Only Woman Medal of Honor Holder Ahead of Her Time
Medal (http://www.medalofhonor.com/TheOnlyWoman.htm)
By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON Whenever Ann Walker's brattish attitude emerged, her grandmother would often say, "You're just like your great-aunt Mary."
"When I was a teen-ager, I started to wonder, who is this great- aunt Mary?" said Walker, 74. "I sort of hungered for information about her, but I couldn't find much. Nobody, including my grandmother, seemed to care about her. She always said, 'Your aunt was always dressing like a man.'"
Her curiosity surged when one of her father's friends, a history professor, told her about her distant relative, actually her great-great-aunt, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker of the Civil War Union Army. He told her Mary Walker was the first American woman to be a military doctor, a prisoner of war and a Medal of Honor recipient. She was also a Union spy and a crusader against tobacco and alcohol.
"He told me she was always imitating men, and if she had dressed like a lady, she would have had a larger role in history," said Walker, a resident of Washington's Georgetown Aged Women's Home. A retired free-lance journalist, Walker said she's working on a book, "Woman of Honor," to tell the story of her aunt's Civil War exploits and her controversial life thereafter.