Author Cokie Roberts discusses her new book, Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868, as she explores the wives, sisters, and female friends of the men leading America into, and through, the Civil War.

As a result of the conflict, these “belles” of Washington society blossomed into suffragists, journalists, social activists, and philanthropists, engaging with the issues of the day on their own terms and transforming a sleepy Southern city into a place of power and action.