Publisher's Weekly Review
When Martha Custis married George Washington in 1759, according to Chadwick, she was a fat and amiable widow seeking a loving companion, a father for her children and a manager for her sizable plantations. Their union also met the needs of the dashing, social-climbing and rotten-toothed military hero: he became one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, inherited a ready-made family and quashed a fruitless infatuation with his best friend's wife. As Chadwick (George Washington's War) explains in this lackluster dual biography, Martha was a traditional, dutiful wife whose life in a patriarchal society revolved around her husband and children as she supervised a staff of slaves who prepared meals, tended gardens and produced clothing. As the Revolution approached, Martha saw her role as supportive wife of a political figure. She joined George at Valley Forge during the cruel winter of 1777-1778, and her simple helpfulness, such as organizing sewing circles to clothe soldiers, made her a beloved role model. As the president's wife, Martha befriended all and sundry and had Washington's ear. Although competently researched, Chadwick's latest effort is amateurishly written and lacking in provocative insights. Readers will do better with Patricia Brady's splendid recent bio of the first First Lady. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
By every account a happy marriage, the union of George and Martha Washington makes historians unhappy for one practical reason: Martha's destruction of the marital correspondence. Still, the couple's fame induced many who met them to record their impressions, producing sources sufficient for Chadwick to write a narrative of their domestic life. Although their match had its practical side (Martha stood at the 1759 nuptials as one of Virginia's richest persons), it also possessed a compatibility that Chadwick emphasizes. Amiable and unpretentious, Martha filled the role of confidante for her husband, a stoic who rarely let his hair down. George, for his part, seems to have genially stepped into the role of stepfather to Martha's children from a previous marriage. Attentive to the Washingtons' domestic details, from schooling to parties to funerals, Chadwick also ensures the reader's awareness of cultural contexts, such as the legal and social limits on women's public activity and the derivation of the couple's wealth from slavery. Readers interested in private lives will enjoy Chadwick's able synthesis. --Gilbert Taylor Copyright 2006 Booklist
Kirkus Review
At home with George and Martha, America's first First Family. Shortly before her death, Martha Washington (1731-1802) extinguished any hope of a definitive assessment of her marriage and family life by burning the decades-long correspondence between her and her husband. This historians' tragedy forces Chadwick (The First American Army, 2005, etc.) to draw mainly from the observations of contemporaries to examine the dynamic between a husband and wife who together dominated the 18th-century American stage. Having already achieved a small measure of military fame, the land-poor Colonel Washington (1732-99) married the wealthy widow Martha Custis in 1759, taking custody of her two surviving children, Patsy and Jack, and eventually her grandchildren, Nelly and Wash. While it briefly charts the troubled lives of the Custis offspring, the story focuses on the principals. George was tall and muscular; Martha was short and plump. He was ferociously ambitious; she was content to be the wife of a Virginia planter. He was a clothes horse; she favored the plain and simple. He was famously aloof; she was delightfully gregarious. He was strict with the kids; she was hopelessly indulgent. Both had a deep appreciation and admiration for the other, an abiding sense of duty and a keen understanding of their official roles, carefully attending to the details of their domestic and public lives. Intended for the general reader, Chadwick's brisk narrative comes as close as we are likely to get to an understanding of the Washington union, but the book works best when assessing the impressive impact of the First Couple on an ever-widening audience. Washington used the word "family" variously to include his slaves at Mt. Vernon, his staff in the army, his presidential cabinet and, eventually, all his fellow citizens. No special need to recount the legacy of the father of our country, but Martha, too, played an important, underappreciated role in ministering to these extended families, a contribution well recognized here. A deft portrait of the Washington team, building a life together and, eventually, a new nation. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Former journalist Chadwick, the author of other books on Washington and the Revolutionary period (e.g., George Washington's War), here turns his attention to the domestic life of the first couple of the new United States. Drawing extensively on letters and journals from contemporaries, the author offers a picture of the Washingtons at home at Mount Vernon, in winter camp with the army during the Revolutionary War, and in their rented residences during Washington's presidency. Although less has been written on Washington as husband and householder than as general and statesman, Washington scholars will find little new here; this is a popular treatment for general readers. George and Martha are revealed to be surprisingly typical of their class and era. They cope with the everyday business of married life; George was a devoted father to Martha's children from her first marriage, and the book charts their grief over the loss of a daughter and a son. With their behavior as the first first couple-George's reserve, Martha's open-heartedness, their shared generosity-they set precedents for a new American way of life. Recommended for public libraries, but Patricia Brady's Martha Washington: An American Life is an excellent choice for informed readers and undergraduates.-Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.