Order this book from Amazon.com Reveille in Washington Margaret Leech New York, New York: Carroll & Graf, 1942 Recommended by: David McCullough I had read a lot of history, read a lot of very good writers who had chosen to write history as a kind of other territory, almost like another country. The past is another country, another part of the universe. Barbara Tuchman, Bruce Caton, all -- in a way -- what I was, which was a lapsed journalist. The work of people like Margaret Leech, for example, that wrote a wonderful book called Reveille in Washington, about life inside of the government and in Washington during the Civil War. That encouragement that one gets, that lift one gets from the books that move you and change your life! Books do change your life. About the Book A Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the city of Washington during the Civil War, describing the daily life of a city swarming with soldiers, office seekers, politicians, and ordinary people.