BOOK ONE: George Washington
THE AGONIES OF HONOR
1. The New York Herald, March 30, 1877, p. 2, col. 5.
2. The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series (hereafter PGWCL), University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1983–6:12, source note. The biographer who discovered the original letter was Bernard Knollenberg, George Washington, The Virginia Period, 1732–1775 (Durham, NC, 1964).
3. Peter R. Henriques, Realistic Visionary, A Portrait of George Washington (Charlottesville, VA, 2006), 68. In his biography of Washington, Fitzpatrick wrote that claiming it was a love letter to Sally “requires an imagination unresponsive to the niceties of honor and good breeding.” John C. Fitzpatrick, George Washington Himself, A Common Sense Biography (Indianapolis, 1934), 110.
4. Wilson Miles Cary, Sally Cary, A Long Hidden Romance of Washington’s Life (New York, 1916) (privately printed), 13–18.
5. Ibid., 20 (note).
6. Ibid., 50. Sally Fairfax writes of the family’s “impression that my husband’s mother was a black woman.” Also see James Thomas Flexner, George Washington, vol. 1, The Forge of Experience (Boston, 1965), 27.
7. Cary, Sally Cary, 23–24.
8. Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington, vol. 1 (New York, 1948), 33, 43, 71, 73.
9. Ibid., 103.
10. Flexner, Washington, vol. 1, 19–20.
11. Ibid., 21.
12. Freeman, Washington, vol. 1, 193–94 ff.
13. Ibid., 264–66.
14. Ibid., 261.
15. Flexner, Washington, vol. 1, 242.
16. Freeman, Washington, vol. 2, 87.
17. Rupert Hughes, George Washington, The Human Being and the Hero, vol. 1 (New York, 1926), 203, 226–27. Also see Flexner, Washington, vol. 1, 162. Washington’s letter implies “he was staying away from Belvoir, that his feelings were hurt.”
18. GW to Sally Fairfax, November 15, 1757, PGWCL, vol. 5, 36.
19. GW to Sarah Fairfax, February 13, 1758, PGWCL, vol. 5, 93.
20. Flexner, Washington, vol. 1, 184–85.
21. Henriques, Realistic Visionary, 74.
22. GW to Col. Stanwix, March 4, 1758, PGWCL, vol. 5, 102.
23. Peter R. Henriques, “Major Lawrence Washington Versus the Reverend Charles Green: A Case Study of the Squire and the Parson,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100 (1992), 233–64.
24. Flexner, Washington, vol. 1, 193.
25. Ibid.
26. Washington to Martha D. Custis, July 20, 1758, PGWCL, vol. 5, 301.
27. Freeman, Washington, vol. 2, Appendix II, 404–6.
28. Washington to Sally Fairfax, September 25, 1758, PGWCL, vol. 6, 41–43.
29. Knollenberg, George Washington, 167, note 21.
30. John C. Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington (hereafter WGW), vol. 2, 170–71. Washington asked that the suit be shipped “as soon as possible.” Also see Patricia Brady, Martha Washington, An American Life (New York, 2005), 63.
PARTNER IN LOVE AND LIFE
1. For relative money values, see Economic History Services, http://www.eh.net/hmit. For the lawsuit, see Freeman, Washington, vol. 3, 225, 282.
2. Henriques, Visionary Realist, 88–89.
3. Brady, Martha Washington, 31.
4. George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington (Philadelphia, 1861), 20.
5. Ibid.
6. Brady, Martha Washington, 55.
7. GW to John Alton, April 5, 1759, PGWCL, vol. 6, 200.
8. GW to Robert Cary & Co, May 1, 1759, PGWCL, vol. 7, 315–18.
9. GW to Richard Washington, September 20, 1759, PGWCL, vol. 6, 359.
10. Joseph E. Fields, ed., “Worthy Partner,” The Papers of Martha Washington, with an introduction by Ellen McCallister Clark (Westport, CT, 1994), 149.
11. Rev. Jonathan Boucher to GW, August 7, 1768, PGWCL, vol. 8, 122–25.
12. Ibid.
13. GW to Benedict Calvert, April 4, 1773, PGWCL, vol. 9, 209.
14. B. Calvert to GW, April 18, 1773, PGWCL, vol. 9, 215.
15. GW to Burwell Bassett, August 28, 1762, PGWCL, vol. 7, 147.
16. John Parke Custis to Washington, July 5, 1773, PGWCL, vol. 9, 264.
17. Washington to Myles Cooper, December 15, 1773, PGCWL, vol. 9, 406–7.
18. Rupert Hughes, George Washington, The Rebel and the Patriot, 1762–1777 (New York, 1927), 164. Freeman, Washington, vol. 3, 306–7.
19. Some historians cite a letter supposedly written by Pendleton, in which he wrote that Martha talked to them “like a Spartan to her son going to battle,” urging them to “stand firm” against the British. This letter has never been found. It appeared for the first time in a nineteenth-century biography. She may have had such sentiments. Certainly her husband had them and probably discussed them with her.
20. GW to MW, June 18, 1775, Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary Series (hereafter PGWRV), vol. 1, 3.
