During the Civil War, women weren’t allowed to vote or have bank accounts, were still subject to Victorian ideals of homemaking and motherhood as the sole purpose of female existence, and had little personal or political agency. And yet hundreds of them served in the war undocumented, dressed as men. Singular among them was the surgeon, feminist, and abolitionist Mary Edwards Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919), who is to this day the only woman awarded the Medal of Honor, the ...
