The income from lecturing supplemented the disability pension she had been receiving since 1865. The pension amounts — $8.50 per month rising to $20 per month in 1899 — were not large enough to live comfortably on without supplementation. Walker managed, but she managed without the financial security that a formal pension for military service would have provided if she had been able to hold a commission.
## What Changed in 1917: The Legal Framework
The legal framework that the 1917 review board applied to Walker’s case had been developing since the Medal of Honor was established.
The original enabling legislation in 1861 and 1862 authorized the medal for Navy enlisted men and then for Army enlisted men. It was extended to Army officers, but the core eligibility questions were not resolved with great precision in the early legislation. The medal was awarded liberally during the Civil War, in some cases for actions that later standards would not have recognized — the 27th Maine case being the extreme example.
Congress addressed this through legislation in 1862, 1863, and again in 1904. The 1904 legislation, in particular, sharpened the requirements, limiting the medal to commissioned officers and enlisted personnel who had “distinguished themselves conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty.” The language emphasized combat valor and excluded civilians.
When the 1917 board applied these standards retrospectively, Walker’s situation was legally straightforward in one sense: she had been a civilian contractor, not a commissioned officer, not an enlisted soldier. The 1904 legislation, as the board read it, excluded her category from eligibility.