21. GW to MW, June 23, 1775, PGWRV, vol. 1, 27.
FROM GREAT SOMEBODY TO LADY WASHINGTON
1. Fields, ed., “Worthy Partner,” from MW to Elizabeth Ramsay, December 30, 1775, 164.
2. Mercy Otis Warren to Abigail Adams, April 17, 1776, PGWRV 3, 75n.
3. Paul K. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington (Berkeley, CA, 1988), 204.
4. John Parke Custis to GW, June 10, 1776, PGWRV 2: 484–86.
5. Flexner, vol. 2, George Washington and The American Revolution, 359.
6. Elswyth Thane, Mount Vernon Family (New York, 1968), 48–58.
7. Freeman, Washington, vol. 5, 281–82.
8. Fields, ed., “Worthy Partner,” John Parke Custis to MW, October 12, 1781, 187–88n.
9. GW to Lafayette, November 15, 1781, “I arrived…to see poor Mr. Custis breathe his last.” Fitzpatrick, ed., WGW, vol. 23, 340.
10. GW to JAW, January 16, 1783, Fitzpatrick, ed., WGW, vol. 26, 41–45.
11. Miram Anne Bourne, First Family: George Washington and his Intimate Relations (New York, 1982), 101–2.
12. Freeman, Washington, vol. 6, 211. One senator, previously hostile to GW, wrote: “It was a great dinner, and the best of the kind I ever was at.”
13. Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch, July 12, 1789. Stewart Mitchell, ed., New Letters of Abigail Adams (Boston, 1947), 15.
14. Stephen Decatur Jr., Private Affairs of Washington From the Records and Accounts of Tobias Lear, Esq., His Secretary (Boston, MA, 1933), 62. Also see Bourne, First Family, 130.
15. Brady, Martha Washington, 181.
16. “Worthy Partner,” MW to Fanny Bassett Washington, October 23, 1789, 219. MW to Mercy Otis Warren, December 26, 1789, 223–24.
17. Freeman, Washington, vol. 7, 231.
18. David Freeman Hawke, Paine (New York, 1974), 319–20.
19. Thomas Fleming, ed., Affectionately Yours, George Washington, A Self Portrait in Letters of Friendship (New York, 1967), 243–44.
20. Patricia Brady, ed., George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly (Columbia, SC, 1991). Introduction, 7. Also see Unger, Unexpected George Washington, (Hoboken, NJ, 2006) 256–57.
21. MW to Lucy Knox, undated, 1797, Fields, ed., “Worthy Partner,” 304–5.
22. Elizabeth Willing Powel to GW, March 11, 1797, Dorothy Towhig, ed., Papers of GW Retirement Series (hereafter PGWRet), vol. 1, 28–30.
23. GW to Elizabeth Willing Powell, PGWRet, vol. 1, 51–53.
24. GW to Sarah Fairfax, May 16, 1798, Fitzpatrick, WGW, 36, 262–66.
25. MW to SF, May 17, 1798, Fields, ed., “Worthy Partner,” 314–15.
26. Ibid., Introduction, xxv, 1797 letter to Tobias Lear.
27. EWP to MW, January 7, 1798, Fields, ed., “Worthy Partner,” 311–12.
28. Freeman, Washington, vol. 7, 620–25. Also see Henriques, Realistic Visionary, 187–204. Many people, including this writer, consider the latter the best account of Washington’s death.
29. Fields, ed., “Worthy Partner,” xxxi.
30. Ibid., xxvii.
THE OTHER GEORGE WASHINGTON SCANDALS
1. Nigel Cawthorne, The Sex Lives of the Presidents (New York, 1998).
2. Allen French, “The First George Washington Scandal,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, Vol. 65 (1935), 460–74, citing Public Record Office, AD1: 485–689.
3. Worthington Chauncey Ford, The Spurious Letters Attributed to Washington (Brooklyn, NY, 1889), Introduction, 1–13. The letters are reprinted in full in this book.
4. Ford, Spurious Letters, 69–76.
5. Troy O. Bickham, “Sympathizing with Sedition? George Washington, the British Press and British Attitudes during the American War of Independence,” William and Mary Quarterly, January 2002, Third Series, vol. 59, no. 1, 101–122.
6. Ford, Spurious Letters, 26–29.
7. John Thornton Posey, General Thomas Posey, Son of the American Revolution (East Lansing, MI, 1992), 14.
8. Ibid., 14–18.
9. John C. Fitzpatrick, “The George Washington Scandals,” Bulletin No. 1 of the Washington Society of Alexandria, 1929, 4–5. This is the Scribner’s article “with some additions.”
10. Posey, General Thomas Posey, 272–75.
11. Linda Allen Bryant, I Cannot Tell a Lie (Lincoln, NE), 2004, xii.
12. Ibid., 15.
13. Ibid., 20.
14. Ibid., 41–42.
15. Mount Vernon Fact Sheet on West Ford, 2000, 1–2. Mary Thompson, the research historian at Mount Vernon, has done a very thorough study of Washington’s travel data for 1784–1785. It confirms that Washington never visited Bushfield between 1783 and his brother’s death in 1787.
