In this engrossing and informative companion to her bestsellers Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty, Cokie Roberts offers a riveting look at Washington, D.C., and the experiences, influence, and contributions of its women during the Civil War.

With the outbreak of the war, the small, socially Southern town of Washington, D.C., found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year battle that would determine the future of the United States. After the declaration of secession, many Southern women left the city, leaving their friends to grapple with questions of safety and sanitation as the capital was transformed into an immense Union army camp and later a hospital. With their husbands, brothers, and fathers marching off to war, either on the battlefield or in the halls of Congress, the women of Washington also joined the cause. Other women came to the capital to enlist as nurses, supply organizers, relief workers, and journalists.

Cokie Roberts chronicles these women's increasing independence, their political empowerment, and their indispensable role in keeping the Union unified through the war and helping heal it once the fighting ended. She concludes that the war not only changed Washington, but it also forever changed the place of women.

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