She worked as a field nurse during the American Civil War, receiving a Kearny Cross from the 17th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment, whom she had cared for after the Battle of Chancellorsville.
She witnessed the assault on Marye's Heights, and while ministering to the wounded, she received the news that her brother, who was with Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville, had been killed in the protracted fighting there.
Like the other women who were connected with hospitals at this place, she was compelled to retire by the order of April 15; but like them, she returned to her work early in May, at Belle Plains, Fredericksburg, White House, and City Point.
The officers and men who had been under her care in the Cavalry Corps Hospital, presented her on Christmas Day, 1864, with an elegant gold badge and chain, with a suitable inscription, as a testimonial of their gratitude for her services.
She had previously received from the officers of the 17th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment, whom she had cared for after the battle of Chancellorsville, a Kearny Cross, with its motto and an inscription indicating by whom it was presented.
[2] On 10 February 1870, a hearing was granted by the senate committee of the District of Columbia, to a delegation of ladies, one of whom, McKay, of Massachusetts, read a paper remonstrating against the extension of suffrage to the women of the US.