The Characters Behind the Characters. Dr. Mary Walker – Larger than Life.

C. A. Asbrey

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

Every writer has something which germinates that little kernel of an idea, which grows into a plot, a character, or a scene. If we’re lucky, it inspires a whole universe, or fits neatly into one we are already building. Some of us get our inspiration from movies, T.V. shows, even pictures of models. Others are inspired by real people, or have figures who form from imagination who distil from the ethereal energy in the brain into something more tangible on paper. I’m no different to any other writer in that respect. I get my ideas, and run with them like anyone else, and I thought I might share with you some of the real people who inspired some of the characters in The Innocents Mysteries Series.

It’s fair to say that some of the most outrageous characters are actually based on reality, and are people I came across while researching. One of my favourites is Dr. Davida (Vida for short) Cadwallader. In the series she is a friend of the protagonist, Abigail MacKay. They met when Abigail joined the Pinkertons, and became friends. Dr. Cadwallader was arrested as a spy during the Civil War, worked as an Army Surgeon, a Pinkerton, and now consults with the Pinkerton Detective Agency while practicing as a doctor and an Alienist. She was a proponent of The Rational Dress movement, and insists on wearing men’s clothes.

In the book ‘Innocent Minds’ she is introduced as follows:

“I think that’s who you’re waitin’ for. Abi said she might be unusual. Any more unusual and she’d be got up in one of them horse suits. What’s she come as?” 
Both men stared over at the stout woman wearing a man’s frock coat, high-collared shirt, cravat, and stove pipe hat, who stared up and down the quay as though searching for someone. 
“At least she’s wearing skirts,” said Nat. “I guess that’s something.” 
“Yeah,” Jake answered. “That was my first thought when I clapped eyes on her. That’s really somethin’.”

Vida has a remarkable past in the books, but no more incredible than the real woman who inspired her, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919). She wasn’t a Pinkerton, but none the less remarkable for that.

She was born in Oswego, New York. Her parents were both very progressive for the time and reinforced the idea that there was no such thing as roles defined by gender, but only by ability. Her mother often did heavy farm work, while her father attended to domestic duties. Mary’s ideas on female clothing came from her mother, who did not like corsets, and encouraged the girl to wear men’s clothes to work around the farm. Tight-lacing was said to be unhealthy and unnecessary, and these ideas seem to have stuck with Mary for life. Her parents also insisted that their daughter be as well-educated as their son, and she gained her medical degree in 1855 from Syracuse Medical College.

She married a fellow medical student, Albert Miller, on November 16th, 1855. True to form, for the wedding she wore a short skirt with trousers underneath for her wedding. She also refused to ‘obey’ in the wedding vows. They set up a joint practice in Rome, New York, but it failed due to suspicions of female doctors at the time. The marriage was also short-lived due to Miller’s infidelities. The couple separated and divorced.

Her insistence that long skirts and numerous petticoats spread dirt, as well restricting the movement of the wearer, led her to experiment with various combinations of trousers and skirts. This was not well-received by many, and she was widely ridiculed, and attacked more than once. At one point she was even arrested by a police officer who twisted her arm, demanding to know if she’d ever had sex with a man. She was released after influential friends kicked up a fuss regarding the matter.

When the Civil War broke out she offered her services to the union side as she was a passionate abolitionist, but women were not permitted to be doctors, so she ended up working as a nurse instead. She was known to wear men’s clothes when working, insisting it was more practical in the field. Mary served at the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), July 21, 1861 and at the Patent Office Hospital in Washington,  D.C. She also acted as a battle surgeon, without pay, at the Battle of Fredericksburg and after the Battle of Chickamauga. In 1862 she was allowed to become the first female surgeon employed by the US Army, but only as a civilian, and treated both combatants and civilians in that role.

It was during these forays across enemy lines she was captured, and treated as a spy. Mary was held for four months until she was released as part of a prisoner exchange. During her captivity she steadfastly refused to wear clothes ‘more fitting to her sex.’

She went on to supervise a women’s prison in Louisville, and an orphanage in Tennessee for the rest of the war, but suffered muscular atrophy as a result of her imprisonment. For her disability, she was awarded a Civil War pension

Mary spent the rest of her life touring and campaigning on health care, temperance, women’s rights, and dress reform. In those speeches she always insisted that she didn’t wear men’s clothes. “I wear my own.”   

She found herself at odds with her own movement when she insisted that women already had the right to vote, as some states had already allowed it. The movement decided to campaign for constitutional amendment instead. Mary’s intransigence on the issue led to increasing alienation, and her insistence on dressing unconventionally made her an easy target for mockery.

Medal of Honor

After the war Mary had been awarded the Medal of Honor, even though her civilian status technically made her ineligible. The medal was based on her service, and the lack of an award being a good match to the nature of her service being available at the time. However, many loopholes in the regulations as to who was entitled to a medal, and who was not, led to many people being awarded who were not involved in combat, or who had civilian roles. In an overhaul of the regulations in 1916, over 900 people were stripped of the medal, including Mary and Buffalo Bill Cody.

True to form, Mary refused to return her medal and continued to wear it until her death in 1919 at the age of eight-six, insisting that men were awarded the medal who spent less time on the front lines than she had. They also did not remove the medal from male surgeons under the same kind of civilian contract as she had. She was buried wearing a plain dark suit, a year before women got the right to vote in the USA.       

During World War II, a Liberty ship, the SS Mary Walker was named after her, and a stamp was released in her honour in 1982. Her home town, Oswego, unveiled a statue to her in 2012. There is also a plaque explaining her importance at the Health Center there.  Her Medal of Honor was returned to her in 1977 by President Carter.