16. Joel Williamson, New People, Miscegnation and Mulattoes in the United States (New York, 1980), 49ff. Peter Henriques has kindly given me a copy of a speech he gave in 2005 about West Ford and his relationship to John Augustine Washington’s family. He shows convincingly that the probable father was William Augustine Washington, John’s third son. William and Venus were about the same age. William died tragically at age seventeen when a gun held by a friend accidentally discharged. West Ford later named his son William.
17. Cawthorne, Sex Lives, 25. Fitzpatrick, The George Washington Scandals, 5–6.
BOOK TWO: Benjamin Franklin
THE SINS OF THE FATHER
1. Extracts from the diary of Daniel Fisher, 1755. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 17, 1893, 276–77.
2. Sheila L. Skemp, Benjamin Franklin, and William Franklin, Father and Son, Patriot and Loyalist (New York, 1994), 18.
3. Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (New York, 1948), 96. All of the preceding narration is from this source.
4. William H. Mariboe, The Life of William Franklin, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1962, 19–24. A half dozen opinions are considered here.
5. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (hereafter PBF), vol. 2, 353–54.
6. BF to Catherine Ray, March 4, 1755, PBF, vol. 5, 503–43.
7. Ibid.
8. BF to Catherine Ray, September 11, 1755, PBF, vol. 6, 184.
9. BF to Jane Mecom, June 1748, PBF, vol. 3, 303.
10. Sheila L. Skemp, William Franklin, Son of a Patriot, Servant of a King (New York, 1990), 24–25.
11. W. Strahan to Deborah F., December 13, 1757 and January 1758, PBF, vol. 7, 297, 369.
12. WS to DF, December 13, 1757, PBF, vol. 7, 295–98.
13. BF to DF, June 27, 1760, PBF, vol. 9, 174.
14. Claude-Anne Lopez, The Private Franklin, The Man and his Family (New York, 1975, 83–84). In 1770, when Polly married a young doctor named Hewson, Mrs. Stevenson asked Franklin to give her away at the wedding ceremony.
THE OLDEST REVOLUTIONARY
1. BF to Margaret Stevenson, November 2, 1772, PBF, vol. 14, 299–300.
2. The Craven Street Gazette is printed in full in PBF, vol. 17, 220–26. A good sample of it can be read in David Freeman Hawke, Franklin (New York, 1976), 280–89.
3. Skemp, William Franklin, 83.
4. BF to WF, October 7, 1773, PBF, vol. 20, 437.
5. BF to WF, March 22, 1775, PBF, vol. 21, 545–99.
6. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 200. Also see Skemp, William Franklin, 178–79. Skemp suggests BF may have used comments he wrote to William in a 1774 letter that the British appeared to lack the discretion “to govern a herd of swine.” Also see Mariboe, William Franklin, 436–37.
7. BF to WF, May 7, 1774, PBF, vol. 21, 212.
8. David Freeman Hawke, Franklin (New York, 1976), 1–2.
9. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 201.
10. WF to WTF, January 22, 1776, Benjamin Franklin Papers, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, vol. 101.
11. Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, An American Life (New York, 2003), 322.
12. Skemp, William Franklin, 222–223. Also see Mariboe, William Franklin, 471–72; and Lopez, The Private Franklin, 213–14.
MON CHER PAPA
1. J. C. Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee (New York, 1911–14), vol. 2, 202.
2. Claude-Ann Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, Franklin and the Ladies of Paris (New Haven, CT, 1966), citing Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1905), vol. 7, 132.
3. Gilbert Chinard, Abbe Lefebvre de la Roche’s Recollections of Benjamin Franklin, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 44 (1950), 219.
4. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 38.
5. The recent HBO TV series on John Adams has a gross distortion of this combination of bathing and chess. The scene portrayed Franklin sitting naked in the bathtub with Madame Brillon.
6. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 64–65.
7. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 222–25.
8. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 259.
9. Ibid., 260.
10. Ibid., 265–67.
11. Ibid., 271.
12. Ibid., 269–70.
13. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 263–64.
14. WF to BF, July 22, 1784, Smyth, Writings of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 9, 264.
15. BF to WF, August 16, 1784, ibid., 252–54.
16. Skemp, William Franklin, 269.
17. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 273.
18. Nicholas Guyatt, “Adams Ribbed,” The Nation, June 16, 2008, 39–43.
19. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 274. Lopez has been an editor of the Franklin papers as well as the author of the two best books on Franklin’s private life.
20. Gaillard Hunt, ed., Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society (New York, 1906), 55–59.
21. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 275. Sally had seven children, all told. Three were born before Franklin left America in 1776.
22. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 299.
23. Ibid., 300.
24. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1941), 242.
25. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 314.
BOOK THREE: John Adams
AN AMOROUS PURITAN FINDS A WIFE
1. JA to Abigail Adams, January 23, 1775, Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor, ed., My Dearest Friend, Letters of Abigail and John Adams (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 64. Also see Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution (Boston, 1950), 534.
2. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. 1 (New York, 1964), 194.
3. Ibid., 66–67.
4. Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, 109.
