After her husband was assigned to the offshore Carolina islands Harriett joined him in Beaufort where she found thousands of now-free people abandoned by the plantation owners and living in degradation. Always one to see a need and organize assistance she did what she could in Beaufort, later in Florida and in Washington at the Armory Square Hospital. Sister Kate joined her in Beaufort and other posts during the war.

When Joseph went to Florida in 1863 they followed him to Saint Augustine. Over the next year or so Harriet published seven articles about the South and the War.

Joseph's army success led to a political career. The Foote sisters moved first to Hartford when Joseph was governor and then to Washington when he became Connecticut's senator. There the sisters turned their attention to Native American rights.

Kate, a single school teacher for most of her life, found her calling as a journalist after the war. She was Washington correspondent for New York's Independent and her reporting appeared in other periodicals such as The Atlantic and Century magazines. She was wed briefly to Connecticut judge Andrew Jackson Coe who died soon after their 1895 marriage.

The 1870 census counted only 35 women working as reporters and editors. The Foote sisters were typical of their time in that they were free-lancers who had other work such as teaching and keeping house. By 1900 the census listed 2,193 female newspaper workers---again probably just a fraction of women getting their writing published.