Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm to blame a chalk reboarding and I'm fair at out.
Speaker 1: And last summer we took a stab at covering one specific,
Speaker 1: perhaps lesser known aspect of the Civil War, and that
Speaker 1: was Civil War Spies, and we had so much fun
Speaker 1: doing this little mini series, as we like to call it,
Speaker 1: that we decided to take a similar approach with a
Speaker 1: different topic involving the Civil War. And now, before you
Speaker 1: get too excited or up in arms, that's not to
Speaker 1: say that we'll never cover any of the army campaigns,
Speaker 1: battles or raids that took place. It is the one
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War, after all, so that's coming.
Speaker 1: But for now we're enjoying focusing on those facets of
Speaker 1: the war that maybe didn't receive as much press as
Speaker 1: the battles, and little issues like who won and who lost,
Speaker 1: like that sort of thing. And the one we want
Speaker 1: to look at right now is the world of Civil
Speaker 1: War medicine, and it kind of dovetails nicely into the
Speaker 1: discussion we did earlier this year of David McCullough's latest book,
Speaker 1: The Greater Journey, which includes stories of some Americans of
Speaker 1: the era that we're studying medicine in Paris. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in fact, many of the unsung heroes of the Civil
Speaker 1: War battlefront weren't soldiers at all. They were doctors, their nurses,
Speaker 1: and volunteers who still managed to save thousands of lives
Speaker 1: although they were working in really, really horrible conditions with
Speaker 1: what we would now consider primitive equipment, and maybe even
Speaker 1: at the time they considered to be kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: not not what you'd have in the hospital for sure,
Speaker 1: But even though they may not have started out with
Speaker 1: many during the course of the war, both the Federal
Speaker 1: Army and the Confederacy did employ thousands of surgeons and
Speaker 1: assistant surgeons. So we do have a lot of people
Speaker 1: to choose from if we decide to pursue this little
Speaker 1: mini series a bit. And according to the National Museum
Speaker 1: of Civil War Medicine, all of these doctors were officers.
Speaker 1: Surgeons were the equivalent to a major, and assistant surgeons
Speaker 1: were equivalent to a captain. So from that you can
Speaker 1: surmise if most or all of these surgeons were officers,
Speaker 1: that they were also all men. Yeah, but that may
Speaker 1: surprise some people because there were a handful of women
Speaker 1: in the United States who had received medical degrees from
Speaker 1: US institutions by that time, but women hadn't been allowed
Speaker 1: to practice medicine in much of the world basically since
Speaker 1: the Renaissance, and the tide was just turning. It was
Speaker 1: just beginning to turn on that still, whether you had
Speaker 1: an MD or not. If you were a woman, the
Speaker 1: most you could do in the world of Civil War
Speaker 1: medicine is work as a nurse or a volunteer. But
Speaker 1: one woman, Dr Mary Edwards Walker, managed to overcome the
Speaker 1: obstacles and is said to have been the only woman
Speaker 1: surgeon who was formally engaged for field duty during the
Speaker 1: Civil War. She worked for the Union side, and she
Speaker 1: ended up winning a Medal of Honor for her efforts,
Speaker 1: though there was some controversy surrounding that too, So we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a look at how she pulled this off,
Speaker 1: as well as some of the more prevalent rumors about her,
Speaker 1: For example, did she really dress like a man and
Speaker 1: was she really a Union spy? It always has to
Speaker 1: come back to those spies. This is secretly an extension
Speaker 1: of the spy series. But first we're gonna look at
Speaker 1: how Mary Edwards Walker got her start. It was unusual
Speaker 1: during her time for women to go to a medical school,
Speaker 1: of course, but Mary Edwards Walker grew up in a
Speaker 1: kind of unusual family. She was born November thirty two
Speaker 1: in oswe Go in upstate New York, and her father,
Speaker 1: a man named Alva, had a farm nearby. She was
Speaker 1: the fifth daughter of Alva and his wife Vesta. But
Speaker 1: Walker's parents were quite progressive and they really encouraged their
Speaker 1: children to pursue an education and even ran a school
Speaker 1: that the kids attended to make sure they got educations. So,
Speaker 1: like her sisters, Walker went into teaching for a short
Speaker 1: time after finishing up her studies, but she had ambitions
Speaker 1: to do more, and that to go on and get
Speaker 1: a medical degree, and her father encouraged that. So she
Speaker 1: was able to enroll at Syracuse Medical College, which was
Speaker 1: considered kind of a non traditional school it treated men
Speaker 1: and women more equally, and enrolled there at age twenty one,
Speaker 1: so she's off to a start. She graduated in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty five, and she was the only woman there to
Speaker 1: be awarded a medical degree. Having that degree though didn't
Speaker 1: automatically translate to a successful career in medicine. Getting people
Speaker 1: to take her seriously as a doctor was pretty tough.