5. JA to Abigail Smith, October 4, 1762 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
6. JA to Abigail Smith, October 4, 1762, ibid.
7. Abigail Smith to JA, May 9, 1764, ibid.
8. JA to Abigail Smith, September 30, 1764, ibid.
9. Abigail Smith to JA, October 13, 1764, ibid.
10. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, 1763–1792 (Princeton, NJ, 1951), 152–53. This letter is a good summary of the True Whig ideology.
11. AA to JA, March 31, 1776, and JA to AA, April 14, 1776, Hogan and Taylor, eds., My Dearest Friend (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 109–111.
12. Ibid., 108 (quoted in editor’s commentary).
13. JA to AA, May 22, 1776, ibid., 119–20.
14. JA to AA, July 3, 1776, ibid., 121–23.
15. AA to JA, May 7, 1776, ibid., 115–16.
16. AA to JA May 27, 1776 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
17. John Thaxter to John Adams, July 13, 1777, L. H. Butterfield et al., eds., Adams Family Correspondence (Cambridge, MA, 1963–93), vol. 2, 282.
18. Ibid., 370–71.
PORTIA’S DUBIOUS DIPLOMAT
1. John Adams autobiography, part 2, “Travels and Negotiations,” 1777–1778, sheet 9 of 37 (electronic edition). Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
2. JA to AA, April 25, 1778, Hogan and Taylor, eds., My Dearest Friend, 206.
3. AA to JA, March 8, 1778, ibid., 205.
4. AA to JA, November 12–23, 1778, and JA to AA, December 3 and December 18, 1778, ibid., 215–20.
5. AA to JA, January 1779 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
6. JQA to AA, February 20, 1779, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 3, 175–76.
7. Edith B. Gelles, Portia, the World of Abigail Adams (Bloomington, IN, 1992), 58–71, “A Virtuous Affair.”
8. JA to AA, February 28, 1779, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 3, 181–82.
9. JA to AA, February 28, 1779, ibid., 182 (a second letter written on the same day).
10. Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers, The Great Powers and American Independence (New York, 1965), 15ff.
11. Gregg L. Lint et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (Cambridge, MA, 1996), vol. 10, 39–40.
12. JA to AA, March 16, 1780, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 234.
13. JA to AA, December 18, 1780 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
14. AA to JL, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 4, 165–66 (no date but assumed to be June 1781 based on Lovell’s responses).
15. PBF, vol. 36, 226, note, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 4, 284–86, n. 1, 295.
16. Phyllis Lee Levin, Abigail Adams, A Biography (New York, 1987), 141–44.
17. AA to JA, December 9, 1781 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
18. AA to Mrs. Cranch, February 20, 1785, ibid., 279.
19. AA to Miss Lucy Cranch, September 5, 1784, ibid., 251.
20. AA to Mary Cranch, September 5, 1784, ibid., 166.
21. David McCullough, John Adams (New York, 2001), 371.
22. Elizabeth Smith Shaw to AA, March 18, 1786, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 7, p. 93.
SECOND BANANA BLUES
1. AA to JA, July 27, 1788, Caroline Amelia Smith DeWindt, ed., Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams (New York, 1841), vol. 2, 90–92.
2. AA to JA, May 14 and June 6, 1789, Hogan and Taylor, eds., My Dearest Friend, 324, 328.
3. Paul C. Nagel, Descent from Glory, Four Generations of the John Adams Family (New York, 1983), 45–47.
4. Ibid.
5. January 12, 1788, The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection, Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2008, http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries.
6. AA to Mary Cranch, September 1, 1789, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 8, 402–5, n. 5.
7. Nagel, Descent from Glory, 52.
8. Levin, Abigail Adams, 275.
9. JA to AA, February 4, 1794, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 355.
10. Jack Shepherd, Cannibals of the Heart, A Personal Biography of Louisa Catherine and John Quincy Adams (New York, 1980), 58.
11. AA to WSS, March 16, 1791, DeWindt, ed., Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams, vol. 2, 109.
12. JA to AA, December 6, 1795, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 389–90.
13. JA to AA, December 28, 1792, ibid., 336–38.
14. AA to JA, December 31, 1793, ibid., 346–47.
PARTY OF TWO
1. JA to AA, February 10, 1796, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
2. JA to AA, January 9, 1797, ibid.
3. AA to JA, January 28, 1797, ibid.
4. Levin, Abigail Adams, 305.
5. JA to AA, March 13, 1797, ibid. JA to AA, March 2, 1797, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 442. JA to AA, May 4, 1797, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 448.
6. AA to JA, January 1, 1797 (electronic edition). Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
7. AA to JA, December 31, 1796, ibid.
8. McCullough, John Adams, 489.
9. Richard N. Rosenfeld, American Aurora (New York, 1997), 237.
10. AA to Mary Cranch, February 28, 1798, Stewart Mitchell, ed., New Letters of Abigail Adams. 1788–1801 (Boston, 1947), 137.
11. Ibid.
12. Levin, Abigail Adams, 344.
13. JA to Oliver Wolcott, September 24,1798, Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States with a Life of the Author, vol. 8 (Boston, 1853), 600–3.
