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 ... read full excerpt from Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams ebook