First published 2015
The Civil War turns Washington D.C. from a sleepy Southern town into a massive Union military camp and hospital center. Women like Adele Cutts Douglas and Elizabeth Blair Lee face new challenges as their Southern friends flee after secession, leaving them to navigate questions of safety and basic living conditions in the transformed capital. As husbands and fathers march off to fight or serve in Congress, these women take on unprecedented roles. They work as nurses, organize supplies, serve as war correspondents, and risk their lives manufacturing munitions in dangerous arsenals. At the Treasury Department, women print the greenbacks that finance the war effort. They even enter the previously male Navy Yard to sew canvas gunpowder bags for troops. Roberts draws from newspaper reports, government documents, and previously unpublished personal letters and diaries to show how these women gained political power and independence. The book demonstrates how the war permanently altered both the capital city and women's place in American society, as they proved indispensable to maintaining Union unity during the conflict and healing the nation afterward.
Genres: biography, history, american-civil-war, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, historical-fiction
Setting: Washington D.C., Union
Period: Civil War
494 pages · Hardcover · Harper