Speaker 1: Building a career was probably tough for any female doctor
Speaker 1: at that time, we should say that. But one thing
Speaker 1: in particular made it even harder for Walker to fit in,
Speaker 1: and that was her appearance. You see, from a young age,
Speaker 1: Walker was a supporter of dress reform definitely by the
Speaker 1: time she graduated, she was vocal about it at least,
Speaker 1: and she, like several other reform minded people, thought nineteenth
Speaker 1: century women's clothing was unhealthy, with dirt gathering, long skirts
Speaker 1: and stiff petticoats and corsets that made it tough for
Speaker 1: women to breathe, kind of dangerous to a fire hazard,
Speaker 1: could get caught in things, many problems, yep. So instead,
Speaker 1: Walker wore what became known as the Bloomer dress, and
Speaker 1: it was known as this because it was worn and
Speaker 1: championed by the feminist Amelia Jenkins Bloomer. And this outfit
Speaker 1: consisted of trousers that had full, billowing pant legs that
Speaker 1: tapered around the ankles, and a skirt that was shortened
Speaker 1: to about four inches below the knee. Sometimes you see
Speaker 1: that the skirt was at the knee, so but somewhere
Speaker 1: around there. And Walker argued that this was not only healthier,
Speaker 1: it was quote a convenience to her business. So in
Speaker 1: other words, it made it easier to work. Yeah, move around.
Speaker 1: We actually talked kind of about a similar costume in
Speaker 1: the Oneida episode. It wasn't true bloomers, but little short pantaloons,
Speaker 1: and they'd wear um shorter knee length or midcalf skirts
Speaker 1: to just make it easier to do all the work
Speaker 1: that you had to do if you were living on
Speaker 1: the Aneida commune. But this outfit, these bloomers, it didn't
Speaker 1: really help Walker get any work. People ridiculed her, and
Speaker 1: she tried for a few months to set up practice
Speaker 1: in Columbus, Ohio, but it was not successful. So she
Speaker 1: established another practice in Rome, New York, and she got
Speaker 1: married to a fellow physician named Albert Miller, and they
Speaker 1: did as many married doctor couples do now it seems
Speaker 1: they shared a practice, although that was also unsuccessful, and
Speaker 1: she didn't take his name, which was another sort of
Speaker 1: twist she had on common conventions of the time. She
Speaker 1: also had the word obey omitted from her wedding vows,
Speaker 1: but by eighteen fifty nine, Miller had separated from Walker
Speaker 1: and they divorced ten years later. When the war broke out,
Speaker 1: Walker wanted to help out the Union cause, and so
Speaker 1: she went to Washington. She knew that the army would
Speaker 1: be in need of skilled surgeons, and she hoped that it,
Speaker 1: being a time of war and all, a woman doctor
Speaker 1: might actually stand a chance. She was completely wrong there.
Speaker 1: The Army turned her down, that they wouldn't give her
Speaker 1: an appointment as a physician. Walker stayed on in d
Speaker 1: C anyway, though, working as a volunteer nurse at a
Speaker 1: hospital there, and she helped to organize a women's relief association,
Speaker 1: which I think was a place where women seeking loved
Speaker 1: ones could stay while she kept trying for an army appointment.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty two, she had to leave d C
Speaker 1: for a while, though, and she earned a degree from
Speaker 1: the New York Hyggeotherapeutic College in New York City during
Speaker 1: that time. She did return her attention to the war
Speaker 1: later that year, though, and ended up traveling independently to
Speaker 1: Virginia to lend a hand in the field. First to
Speaker 1: the army of the Potomac and their encampment in Warrenton,
Speaker 1: Virginia and then to Fredericksburg. They had a huge need
Speaker 1: for medical personnel, and Walker arrived actually in the middle
Speaker 1: of a typhoid epidemic, just to give you an idea
Speaker 1: of how bad off they were. So she was allowed
Speaker 1: at this time to treat soldiers, but again on a
Speaker 1: volunteer basis. She was not paid for her work. They
Speaker 1: gave her rations an attent. But Walker really was finally
Speaker 1: right there in the thick of it, with a very
Speaker 1: few supplies, helping care for survivors after battle. She treated wounds,
Speaker 1: and she said to have tried to avoid amputation whenever possible,
Speaker 1: and she also helped treat a number of camp diseases,
Speaker 1: to which, of course, disease was the biggest killer in
Speaker 1: the Civil War, wasn't it. Yeah, I think that may
Speaker 1: be the case. So Walker was getting to use her
Speaker 1: skills and make a difference. She was saving lives, but
Speaker 1: she still really wanted that Army appointment. She continued to
Speaker 1: lobby for that. So eventually, after working for so long
Speaker 1: in the field, she managed to make a name for
Speaker 1: herself and in eighteen sixty three, around the end of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three beginning of eighteen sixty four, she finally
Speaker 1: did receive an appointment as a civilian contract surgeon to
Speaker 1: the fifty second Ohio Volunteers. Since she was a civilian, though,
Speaker 1: she had to undergo a medical competency exam and that
Speaker 1: did not go so well. No, the examination board was,
Speaker 1: of course made up of all men, and they kind
Speaker 1: of seemed to be biased against her right from the beginning.
