Cynthia A. Kierner is Professor of History at George Mason University and the author of Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson's America.

"A microhistory in the form of a biography of Jane Welborn Spurgin, an outspoken supporter of the Revolution whose husband was a Tory who bore arms for the king during the American war. Her story illustrates the rifts and conflicts but also the opportunities the Revolutionary War created for Americans, male and female, as they fought for and thought through independence"--