With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot centre of one of the darkest moments in American history - culpable regardless of her intentions. Intimate in its detailed observations of...

Nearly all of the Civil War's greatest soldiers were forged in the heat of Vera Cruz and Monterrey. The Mexican War has faded from our national memory, but it was a struggle of enormous significance: it was the first U.S war waged on foreign soil; and it nearly doubled our nation's land area. At this fascinating juncture of American history, a group of young men came together to fight as friends, only years later to fight as enemies. This is their...