Author Description

She knew everyone and everyone knew her. A wealthy belle, married to prominent legislator, Clement Clay, she became one of Washington, D.C.'s great hostesses. This is as witty, gossipy, fashionable, and gritty a tale of antebellum Washington as you'll ever read.<p>As her biographical researcher stated: "I have come upon no record of any other woman of her time who has filled so powerful a place politically, whose belleship has been so long sustained, or whose magnetism and compelling fascinations have swayed others so universally as have those of Mrs. Clay-Clopton."</p><p>When the American Civil War came, however, she and her husband transferred their loyalty, services, and her "belleship" to the south. She describes in wonderful detail her life in Washington, the sorrows and privations of the war, and her husband's incarceration after the war during his life-threatening illness.</p><p>Once the war was over, Virginia Clay was right back in the midst of high society in Washington. She took her plea for her husband's release personally to Secretary of War Stanton, Lieutenant-General Grant, and right into the office of President Andrew Johnson. Old northern friends embraced her warmly and she was astonished to be welcomed back into social circles.</p>