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Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865

Margaret Leech

Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865

Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 won the Pulitzer Prize. 1860: The American capital is sprawling, fractured, squalid, colored by patriotism and treason, and deeply divided along the political lines that will soon embroil the nation in bloody conflict. Chaotic and corrupt, the young city is populated by bellicose congressmen, Confederate conspirators, and enterprising prostitutes. Soldiers of a volunteer army swing from the dome of the Capitol, assassins stalk the avenues, and Abraham Lincoln struggles to justify his presidency as the Union heads to war. Reveille in Washington focuses on the everyday politics and preoccupations of Washington during the Civil War. From the stench of corpse-littered streets to the plunging lace on Mary Lincoln's evening gowns, Margaret Leech illuminates the city and its familiar figures—among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, William Seward, and Mary Surratt—in intimate and fascinating detail. Leech's book remains widely recognized as both an impressive feat of scholarship and an uncommonly engrossing work of history.

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Publisher
New York Review of Books
Year
2011
ISBN-13
9781590174678
Genre
History
Topics
American Civil WarWashington, D.C. historyAbraham Lincoln

Awards

Other awarded books from Margaret Leech