Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon
By Michael O’Brien
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27
384 pages, illustrated
Reviewed by Martin Rubin in The Washington Times, Mar. 19, 2010
This enthralling, vividly written book tells the story of an amazing journey in extraordinary times undertaken by a most uncommon woman. Louisa Catherine Adams was left behind in St. Petersburg, where her husband had for some years been the United States’ minister to the Russian Empire, when he went off to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which made peace with Britain after the War of 1812.
His next diplomatic assignment would be in London and he awaited her in Paris, so, early in 1815, accompanied only by her young son Charles Francis and his French nursemaid, she set out by carriage across a wintry Europe to join him, a journey of nearly 2,000 miles which took her some 40 days. . . .
For Martin’s full review of this book on the life of Mrs. John Quincy Adams, click here or visit washingtontimes.com.