Georgeanna Muirson Woolsey Bacon

Georgeanna Muirson Woolsey Bacon (often shorted to Georgeanna Woolsey or Georgy Woolsey) (1833–1906) was an American author and nurse. She is most notable for her nursing activities during the American Civil War and for her personal correspondence during the conflict.

Description Woolsey was born in New York in 1833. According to one source, she spent some time in the American South during her childhood and also in Boston. A staunch opponent of slavery, Woolsey volunteered as a nurse soon after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. Woolsey would continue to work as a nurse during the Eastern campaigns of 1864 and 1865, eventually working as a nurse in Richmond after the Confederate capital had been captured. Towards the end of the conflict, Woolsey fell seriously ill; she survived her illness and was able to attend the Grand Review of the Armies, but was left in a weakened state.

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. The couple resided in New Haven, Connecticut, where Woolsey became a co-founder of the Connecticut Children's Aid Society and the Connecticut Training School for Nurses. Woolsey died in January 1906.