This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,

and we tell stories about everything here on this show.

Our next story comes to us from a man who's simply known as the History Guy. His videos are

watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy

is also heard here at our American Stories. Today the History Guy remembers a truly

extraordinary Civil War heroine Mary Edwards Walker. He, the History Guy remembers a truly extraordinary Civil War heroine, Mary Edwards

Walker. He was the only woman in the United States history to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Here's the History Guy. The Medal of Honor, the United States highest award for valor,

was established by the United States Army in 1862 to recognize

those soldiers who distinguished themselves by gallantry and imprepidity in combat with

an enemy of the United States. Since that time, 3,459 medals of honor have been awarded,

and only one has gone to a woman, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker,

and hers is a story worth remembering. Mary Edwards Walker was born in 1832 in upstate New York,

the youngest of seven children. Her parents were farmers and free thinkers.

The free thought movement was a movement that challenged authority and tradition and thought

that truth should be derived from logic and reason, and it was that upbringing that

not only allowed her to escape traditional gender roles of her time, but to develop a fierce sense of independence and justice.

Mary's parents were determined to give all of their children a good education,

and she studied at Falley Seminary in Fulton, New York.

She always had an interest in physiology and anatomy,

...