14. John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville, TN, 1992), 362.
15. AA to MC, May 26, 1798, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 179.
16. Peter Shaw, The Character of John Adams (Chapel Hill, NC, 1976), 258. Page Smith, John Adams, 982.
17. Theodore Sedgwick to AH, February 22, 1799, Harold Syrett, ed., Papers of Alexander Hamilton (hereafter PAH), vol. 22 (New York, 1974), 494.
18. Robert Troup to Rufus King, April 19, 1799, Charles R. King, ed., Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, vol. 2 (New York, 1894–1900), 596–97.
19. Levin, Abigail Adams, 370–71.
20. JA to Timothy Pickering, May 17, 1799; JA to Wolcott, May 17, 1799; JA to Charles Lee, May 17, 1799, Works of John Adams, vol. 3, 648–50.
21. JA to AA, October 12, 1799 and October 27, 1799, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 466–68. Also see Smith, John Adams, 1015.
22. AA to MC, December 22, 1799, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 222.
23. AA to MC, January 28, 1800, ibid., 228–29.
24. AA to MC, December 11, 1799, ibid., 219–21. Also see Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004), 601.
25. Smith, John Adams, 1027–28.
26. Levin, Abigail Adams, 380.
27. AA to MC, Nov. 21, 1800, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 256.
28. Smith, John Adams, 1049.
29. AA to Sally Smith Adams, December 8, 1800, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 261–62.
30. McCullough, John Adams, 556.
31. AA to TBA, November 13, 1800, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 431.
REMEMBERING SOME OTHER LADIES
1. Levin, Abigail Adams, 479.
2. Nancy Rubin Stewart, The Muse of the Revolution, The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of the Nation (Boston, 2008), 247–56. Also see James Grant, John Adams, Party of One (New York, 2005), 433ff.
3. McCullough, John Adams, 594. Also see Grant, Party of One, 433; and Levin, Abigail Adams, 424–26.
4. Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage, (New York, 2001), 72.
5. Levin, Abigail Adams, 426–27.
6. Stuart, Muse of the Revolution, 262–64. Also see Ellis, Passionate Sage, 184.
7. Paul C. Nagel, The Adams Women (New York, 1987), 126.
8. Levin, Abigail Adams, 449–50; McCullough, John Adams, 602.
9. Nagel, The Adams Women, 145.
10. AA to TJ, September 20, 1813, Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill, NC, 1959), 378.
11. Nagel, The Adams Women, 170.
12. Ibid., 168.
13. Ellis, Passionate Sage, 198.
14. Ibid., 198.
15. Smith, John Adams, 1123.
16. Ibid., 1124–25.
17. Ellis, Passionate Sage, 200.
18. Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past: From the Leaves of Old Journals (Boston, 1883), 64–65.
19. McCullough, John Adams, 646. In his final moments, Adams said, “Help me! Help me!”, to a granddaughter.
BOOK FOUR: Alexander Hamilton
BASTARD SON AND WARY LOVER
1. James Thomas Flexner, The Young Hamilton (Boston, 1978), 13. Also see Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004), 11. Rachel and her mother had well-to-do relatives on St. Croix. That none of them came to her defense indicates the charge of double adultery was true.
2. Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1979), 7. Also see Chernow, Hamilton, 16–17. He discusses the two dates at some length and also opts for 1755.
3. AH to JH, June 22, 1785, PAH, vol. 3, 617. Flexner, Hamilton, 26.
4. AH to ES, November 11, 1769, PAH, vol. 1,4.
5. PAH, vol. 1, 6–7.
6. Ibid., 35–38.
7. AH to CL, April 11, 1777, PAH, vol. 1, 226.
8. Robert Hendrickson, Hamilton (New York, 1976), vol. 1, 54–55.
9. AH to JL, April 1779, PAH, vol. 1, 37–38 (begins on 34).
10. Ibid., 348.
11. AH to ES, October 5, 1788, PAH, vol. 2, 455.
12. AH to ES, August 1780, PAH, vol. 2, 398.
13. AH to MS, January 21, 1781, PAH, vol. 2, 539.
14. AH to PS, February 18, 1781, ibid., 563–67.
THE WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE
1. Hendrickson, Hamilton, 531–32.
2. AH to Angelica Church, December 6, 1787, PAH, vol. 4, 374–76.
3. Hendickson, Hamilton, 530.
4. AH to AC, November 8, 1789, PAH, vol. 5, 501–2.
5. EH to AC, November 8, 1789, PAH, vol. 5, 502.
6. Hendrickson, Hamilton, vol. 2, 20.
7. Ibid.
8. Forest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1979), 229.
9. Ibid., 222.
10. JM to TJ, July 10, 1791, James Morton Smith, ed., The Republic of Letters, The Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (New York, 1995), vol. 2, 695–96.
11. McDonald, Hamilton, 229.
12. PAH, vol. 21, 251–52.
13. PAH, vol. 21, 269. Reynolds Pamphlet, Appendix II, 1792.
14. Julian P. Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson (hereafter PTJ) vol. 18 (Princeton, NJ, 1971), 635.
