The specific form of persistence — daily public wearing of the medal after the rescission — was not dramatic in the way that a legal challenge or a public protest might be. It was simply quiet continuation of a practice that the institution had tried to end. She wore it in the morning when she got dressed. She wore it on errands in Oswego. She wore it when she went out in public. The refusal was embedded in daily life rather than performed for a specific audience.
## What the Pension Record Tells Us
The specific documents associated with Walker’s disability pension — the initial award of $8.50 per month from June 13, 1865, and the increase to $20 per month in 1899 — are among the most precisely dated primary sources in her story.
The June 13, 1865 date establishes that the Army had formally recognized her service-connected disability within the first year after the war ended. The specific diagnosis — partial muscular atrophy attributed to her imprisonment — was a medical finding that required evaluation by Army medical personnel and a formal determination that the condition was service-connected.
The increase in 1899 suggests that the condition had either worsened or that the pension system had been revised to increase awards. By 1899 Walker was 66 years old and had been living with the atrophy for more than three decades. The increase to $20 per month represents the Army’s continuing formal acknowledgment that her physical condition was a consequence of her service.
$20 per month in 1899 was not generous. For comparison, a laborer’s daily wage in that period was roughly $1-2, meaning the pension represented roughly 10-20 days of laborer’s wages per month. It was supplementary income, not a living wage. Walker was receiving it because she had been physically damaged by her service, not because the Army was providing for her retirement from that service.