Owen Wister Award for life achievement in the history and literature of the American West, and many other awards, and is a member of the prestigious Texas Institute of Letters.

Walker, who lives in El Paso, Texas, with his wife of 43 years, Alice McCord, has been involved in virtually every aspect of the book business. He has served as a university press director, newspaper book page editor, magazine editor, fiction editor for Forge Books, book columnist and reviewer, and has written historical books, magazine articles, and fiction.

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Books By Dale L. Walker