After enrolling for military service in Philadelphia during the summer of 1861, he then officially mustered in there as a captain with Company D of the 69th Pennsylvania Infantry on August 1, 1861.

[5][6] Encamped near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 5, 1863, following the Battle of Gettysburg, he penned a letter to the widow of James Hand, one of his D Company subordinates who had been killed in action:[7] It is a painfull [sic] task for me to Communicate the Sad fate of your husband (my own Comrade) he was killed on the 3rd inst he received a ball through the breast & one through the Heart & never Spoke after.

I was in command of the Skirmishers about one mile to the front & every inch of the ground was well contested untill [sic] I Reached our Regt the Rebels made the attack in 3 lines of Battle....

he never flinched from his post & was loved by all who knew him he is intered [sic] along Side of Sergt James McCabe Sergt Jeremiah Gallagher of our Co & 5 others of our Co.... we were determed [sic] that a long as a man lived he would Stand to be killed too rather than have it Said that we left on the battle field in Pennsylvania the Laurels that we So dearly won in Strange States.

McCabe had 35 cents of money [illegible character] 20 he lent to Lieut Fay of our Co....In 1864, while fighting as a first lieutenant with the 69th Pennsylvania and other Union Army troops in the Battle of Spottsylvania Court House, he performed the acts of valor which would ultimately result in his being awarded the U.S. Medal of Honor.

[9][10] In late October of that same year, McAnally led members of his regiment and others from the 106th Pennsylvania Infantry in an assault upon Confederate troops in order to silence a CSA artillery battery during the Battle of Boydton Plank Road.

We succeeded in holding the ground until ordered to leave, between 1 and 2 a.m., on the morning of the 28th, when we were withdrawn by order of Captain McAnally, Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and marched direct for the sawmill, and at daylight rejoined the brigade and continued in the column to this place [headquarters, 106th Pennsylvania Infantry).McAnally mustered out with his regiment at Philadelphia on July 1, 1865.

Those military hospital records also noted that he was a 60-year-old farmer and widower who was 5' 7-1/2" tall with gray hair, blue eyes and a light complexion, and that his residence subject to discharge was Philadelphia, and confirmed that he had sustained a gunshot wound of the left shoulder during the fighting at Spotsylvania in 1864.