15. TJ to GW, September 9, 1792, PTJ, vol. 24, 353.
16. Bernard C. Steiner, Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (New York, 1979), 129.
17. Katherine Schuyler Baxter, A Godchild of Washington (New York, 1897), 224.
18. Many people think Hamilton could not have become president because he was born outside the borders of the United States. But this proviso in the Constitution applied to immigrants who arrived in the United States only after the Constitution was written and ratified in 1787–88. Hamilton came to America in 1773, before the Revolution began. Also see Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 508–509, for a discussion of various reasons why Hamilton was never a candidate. The Maria Reynolds scandal was a primary factor.
19. Callender, History of the United States for 1796 (Philadelphia, 1797), 220–22 (Google Books, online edition).
20. PAH, vol. 21, 135ff. Introductory Note and letter from Oliver Wolcott Jr., July 3, 1797. Additional letters to James Monroe, Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg, Abraham B. Venable, James Thomson Callender, et al.
21. PAH, vol. 21, 238ff, Reynolds Pamphlet.
22. Broadus Mitchell, Hamilton, The National Adventure (New York, 1962), 714. Also see Julian P. Boyd’s eighty-page essay in PTJ, vol. 18. Boyd agrees in toto with Callender and in many instances goes beyond him.
23. GW to AH, August 21, 1797, PAH, vol. 21, 214–15.
24. Mitchell, Hamilton, 417–18.
25. Hendrickson, Hamilton, vol. 2, 420.
26. JBC to AH, July 13, 1797, PAH, vol. 21, 163.
27. PAH, vol. 25, 436. Hosack became the Hamiltons’ family doctor. Later he recalled that Hamilton was the nurse “in every important case of sickness that occurred in his family.”
LOVE’S SECRET TRIUMPH
1. King, ed., Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, vol. 2, 330.
2. AH to EH, June 3, 1798, PAH, vol. 21, 482.
3. Hendrickson, Hamilton, vol. 2, 661–64.
4. Thomas Fleming, Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America (New York, 1999), 360–61.
5. Ibid., 355–57.
6. Ibid., 361.
7. James A. Hamilton, Reminiscences of James A. Hamilton (New York, 1869), 65.
8. Jesse Benton Fremont, Souvenirs of My Time (Boston, 1887), 117.
9. Baxter, A Godchild of Washington, 222.
BOOK FIVE: Thomas Jefferson
ROMANTIC VOYAGER
1. Henry S. Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1958), vol. 1, 40–41.
2. Marie Kimball, Jefferson, The Road to Glory (New York, 1943), vol. 1, 67–68.
3. TJ to John Page, October 7, 1763, PTJ, vol. 1, 11–12.
4. While writing Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America (New York, 1999), the author consulted Robert B. Daroff, professor of neurology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, an internationally recognized expert on migraine and other headache disorders; Aaron Burr also suffered from migraines (Duel, 421, n. 17.)
5. TJ to John Page, January 19, 1764, PTJ, vol. 1, 13.
6. TJ to John Page, April 9, 1764, PTJ, vol. 1, 17.
7. Dumas Malone, Jefferson The Virginian (Boston, 1948), vol. 1, 84–85.
8. Ibid., 154–55.
9. TJ to John Page, February 21, 1770, PTJ, vol. 1, 36.
10. TJ to James Ogilvie, February 20, 1771, PTJ, vol. 1, 63.
11. TJ to Robert Skipwith, August 3, 1771, PTJ, vol. 1, 78.
12. Kimball, Jefferson, The Road to Glory, 174–75.
13. TJ to Thomas Adams, February 20, 1771, PTJ, vol. 1, 61.
14. Sarah N. Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, VA, 1947), 24–25 (Reprint). Fawn M. Brodie, in her book Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History (New York, 1974), contends John Skelton was still alive when Jefferson married Martha. Her evidence is unconvincing. The bridegroom’s attempt to describe his bride as a spinster makes it even more unlikely. Kimball, Jefferson, 176, note 28, confirms this interesting change.
15. Some scholars have had doubts about the bottle of wine. It originated with Henry Randall, Jefferson’s mid–nineteenth-century biographer, who talked with surviving members of the Jefferson family as part of his research.
THE TRAUMAS OF HAPPINESS
1. Negro slave wet nurses were common in the South at this time. Many wealthy families used them. Julia Cherry Spruill, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies (New York, 1972), 56–57.
2. Frederick D. Nichols and James A. Bear Jr., Monticello (Charlottesville, VA, 1967), 13–14.
3. Malone, Jefferson The Virginian, 121–22.
4. Randolph, Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson, 26–28.
5. This statement is conjectural from several points of view. Elizabeth Hemings’s mother was black. The Virginia law in the Howell case was aimed at white women who had children by black men. But in later years, Jefferson wrote a letter arguing that people like the Hemingses, born of mixed marriages for two generations, should be free. Another conjecture finds doubts that Wayles was the children’s father. The author feels that Jefferson’s special concern for the Hemingses, over several decades, makes this claim dubious.
