Ewing served as an army nurse from 1862 to 1863 during the American Civil War. Her husband was wounded at
Malvern Hill and she traveled with her very young son, to find him at a military hospital in Baltimore.
Dorothea Dix initially refused Ewing for the Army nursing corps, but she persisted, and was enrolled in time to help her husband recover. She continued at the hospital as an army nurse for almost a year. and in 1896 she was elected vice-president of the Woman's Relief Corps at the Pennsylvania Encampment, held in
Chambersburg. In 1897 and 1898 she was senior vice-president and in 1899 she was president of the National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War. == Personal life ==