A Most Civil War is a tale of what some historians have called the First American Civil War, (1775-1781) and not that other one. It is the story of a woman's journey in 18th Century America, through two wars, through Indians and armies, through politicians and secret codes, through love, friendship, grief and contentment. Margaret Schoolcraft, from Schoharie NY, follows the British army through Albany and the Virginia frontier to Quebec during the French and Indian War. She later mixes with the political and military elite of New York and Boston; she engineers a jailbreak and suffers imprisonment for her husband's actions. She and her daughter insinuate themselves into the household of the Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander in New York. While playing Sir Henry's harpsichord and sipping his madeira, they tease out secrets that they manage to pass to Washington's headquarters, and inject mis-information into the British decision making. All this they must do while avoiding detection by Margaret's former lover, now assigned to direct the enemy's intelligence operations. A pragmatic daughter of the Enlightenment, Margaret loves, lies, steals and occasionally murders as she helps end a necessary war she detests. The book has all the elements of a good spy yarn. There are beautiful women, an obsessive villain, narrow escapes from deadly peril, and the fate of the civilized world resting on a knife's edge. You'll find loyalty, treachery, love and consuming hatred. There are characters of resolute courage and others of its polar opposite; there are clever and courageous women using their wits to frustrate the plans of the greatest empire the world had yet seen, and like an iceberg, there is even more to be found beneath the surface. A fictional treatment of the life of Margaret Schoolcraft (1733?-1805), the more improbable events are the most true.