Essentially, with Capital Dames, Cokie Roberts sets out to prove the maxim that "behind every great man, there is a great woman." (Also to prove that some great women - such as Clara Barton - didn't need a man to lead the way.) Which is all to say that Roberts devotes some 500 pages to examining the contributions, the influences, and often the day-to-day existence of women during the Civil War. Primarily prestigious women - wives of senators and cabinet ministers, generals and presidents (yes, both Mary Lincoln and Varina Davis feature prominently). Roberts does mention the notorious Rose Greenhow, and she devotes quite a bit of copy to Elizabeth (Lizzie) Keckley.
Because these were women of power and influence, or what passed for such in the days before women could vote, Roberts research was aided by the existence of private letters and diaries, the likes of which ordinary women could not or did not write, and future generations, to say nothing of government archivists, did not save. Of course, contemporary newspapers devoted quite a bit of ink to many of these women, and women such as Barton and Greenhow certainly appeared in government records.
Roberts includes a number of photos of the women, the caption of one which is, "Elizabeth Blair Lee knew every politician from Andrew Jackson on, and wrote clever letters chronicling wartime life in Washington..." When I read this caption, I was able to put my finger on my criticism of Capital Dames: Roberts tells her reader, rather than shows the reader, about the clever letters. Not once does a full letter appear in this book, and rarely more than a sentence or two at a time. In this way, it's difficult to get a real sense of the women as individuals, and they all begin to run together. Not until the last chapter - set during Reconstruction - did I feel like their true voices began to emerge.
Final verdict: I would have liked a little more Mary Chestnut's Diary and a little less Empire of Mud.
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