Dearest Friend
A Life of Abigail Adams
Preface
Abigail Adams was a tiny woman, little more than five feet tall, with dark hair, piercing dark eyes, and a forceful
personality that belied her size. Quiet and reserved as a child, she nonetheless displayed a brilliant mind and fierce
determination even then. As she matured, these qualities broke through her quiet exterior and she became voluble and
outspoken, never afraid to assert her opinions whether in the company of friends, family, or heads of state.
To the modern observer, she is maddeningly contradictory on the one hand, she was a fiery revolutionary, denouncing
British tyranny in blistering rhetoric. She refused to be intimidated by the specter of British attack, even as she
could hear the cannon and see the smoke of nearby battles; she raised four children, managed a farm, and conquered her
intense feelings of loneliness and depression while her husband spent years away from her serving in the Continental
Congress and negotiating with European powers. Her husband, John, called her a "heroine" for her courage, and indeed
she was. Yet after the war she turned into ... read full excerpt from Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams ebook
