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.

There is also speculation about what shape President James Polk's cabinet will take. Blair thinks it will be entirely new.

With abundant documentary evidence to draw on, Laas ties this compelling story to broader themes of courtship behavior, domesticity, gender roles, extended family bonds, elitism, and societal stereotyping.

Bringing together both contemporary and historical just war concepts, Peter Lee shows that Blair's illusion of morality evaporated quickly and irretrievably after the 2003 Iraqinvasion because the ideas Blair relied upon were taken out of ...