6. Kimball, Jefferson, The Road to Glory, 118–19.
7. JA to Timothy Pickering, August 6, 1822, John Francis Adams, ed., John Adams, Life and Works, vol. 100, 239. This old man’s memory requires several grains of salt.
8. TJ to John Randolph, August 25, 1775, PTJ, 241.
9. Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 8, 312, n.
10. TJ to RHL, July 29, 1776, PTJ, vol. 1, 477.
11. TJ to JH, October 11, 1776, PTJ, vol. 1, 524; RHL to TJ, November 3, 1776, PTJ. vol. 1, 589.
12. TJ to Timothy Matlack, April 18, 1781, PTJ, vol. 5, 490.
13. TJ to GW, October 28, 1781, PTJ, vol. 6, 185.
14. TJ to ER, September 16, 1781, PTJ, vol. 6, 117–18, and ER to TJ, October 9, 1781, PTJ, vol. 6, 128–29.
15. Some years ago, the author discussed Martha’s health with the late Alvan R. Feinstein, MD, Sterling Professor of Medicine at Yale Medical School. Dr. Feinstein, while properly cautious about such a long-range diagnosis, thought diabetes was a likely source of her childbirth woes. He noted that according to a family tradition, her babies grew larger with each birth—a common symptom of this disease.
16. TJ to JM, May 20, 1782, PTJ, vol. 6, 185.
17. PTJ, vol. 6, 196.
18. Rev. Hamilton W. Pierson, ed., Jefferson at Monticello: The Private Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1862), 106–7 (Michigan Historical Reprint Series).
19. Randolph, Domestic Life, 40–41.
20. TJ to EE, October 31, 1782, PTJ, vol. 6, 198–99.
HEAD VERSUS HEART
1. JM to Edmund Randolph, November 12, 1782, William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal, eds., Papers of James Madison (hereafter PJM), vol. 5 (Chicago, 1967), 272–73.
2. Malone, Jefferson The Virginian, 407–23.
3. Howard C. Rice Jr., Thomas Jefferson’s Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1976), 42–43, 103.
4. Kimball, Jefferson, The Scene of Europe, vol. 3 (New York, 1950), 9.
5. Ibid.
6. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, vol. 2 of Jefferson and His Time (Boston, 1951), 11–12.
7. TJ to Carlo Bellini, professor of modern languages at the College of William and Mary, September 30, 1785, PTJ, vol. 8, 568–69.
8. Douglas Adair, Fame and the Founding Fathers (New York, 1974), 190.
9. Rice, Thomas Jefferson’s Paris, 67.
10. Jon Kukla, Mr. Jefferson’s Women (New York, 2007), 156.
11. TJ to Elizabeth Trist, December 15, 1786, PTJ, vol. 10, 600.
12. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, 71.
13. Ibid., notes 14 and 15. TJ described the accident as “one of those follies from which good cannot come but ill may.”
14. John P. Kaminski, ed., Jefferson In Love, the Love Letters between Jefferson and Maria Cosway (Lanham, MD, 2001), 44–64.
15. Ibid., 65.
16. Kukla, Jefferson’s Women, 104–5. This is the most convincing summary of Maria Cosway’s second visit to Paris, during which she largely ignored Jefferson and vice versa.
17. Kimball, Jefferson, The Scene of Europe, 303–4.
18. Levin, Abigail Adams, 298–99.
19. Kimball, Jefferson, The Scene of Europe, 305.
20. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello, the Story of an American Family (New York, 2008), 173.
21. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, 246.
22. William H. Gaines Jr., Thomas Mann Randolph, Jefferson’s Son In Law (Louisiana State University Press, 1966), 15–24.
23. MJR to TJ, April 25, 1790, PTJ, vol. 26, 225.
THE WAGES OF FAME
1. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, 436ff. The chapter, “Hamilton Vs Jefferson” (462–77) is perhaps the best summary of the dispute.
2. Noble Cunningham Jr., In Pursuit of Reason, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 207–8.
3. Michael Durey, With the Hammer of Truth: James Thomson Callender and America’s Early National Heroes (Charlottesville, VA, 1990), 157–8. Also see Richmond Recorder, September 29, 1802, for reference to Madison.
4. Richmond Recorder, November 17, 1802. There are several more verses.
5. Durey, With the Hammer of Truth, 162. Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York, 1970), 709.
6. Richmond Recorder, September 15 and September 22, 1802.
7. Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello, 496–502.
8. Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, vol. 3 of Jefferson and His Time (Boston, 1970), 222–23.
9. Edwin M. Betts and James A. Bear Jr., eds, The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson (Columbia, MO, 1966), 240.
10. Thomas Fleming, The Louisiana Purchase (New York, 2003). This brief book, part of a “Turning Points in American History” series, is a good summary of Louisiana story. It includes an extensive bibliography.
11. Durey, With the Hammer of Truth, 165–66.
12. Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909, vol. 5 (New York, 1915–1928), 1422. This describes a triumphant parade in New York staged by Mayor DeWitt Clinton, hailing Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase.
13. Malone, Jefferson The President, First Term, 411–15.
14. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, 789–90.
