Practical Strangers

The Courtship Correspondence of Nathaniel Dawson and Elodie Todd, Sister of Mary Todd Lincoln

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Pub Date 15 Jun 2017 | Archive Date 07 Jun 2017

Description

These letters chronicle the wartime courtship of a Confederate soldier and the woman he loved—a sister-in-law of Abraham Lincoln. It is a relative rarity for the correspondence of both writers in Civil War letter collections to survive, as they have here. Rarer still is how frequently and faithfully the two wrote, given how little they truly knew each other at the start of their exchange. As a romantic pair, Nathaniel Dawson and Elodie Todd had no earlier history; they had barely met when separated by the war. Letters were their sole lifeline to each other and their sole means of sharing their hopes and fears for a relationship (and a Confederacy) they had rashly embraced in the heady, early days of secession.

The letters date from April 1861, when Nathaniel left for war as a captain in the Fourth Alabama Infantry, through April 1862, when the couple married. During their courtship through correspondence, Nathaniel narrowly escaped death in battle, faced suspicions of cowardice, and eventually grew war weary. Elodie had two brothers die while in Confederate service and felt the full emotional weight of belonging to the war’s most famous divided family. Her sister Mary not only sided with the Union (as did five other Todd siblings) but was also married to its commander in chief.

Here is an engrossing story of the Civil War, of Abraham Lincoln’s shattered family, of two people falling in love, of soldiers and brothers dying nobly on the wrong side of history. The full Dawson–Todd correspondence comprises more than three hundred letters. It has been edited for this volume to focus tightly on their courtship. The complete, annotated text of all of the letters, with additional supporting material, will be made available online.

These letters chronicle the wartime courtship of a Confederate soldier and the woman he loved—a sister-in-law of Abraham Lincoln. It is a relative rarity for the correspondence of both writers in...


A Note From the Publisher

Stephen Berry is the Amanda and Greg Gregory Professor of the Civil War Era at the University of Georgia. He is the author or editor of several books, including Weirding the War: Stories from the Civil War’s Ragged Edges (Georgia).

Angela Esco Elder is the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Virginia Tech. Her research interests focus on the antebellum and Civil War era, with an emphasis on gender, emotion, family, and trauma in the American South.

Stephen Berry is the Amanda and Greg Gregory Professor of the Civil War Era at the University of Georgia. He is the author or editor of several books, including Weirding the War: Stories from the...


Advance Praise

“Blunt and yearning, shrewd and funny by turns, Elodie and Nathaniel’s letters also carry the emotional energy of wartime. Desperate to connect—Elodie because her family was shattering, Nathaniel because he might die—the two were driven to inhabit their words and not to hide behind them. In these letters, two people flirt, fight, make up, and fumble toward each other, always trying to guess what the other is thinking, and what the other needs.”
—from the Introduction

“Blunt and yearning, shrewd and funny by turns, Elodie and Nathaniel’s letters also carry the emotional energy of wartime. Desperate to connect—Elodie because her family was shattering...


Marketing Plan

Part of the New Perspectives on the Civil War Era series.

Part of the New Perspectives on the Civil War Era series.


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780820351025
PRICE $32.95 (USD)
PAGES 288

Average rating from 8 members


Featured Reviews

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.)

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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.

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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!

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