|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dr. Mary Walker’s Bible
|
A crusader for women’s equality, Dr. Mary Edwards
Walker served as a surgeon for the Union army during
the Civil War and was captured by the Confederates.
She received this pocket bible from a Confederate
chaplain, Reverend J. T. Carpenter, while in prison
in Castle Thunder, June 22, 1864, in Richmond, Virginia.
A year after the war, Walker became the only woman
ever to receive the Medal of Honor. However, the
medal was revoked in 1917 when Congress revised
its standards to include only “actual combat
with the enemy.” Six decades later, the women’s
movement sparked new interest in Walker's story.
In 1974, Smithsonian curators collected this Bible
and other objects from Walker’s grandniece and supported
a campaign to have her Medal of Honor restored.
In 1977, Congress reinstated the award. Walker was
the only woman to serve as a surgeon during the
war. |
|
Division of Social History, Political History
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution
Behring Center
Gift of Mrs. Jack Wilson
|
|
|
|
|
