[1][2] A staunch opponent of slavery, Woolsey volunteered as a nurse soon after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

[2] Georgeanna was not the only member of the Woolsey family to participate in the war; her brother John joined the Union army as a cavalry officer, while her three sisters and mother also worked as nurses during the conflict.

She also worked at Lovell Hospital in Rhode Island, and would be present near a number of battlefields, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.

[2][4] In the postwar years, Woolsey and her sister Eliza authored Letters of a Family, a volume of correspondence on the war that would later become widely cited.

In 1869, she married Dr. Francis Bacon, a family friend and surgeon who had served in the Union army during the war.