In chapters 1 through 5 of Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House,published in 1868, Elizabeth Keckley describes her years in slavery, her freedom, and her acquaintances with Jefferson Davis, Varina Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Mary Randolph Custis Lee, before going to work as a seamstress and dress-maker for Mary Todd Lincoln during the American Civil War (1861–1865).
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