Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868

Cokie Roberts, the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty, turns her attention to the Civil War in a riveting exploration of the ways in which the conflict transformed not only the lives of women in Washington, D.C., but also the city itself.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the small, social Southern town of Washington, D.C., found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year battle to determine t…