Excellent book, such a special experience to read these letters and learn of a relationship and world so long gone by...like traveling into the past. Thank you!

Practical Strangers looks at the letter courtship of Elodie Todd and Nathaniel Dawson. The letters were sent between 1861-1862 while they were separated by the Civil War. Elodie, a younger half sibling of Mary Todd Lincoln, despaired of ever marrying, but soon caught the eye of twice widowed Dawson. Their letters are effusive and detailed. The authors provided thorough details of the backgrounds of the two before the reader is introduced to the letters. Anyone who is interested in family history or is a Civil War buff will enjoy this book.

A wonderful mix of romantic memoir and history pulled from the saved letters of this couple who courted by way of letters during the war of the North and South. She was the sister of the wife of Abraham Lincoln and he was a twice-widowed man who was going off to fight for the South. He stopped by and asked her to marry him and she accepted, and then off he went. They got better acquainted through writing while waiting for the war to be over. I love the old fashioned way they spoke and wrote back then, it made reading their letters to one another very enjoyable for me. The letters were edited for the book to mostly cover just the courtship, but there is also a link to a website where the letters are posted in full for those interested in seeing them.

(My thanks to NetGalley, the University of Georgia Press and the author for providing me with an ARC in return for my honest review.)