http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1382574

Reveille in Washington 1860-1865

"Margaret Leech's Washington is an incredible city, a war capital seemingly without control of its own resources. Filthy, ugly and unfinished, it swarmed with prostitutes, dead horses rotted in the streets and only a brave and well-armed man would think of going out after dark. Confederate cavalry contemptuously galloped around the city. Lincoln once went out to Fort Stevens and stood on the parapet to watch a Confederate charge, whereupon young Oliver Wendell Holmes barked at the President: 'Get down, you fool!' It is Lincoln, almost without seeming intention on author Leech's part, who emerges not only as the hero of Reveille but also as a very great human being for whom the war was a continuous succession of heartbreaks. Margaret Leech is almost casual in the handling of the book's greatest moments, and it is precisely this quality that gives Reveille a continually astonishing air. When Lincoln first meets a shabby, uneasy little man named Grant at the White House, the drama is intense because no drama is attempted. Here is Miss Leech's account:

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