Three Years with Wallace's Zouaves: The Civil War Memoirs of Thomas Wise Durham Book

Rating clarification: 4.5 stars

This book marked a very satisfactory conclusion of my 2010 reading challenge, and will certainly have a permanent spot on my bookshelf. Thomas Fleming's foray into the lives of America's six founding fathers and the various female influences on their lives might have, in a different writer's hands, been trite, repetitive or uninspiring. Not the case here, and if you are a casual to moderate fan of this genre of non-fiction American history, I seriously urge you to pick this book up. You will not be disappointed.

Fleming provides an engrossing and fascinating glimpse into the pre-and-post-Revolutionary war world of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. More to the point, Fleming focuses on the women who played a central role in each of their lives, be it their mother, wife, and/or daughter. Although I knew many things about them as a whole, I definitely learned some interesting tid-bits about each woman that I didn't previously, and can say that in the case of Elizabeth Hamilton and Dolley Madison, I gained a much, much greater respect for them.

(This book also re-inforces a long held personal belief of mine that Thomas Jefferson is still a putz, John Adams remains a drama queen of the highest order, and Martha Jefferson would have greatly benefited by copious amounts of valium...but I digress.)

Simply un-put-down-able. Would make a great companion book for Jospeh Ellis' Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation