Elizabeth Blair Lee was raised in Washington's political circles, and her husband, Samuel Phillips Lee, third cousin to Robert E. Lee, commanded the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. When they married, Elizabeth promised to write every day they were apart. Of the hundreds of letters with which she kept her promise, Virginia Jeans Laas has edited a choice selection that illuminates the functioning of a nineteenth-century family and the Mrs. Lee's unique perspective on the political and military affairs of the nation's beleaguered capital.
 

"No other woman who lived through the Civil War in Washington could have seen it with the perspective of Elizabeth Blair Lee, and it is rare good fortune that her account of daily life in the nation's capital--social, political and mundane--is now available in Wartime Washington. . . . Certain to remain a valuable source of insight into Washington at war."-- Nat Brandt, Washington Post Book World

"An unprecedented picture of life in Washington's inner circle." -- Kirkus Reviews

"The letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee are an exceptional jewel in the treasury of published Civil War documents. . . . Her letters provide an unusual perspective beyond the intimate, even gossipy, view of those who served in high places. She came from a Southern slave-owning family, with relatives and friends on the Southern side. Her letters reveal better than any woman's published account the anguish of a nation and of families torn asunder." -- Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Civil War History