Speaker 1: According to an article by John Bloomer in American History,
Speaker 1: one of them described her as quote medical monstrosity, dressed
Speaker 1: in a quote hybrid costume, and said that she quote
Speaker 1: had no more medical knowledge than an ordinary housewife and
Speaker 1: was entirely unfit for the position of medical officer. Pretty
Speaker 1: harsh words there. But Walker didn't feel that she had
Speaker 1: been fairly treated during this examination. She later said, quote
Speaker 1: I felt that the examination was intended to be a farce,
Speaker 1: and more than half the time was consumed in questions
Speaker 1: regarding subjects that were exclusively feminine and had no sort
Speaker 1: of relation to the diseases and wounds of soldiers. So
Speaker 1: Walker failed the examination, as you might guess, and was
Speaker 1: declared incompetent, but Interestingly enough, their judgment did not stick.
Speaker 1: Who knows why, maybe because those who supported her new
Speaker 1: her actual abilities, But regardless, she got to keep her
Speaker 1: post and join the fifty second Ohio Regiment near Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Her contract paid eighty dollars a month, so it seems
Speaker 1: like she's doing well at this point, But it's winter
Speaker 1: when she takes her post, and in addition to treating
Speaker 1: soldiers and even some local civilians, she spends a lot
Speaker 1: of her time writing beyond Union lines, treating anyone who
Speaker 1: needed help, and delivering supplies. And this is probably how
Speaker 1: she got that reputation as a spy. She often gets
Speaker 1: lumped in. If you look up civil war spy, she
Speaker 1: ends up on the list. She has suggested a lot
Speaker 1: during our series. That's very true, but while the army
Speaker 1: may have used her to get information, there's really no
Speaker 1: proof that they did. Walker may have unofficially kept her
Speaker 1: eyes and ears open, but she never mentioned anything about
Speaker 1: spying in any of her writings. So it said though
Speaker 1: that Walker did often carry two revolvers with her and
Speaker 1: that she was usually escorted when she crossed Union lines.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, on April tenth, eighteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: She was alone and unarmed, and Confederate soldiers did capture
Speaker 1: her as a spy, and according to Bloomberg's article, the
Speaker 1: Confederates apparently didn't know what to make of Walker really.
Speaker 1: Confederate Captain B. J. Sam said of her in a letter, quote,
Speaker 1: this morning, we were all amused and disgusted too at
Speaker 1: the site of nothing but what the debased and depraved
Speaker 1: Yankee nation could produce, quote a female doctor. So the
Speaker 1: soldiers took her to Richmond, Virginia, where she was imprisoned
Speaker 1: in a converted tobacco warehouse called Castle Thunder, which was
Speaker 1: a pretty nasty place, as the name suggests. Walker was
Speaker 1: there until August, when she was exchanged for a Southern officer,
Speaker 1: and her time as a prisoner of war really affected
Speaker 1: the state of her health. She lost a lot of
Speaker 1: weight and developed vision problems that ended up affecting her
Speaker 1: ability to practice medicine. After she was free, though Walker
Speaker 1: didn't return to the tent hospital. She was assigned to
Speaker 1: a women's prison hospital under contract as an acting assistant surgeon,
Speaker 1: and then later she was assigned to work in an
Speaker 1: orphanage in Tennessee, and according to the Encyclopedia of American
Speaker 1: Military History. Though these were more administrative type positions than
Speaker 1: surgical one, so she wasn't really getting to practice her
Speaker 1: profession to the extent she had earlier. These appointments were
Speaker 1: also the last of her career with the Army. Walker
Speaker 1: left government service in June eighteen sixty five, so she
Speaker 1: never quite had the full career that she wanted with
Speaker 1: the Union Army. Apparently, after she was released from prison,
Speaker 1: she'd hope that she'd get a permanent position in the
Speaker 1: Army as a medical inspector. But that same year, the
Speaker 1: same year that she did leave the Army, on November eleventh,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, she was awarded the Medal of Honor
Speaker 1: by President Andrew Johnson for rendering quote valuable service to
Speaker 1: the government to the detriment of her own health. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, here's this lady. She can barely get a
Speaker 1: job with them for most of the war, and then
Speaker 1: she comes out of it with a medal of honor.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good consolation, rise, I guess. And she
Speaker 1: was the first woman. And I think I'll put that
Speaker 1: and ask Ricks, I'll put that out there in ASTERIX.
