Monday of this week (March 25) was National Medal of Honor Day — the anniversary observance of the awarding of the first Medals of Honor. It is a day to recognize all recipients of our nation’s highest military award for their “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty,” as well as to recall their extraordinary service and sacrifice on behalf of their brothers in arms and in defense of American Liberty.
Those first medals were awarded by Abraham Lincoln to six men for their actions on April 12, 1862, as members of Andrews’ Raiders. They were volunteers from three Ohio infantry regiments, and their valorous actions were memorialized in books and films as “The Great Locomotive Chase.”
Those actions occurred just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, the birthplace of the Medal of Honor and home of the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center.
Within two weeks of The Great Locomotive Chase, all of the Raiders were captured and held in the Swims Jail in Chattanooga, where they were charged with “acts of unlawful belligerency,” while the civilians, including James Andrews, were charged as spies. They were all tried and convicted in military courts. Andrews was executed on June 7, 1862, in Atlanta, and seven additional Raiders were also hanged there.
Andrews and seven of his Raiders are buried at a monument dedicated to their actions at the entrance of Chattanooga National Cemetery.
Since those first medals were awarded, American presidents and military commanders have, in the name of the United States Congress, presented Medals of Honor to more than 3,500 recipients — and amazingly, there have been 19 double recipients. In a nation of some 330 million people today, there are only 63 living recipients, one of whom, Sammy Davis, is in Chattanooga this week.
It is notable and fitting that for National Medal of Honor Day we profile Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, whose field of service was also Chattanooga.
A native of Oswego, New York, Walker broke many barriers, including earning her medical degree from Syracuse Medical College in 1855.
At the onset of the war, she attempted to join the Union Army, but as with all women, she was rejected by the uniform services. However, because of her persistence, she was hired as a civilian nurse and later a surgeon by the Union Forces, becoming the first female surgeon in the U.S. Army. She was assigned to the Army of the Cumberland and later the 52nd Ohio Infantry. She wore traditional men’s clothing as a surgeon, which helped her blur the lines of distinction in an era when women were not expected in the field.
Still, she later declared, “I let my curls grow while I was in the army so that everybody would know that I was a woman.”
Her first battlefield service was at Manassas in July 1861. In 1862, she lobbied the War Department to allow her to spy for the Union, but that was denied. Her most significant service was at the Battle of Chickamauga just south of Chattanooga in September 1863. She then came to Chattanooga to render medical assistance to the wounded for an extended period. The Union had suffered 16,000 casualties, including more than 9,700 wounded.
In 1864, Walker had crossed lines in order to assist a Confederate doctor in performing an amputation and was arrested as a spy, as she was also carrying letters. She had a history of crossing enemy lines in order to treat all those in need of care. She was imprisoned for four months at Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia, and released in a prisoner exchange in the summer of that year.
Consideration of that risk was a factor in awarding her a Medal of Honor on November 11, 1865. However, the primary factor was that Walker sought a retroactive brevet (or commission) to validate her service. After President Andrew Johnson directed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to review the legality of issuing a commission, the Army’s Judge Advocate General determined, as had Union Army officials during the war, that there was no precedent for commissioning a female. Thus, Johnson, with the support of Gen. George H. Thomas and Gen. William T. Sherman, issued her Medal of Honor as an alternative, despite the fact she was not formally recommended or vetted for the medal. He cited her devotion “with much patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers, in the fields and hospitals, to the detriment of her own health” and the hardships she endured as a prisoner of war for rendering such service.
Having distinguished herself as an abolitionist prior to the war, she would become a noted prohibitionist and suffragist in the years that followed.
In 1916, three years before the end of her life, the Army was directed to review its Medal of Honor rolls to ensure the eligibility of prior recipients. The Army's Medal of Honor Board deliberated from 1916 to 1917 and at the end of that process revoked 911 medals from recipients who had not met the qualifications for the award, mostly related to enlistments. Dr. Mary Walker and William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody were among those who did not meet the eligibility requirements, specifically because laws in 1862, 1863, and 1904 required recipients to be military officers or enlisted service members.
Walker refused to return her medal, however, and wore it until her death on February 21, 1919, at the age of 86. In 1977, an Army Assistant Secretary, acting on a recommendation from the Board for Correction of Military Records, determined that there were grounds for restoring Walker’s medal, though they exceeded their authority in doing so by contradicting standing law.
Despite his initial opposition to restoring the medal to Walker, President Jimmy Carter officially restored the award. According to her 1865 citation: “Whereas by reason of her not being a commissioned officer in the military service, a brevet or honorary rank cannot, under existing laws, be conferred upon her; and Whereas in the opinion of the President an honorable recognition of her services and sufferings should be made; It is ordered, That a testimonial thereof shall be hereby made and given to the said Dr. Mary E. Walker, and that the usual medal of honor for meritorious services be given her.”
In 1775, American Patriot Alexander Hamilton wrote, “There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.”
Mary Edwards Walker: Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot serving your fellow man above and beyond the call of duty, and in disregard for the peril to your own life — is eternal. “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of American Liberty, and for Veterans, First Responders, and their families.
Please consider a tax-deductible gift to support our hometown National Medal of Honor Sustaining Fund. Make a check payable to NMoH Sustaining Fund and mail to: Patriot Foundation Trust, PO Box 407, Chattanooga, TN 37401-0407. Visit the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center at Aquarium Plaza. (https://www.MOHHC.org)
Mark Caldwell