How many women have been awarded the Medal of Honor?

Mary Edwards Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919) was an American feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, alleged spy, prisoner of war and surgeon. As of 2016, she is the only woman in history to receive the highest United States Armed Forces decoration for bravery, the Medal of Honor.

Some important facts from her biography:

In 1855, Mary earned her medical degree at Syracuse Medical College in New York, married and started a medical practice. She volunteered with the Union Army at the outbreak of the American Civil War and served as a surgeon at a temporary hospital in Washington, DC, even though at the time women and sectarian physicians were considered unfit for the Union Army Examining Board. She was captured by Confederate forces after crossing enemy lines to treat wounded civilians and arrested as a spy. She was sent as a prisoner of war to Richmond, Virginia, until released in a prisoner exchange.

After the war, she was approved for the Medal of Honor, for her efforts during the Civil War. She is the only woman to receive the medal and one of only eight civilians to receive it. Her name was deleted from the Army Medal of Honor Roll in 1917; however it was restored in 1977. After the war, she was a writer and lecturer supporting the women's suffrage movement until her death in 1919.

In 1977, Mary Walker's Medal of Honor was posthumously restored by President Jimmy Carter.