Speaker 1: I think she's still the only woman to have received
Speaker 1: a medal of honor. Let us know if if there's
Speaker 1: another out there. Moving on to after the war, Walker
Speaker 1: did some newspaper work in New York before returning to
Speaker 1: d C to practice medicine there, But from what I
Speaker 1: can gather, most of the rest of her life was
Speaker 1: really devoted to the various social and political issues that
Speaker 1: she supported, rather than any secure form of employment. In
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, for example, she was elected president of
Speaker 1: the National Dress Reform Association. But eventually other feminists tried
Speaker 1: to distance themselves from her because she was growing increasingly eccentric,
Speaker 1: and also they were just afraid that people were focusing
Speaker 1: too much on what all the women were wearing rather
Speaker 1: than their politics, too much attention going to the bloomers exactly,
Speaker 1: But that didn't seem to affect Walker's point of view
Speaker 1: on the matter. She continued to dress differently from most women.
Speaker 1: While in the army, she dressed like an officer, which
Speaker 1: was sort of one thing, because you know, maybe she
Speaker 1: was just dressing like an officer to fit in with
Speaker 1: everyone else. But after the war, she event started wearing
Speaker 1: full male attire, down to a wing caller, a bow tie,
Speaker 1: and a top hat. And she even got arrested for this, yeah,
Speaker 1: more than once, in fact, for masquerading as a man in.
Speaker 1: Her excuse was that she had been given permission by
Speaker 1: Congress to dress that way, that there's no record of
Speaker 1: any such decree by Congress. She wrote two books, one
Speaker 1: that is at least partly autobiographical, called Hit and another
Speaker 1: called Unmasked or The Science of Immorality. But she was
Speaker 1: also known to display herself in museum sideshows, so a
Speaker 1: lot of people just thought that she was maybe kind
Speaker 1: of she'd gone crazy, essentially. Yeah. She said to have
Speaker 1: worn her Medal of Honor around all the time. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, though Walker's Medal of Honor was revoked along
Speaker 1: with about nine hundred others, she wasn't the only one
Speaker 1: that has happened to. It was revoked by the Board
Speaker 1: of Medal Awards because she hadn't actually seen combat, but
Speaker 1: Walker refused to give it back. According to the Encyclopedia
Speaker 1: of American History, she said, quote, you can have it
Speaker 1: over my dead body, and she continued to wear it
Speaker 1: until she died on February one, nineteen nineteen, on her
Speaker 1: family's farm in Oswego. So she was good to her threat.
Speaker 1: She was, and in ninety seven, thanks in a large
Speaker 1: part to the efforts of her great great niece and Walker,
Speaker 1: President Jimmy Carter restored her medal of Honor and that
Speaker 1: medal now resides in the Oswego Historical Society. So one
Speaker 1: more note on Oswego. Her hometown recently announced just this
Speaker 1: year that they're planning on building a fifty three thousand dollar,
Speaker 1: six foot bronze statue of Walker outside their town hall,
Speaker 1: you know, celebrate this famous figure from their town. I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: I guess they'll they would have to put her in
Speaker 1: the Reform dress style, don't you think, or maybe even
Speaker 1: the officers uniform. Oh, I don't know. I hope it's
Speaker 1: the Reform dress style. Yeah, I mean if if she
Speaker 1: was the president of the party, it seems only fitting
Speaker 1: and well, Dr Walk HER's dress as yet undecided for
Speaker 1: the statue. We did want to try to give you
Speaker 1: a better picture of what she was like as a person,
Speaker 1: and here's a good New York Times quote that helps
Speaker 1: describe her. Few people have ridiculed Dr Mary to her face.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was because she had a sort of dignity
Speaker 1: because about her essential goodness, there has never been any question.
