After trials out of Bath and outfitting at the Boston Navy Yard and the Newport Torpedo Station, Woolsey headed for New York on 9 October to join the battleship Virginia before sailing for Europe.

Two days later, she departed Buncrana and stood down the Irish Sea en route to Ponta Delgada in the Azores.

Her primary mission consisted of runs between Brest and ports in southern England – notably Plymouth and Southampton – transporting passengers and mail.

On 11 March 1919, she was one of the four American destroyers to escort George Washington into Brest when that ship arrived with President Woodrow Wilson embarked.

While operating off the Pacific coast of Panama near Coiba Island early on the morning of 26 February 1921, Woolsey was cut in half during a collision with the merchant ship SS Steel Inventor and sank.