Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War: One Woman's Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Women's Rights

by Theresa Kaminski

Overview

"History has long neglected the inspiring and incredible tale of Dr. Mary Walker, a pioneering Civil War surgeon who overcame rampant prejudice to save countless soldiers' lives. In Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War, Theresa Kaminski has finally given this American hero her due. Wit...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493066421
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/01/2022
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	400,524
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.05(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Theresa Kaminski earned her Ph.D. in history, with a specialization in American women’s history, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has spent more than twenty-five years researching and writing about American women. Kaminski regularly reviews nonfiction titles for Publishers Weekly and has been published with the Wall Street Journal.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "I Will Always Be Somebody" vii

Chapter 1 Getting to Washington 1

Chapter 2 Commission Seeker 20

Chapter 3 Volunteer Surgeon 35

Chapter 4 Field Surgeon 53

Chapter 5 In the Field, In the City 80

Chapter 6 Union Spy 106

Chapter 7 Surgeon in Charge 134

Chapter 8 The Medal of Honor 154

Chapter 9 Women's Rights during Radical Reconstruction 169

Chapter 10 Outcast and Erased 197

Chapter 11 The Old "New Woman" 227

Epilogue: The Medal of Honor Restored 255

Acknowledgments 260

Note on Sources and Recommended Readings 262

Sources 264

Index 301

About the Author 313

Editorial Reviews

11/09/2020

Kaminski (Angels of the Underground), a historian and reviewer for PW, presents a stirring portrait of a Civil War surgeon and women’s rights activist, Mary Edwards Walker (1832–1919), the only American woman to win the Medal of Honor. Presented by President Andrew Johnson in 1865, the award cites Walker’s “patriotic zeal” in serving as a contract surgeon for the Union Army during the Civil War and her endurance during four months’ detainment at a Confederate prison in Richmond, Va. After the war, Walker advocated for women’s suffrage and dress reform (she believed that traditional women’s clothing was unhygienic and constrictive, and was arrested on multiple occasions for wearing trousers). Walker’s activism sparked controversy, and in 1917 her Medal of Honor was revoked as part of a review that stripped 900 other recipients of their awards. Kaminski attributes renewed interest in women’s history in the 1970s and the patriotic surge of the 1976 bicentennial to the restoration of Walker’s Medal of Honor in 1977. Replete with intriguing tidbits about Civil War–era medicine, the suffrage movement, and 19th-century gender politics, this is a rewarding introduction to an influential yet little-known figure in early American feminism. (June)

Publishers Weekly

History has long neglected the inspiring and incredible tale of Dr. Mary Walker, a pioneering Civil War surgeon who overcame rampant prejudice to save countless soldiers’ lives. In Dr. Mary Walker’s Civil War, Theresa Kaminski has finally given this American hero her due. With impeccable research and engaging prose, Kaminski captures Walker’s outsized bravery and delicious swagger. The result is a vivid, eloquent portrait sure to thrill history buffs and anyone fascinated by the lives of audacious, before-their-time women.”

— Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park

“Dr. Mary Walker, once spurned as “the famous man-woman” for her insistence on wearing pants in public, is a heroine not just of the Civil War, when her service as a doctor made her the first and only woman to receive the Medal of Honor, but of the unfinished revolution for equal rights and fair treatment women are still waging today. Theresa Kaminski’s compelling narrative, thoughtfully contextualized and filled with vibrant characters, brings a complicated reformer and nearly a century of movement history back into the light.”

—Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast

“Dr. Mary Walker is primarily remembered for one thing, when she is remembered at all: her work as a surgeon in the Civil War. In Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War, Theresa Kaminski gives us an engaging and impeccably researched portrait of Walker as a whole person: devotion to reform, prickly personality, and all. She also demonstrates how easily an important woman can be erased from history during her own lifetime. If you're interested in Civil War medicine, the history of women's rights or kick-ass historical women, you'll want to read Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War.”

–Pamela D. Toler, author of Women Warriors

“Theresa Kaminski tells Dr. Mary Walker's incredible story with an easy to read style and impeccable research. A must read for those interested in not only the Civil War, but also medical history and the history of women's rights.”

— Lori Handeland, New York Times bestselling author

From the Publisher