Speaker 1: And Walker said of her own accomplishments in I Am
Speaker 1: the Original New Woman. Why before Lucy Stone, Mrs Bloomer, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: Katie Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony were before they were
Speaker 1: I Am in the early forties when they began their
Speaker 1: work in dress reform, I was already wearing pants. I
Speaker 1: have made it possible for the bicycle girl to wear
Speaker 1: the abbreviated skirt, and I have prepared the way for
Speaker 1: the girl in Knickerbocker's. So there you go. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean she was a controversial figure at times, but she
Speaker 1: helped a lot of people. And we were kind of
Speaker 1: giggling a bit when we got to the part where
Speaker 1: she wasn't going to give her metal back. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels like she does deserve some of these honors
Speaker 1: that she's getting, and we and we decided it was
Speaker 1: just a bad idea to revoke medals that have already
Speaker 1: been given out. We touched about there recently in the
Speaker 1: dog episode Military Dogs, one of them got his medals
Speaker 1: taken back. Yeah. I just don't like that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: when once you once you give them you can change
Speaker 1: your standards going forward, but if you give somebody a
Speaker 1: medal of honor, let him keep it well. Sarah Dowdy
Speaker 1: has spoken, and I think this is a good place
Speaker 1: to move on to the listener mail. So first we
Speaker 1: have a very sweet note from Nick, who looks like
Speaker 1: he might have gotten out his special calligraphy pens to
Speaker 1: to do this, because I don't you think it looks
Speaker 1: like um it's a fine pen. It does, it looks nice,
Speaker 1: it does. So he wrote to us to suggest Martin
Speaker 1: Luther and Um also asked us to write. So I
Speaker 1: hope reading your mail on listener mail makes up for
Speaker 1: not writing. Yeah, we have terrible penmanship, so you don't
Speaker 1: want to receive a lot of from us, but thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. And then we also have an
Speaker 1: email from Josh and I just really really liked this.
Speaker 1: He wrote to us to say, I am an American
Speaker 1: currently living on a book agricultural community in Israel, and
Speaker 1: my job on the kabbutz is a pomegranate farmer. I
Speaker 1: pick the fruit, prune the trees, and do just about
Speaker 1: everything else needed to help the pomegranates grow. As been
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast every day, all day for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks now, and I just want to say
Speaker 1: thank you for making my day so fun. So this
Speaker 1: is awesome. I mean, he's picking pomegranates. I'm listening to
Speaker 1: our podcast. Yeah, I love that. We we think we're
Speaker 1: thinking of making a new listener mail, specific segments devoted
Speaker 1: to things people are doing while they're listening to Steph.
Speaker 1: I started a list already. I'm not gonna lie because
Speaker 1: we have been getting so many of these. I think
Speaker 1: since we read the listener mail recently where the woman
Speaker 1: lists and while she was doing archaeological work and played
Speaker 1: it out loud to alert theirs to her presence, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was an unusual use for the podcast.
Speaker 1: That was a cool one, practical one. And so pomegrantic
Speaker 1: growing is up there, though definitely up there printing pomegranate tree.
Speaker 1: So we are starting a list. If you do something
Speaker 1: kind of interesting or unusual while listening. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: don't feel bad. If you're running or working in you're
Speaker 1: doing your laundry, that's fine. I know that's what most
Speaker 1: of y'all do, and that is great. But if you
Speaker 1: do anything like pick pomegranates and listen to our podcast,
Speaker 1: let us know you might get on listener meal, and
Speaker 1: you can send us all of those suggestions or comments
Speaker 1: at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com. We're
Speaker 1: also on Twitter at Miston History. We got a good one.
Speaker 1: We heard from people who baked pies while they listened
Speaker 1: to the podcast on Twitter. It makes me want to pie.
Speaker 1: That makes me want to ply to UM. And we're
Speaker 1: also on Facebook, so you have lots of ways to
Speaker 1: tell uh if you do something unusual while you listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast. And we have a plenty of articles
Speaker 1: about war that you can look up as you're listening
Speaker 1: to our Civil War related podcasts, and you can look
Speaker 1: those up on our website and on our homepage, which
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