“For the first time, Americans mourned as one.”

The chapter begins with the death of George Washington on December 14, 1799. Congress set the day after Christmas for the official memorial for Washington.

“Her husband’s chief adviser, the First Lady knew this would help John Adams politically, and she was nothing if not politically savvy…. It couldn’t hurt the embattled incumbent president to remind the voters of his ties to the Federalist ‘fallen hero’.”

The chapter proceeds to tell of the marriage of the Adams, with one section that reminded me of Katherine Ann Farmar Billopp maintaining Bentley Manor. For five years John Adams was away from Abigail with the Continental Congress and his time as a diplomat.

“Adams depended on his wife to support the family by running the farm and selling goods he sent from abroad. 

Of course, she was also expected to raise the children and take care of elderly relatives. Plus … the British might be coming, at least in the early days of the Revolutionary War.”

It helps us better understand what the women did, something significant that is lacking in most history textbooks we had in school.

“Through it all Abigail Adams had managed admirably, protesting from time to time that women were the best Patriots because they were handling all of the hardships and suffering all the sacrifices for the American cause, but they would not hold high office or even be able to vote if they won.”