The 1917 board’s criterion — “convincingly displayed valor in combat against the enemy” — was simply not what the original award was for. The question of whether Walker’s service met the standards for a Medal of Honor was inseparable from the question of what standards were being applied. The 1865 standards, under which she was awarded the medal, encompassed the kind of service she had performed. The 1917 standards, retroactively applied, did not.
This retroactive application to awards made under different standards was what made the 1917 review controversial for Walker’s case and for others. The 27th Maine cases were arguably different — the mass distribution there had been a procedural error even by the standards of its own time. Walker’s case was different: she had been individually recognized by her commanding officers and by the President for service that was genuine, sustained, and consequential. The 1917 board was not finding that her service did not happen or that the original award was fraudulent. It was applying new standards to an old award.
Whether that retroactive application was appropriate, and whether Walker’s status as a civilian contractor should have been decisive given that at least one other contract surgeon retained his medal, are the questions that animated the eventual restoration.
## The One Woman on the Rolls
Mary Edwards Walker remains the only woman ever to have received the Medal of Honor. The fact is straightforward to state; its significance takes a moment to absorb.
The Medal of Honor has been awarded more than 3,500 times since it was established in 1861. Thousands of men have received it for acts of valor in every major conflict the United States has fought, from the Civil War through the wars of the twenty-first century. One woman has received it. One.