The Sewards of New York : A Biography of a Leading American Political Family

The Sewards of New York shines a light on one of the most important and fascinating political families of the nineteenth century.Through recently discovered family correspondence, Thomas P.Slaughter unveils the inner lives of the Seward family, tracing their joys and sorrows as the nation grappled with rapid expansion and deepening divisions on its path to the Civil War. William Henry Seward, the family's most prominent member, was a state senator, governor, US senator, and secretary of state.Henry, as his family knew him, was often absent from their Auburn, NY, home, in Albany or Washington, DC, and so remained connected to the family through the long letters numbering in the thousands that they exchanged.These writings reveal Henry as a son, brother, husband, and father, as much as they show him as a politician and statesman.But it is his wife, Frances, who is the hub around which this family story revolves.Slaughter explores the extended Auburn family during a half century of profou