15. Levin, Abigail Adams, 413–19. Also see Kukla, Jefferson’s Women, 148–50.
16. Gaines, Thomas Mann Randolph, 48.
17. Ibid., 64–67.
18. Gaines, Thomas Mann Randolph, 78–79.
19. TJ to ER, July 10, 1805, Family Letters, 276.
20. TJ to ER May 21, 1805, ibid., 271.
21. Martha Jefferson Randolph to TJ, June 29, 1807, ibid., 302–3.
22. Randolph, Domestic Life, 294–96.
23. Ibid., 298.
24. The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, http://wiki, Monticello.org, mediawiki/index.php, Nailmaking. Also see Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville, VA, 1993), “Those Who Labor For My Happiness, Thomas Jefferson and his Slaves,” by Lucia Stanton, 153–55.
25. Malone, The Sage of Monticello, vol. 6 of Jefferson and His Time, 511.
26. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 3, 326–27, note.
27. Gaines, Thomas Mann Randolph, 142–62.
28. TJ to JM, February 17, 1826, Republic of Letters, 1964–1967.
29. Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York, 1997), 186. This superb book describes in convincing detail the rise of the Declaration to prominence in the American psyche, and Jefferson’s identification with it.
30. Alan Pell Crawford, Twilight at Monticello, The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 2008), 243–44.
31. Ibid., 247–49.
32. Ibid., 249.
33. Ibid., 257–60. Also see Jack McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello, The Biography of a Building (New York, 1988), 380.
IF JEFFERSON IS WRONG, IS AMERICA WRONG?
1. Nature, vol. 396, no. 6706, November 5, 1998, 27–28.
2. New York Times, November 1, 1998. Washington Post, November 23, 1998.
3. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson, 996.
4. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, 182–83.
5. Ibid., 183–84.
6. Randolph, Domestic Life, Introduction, vii–viii.
7. Peterson, The Jefferson Image, 231–32.
8. Ibid., 233–34.
9. Cynthia H. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, foreword by James A. Bear, emeritus director of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (Keswick, VA, 2005), 115.
10. Pike County Republican, March 13, 1873. The full text can also be found in Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committee, January 2000, 29–31.
11. Peterson, The Jefferson Image, 185, note.
12. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 116–17.
13. Recollections of Israel Gillette Jefferson, Pike County Republican, December 25, 1873 (original in Ohio Historical Society), Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committee, January 2000, 32–34.
14. Letter of Thomas Jefferson Randolph to editor of Pike County Republican, undated, original, University of Virginia Library, Accession No. 8937, Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 35–40.
15. For almost a century, Monticello had been owned by the Levy family. It was purchased in 1834 by Uriah Levy, a Philadelphian who rose to the rank of commodore in the U.S. Navy. Marc Leeson, Saving Monticello, the Levy Family’s Epic Quest to Save the House that Jefferson Built (New York, 2001).
16. Peterson, The Jefferson Image, 358.
17. New York Times, October 15, 2006 (obituary of Mrs. Bennett).
18. Nature, vol. 396, no. 6706, November 5, 1998.
19. New York Times letters to the editor, November 9, 1998.
20. New York Times letters to the editor, November 6, 1998.
21. Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 10.
22. Response to the Minority Report, prepared by Lucia C. Stanton, Shannon Senior Research Historian, April 26, 2000.
23. Jet, February 14, 2000.
24. Jefferson’s Blood Interviews, Dr. Eugene Foster, 6.
25. American Heritage, February-March 2002, vol. 53, issue 1.
26. http://www.monticello.org/Matters/people/hemings-jefferson_contro.html, “Matters of Fact, The Hemings-Jefferson Controversy: A Brief Account.” There is a separate biography of Sally Hemings under “Matters of Fact.” For the revised statement, see: http://www.Monticello.org/planatation/hemingscontro/hemings-jefferson.
27. “A Daughter’s Declaration,” John Hopkins Magazine, September 1999, 21–27.
28. New Yorker, December 1, 2008, 34–38.
29. Steven Corneliussen’s essay can be read online at TJscience.com.
30. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 116, citing Albermarle County Minute Book, 1830–31:123.
31. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 42.
32. Ibid., 88, citing Callender in the Richmond Recorder.
33. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, which spawned outrageous lies in newspapers, Joseph Pulitzer created a sensation when he told his reporters that henceforth they were expected to tell the truth. W. A. Swanberg, Joseph Pulitzer (New York, 1967), 254–55.
34. For Wetmore’s service record see: Military Pension File, Enlistment Record, Microfilm T-288, roll #509, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C. For the Adaline Rose lawsuit, see Docket Book #3, Pike County District Court, 1878.
35. The Pike County Republican, October 14, 1875, The Adaline Rose lawsuit was dismissed a year later, in March 1876, when Wetmore had long since fled the scene.
36. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 112. Noted Columbia University scholar Eric L. McKittrick thought, after reading these accounts, that Jefferson, far from being a sensualist, was more like “a tightlipped Irish pastor trying to keep the lid on a parish.” McKittrick thought the real issue was not Jefferson’s personal guilt but “the psychosexual dilemma of an entire society confronting slavery.” “The View From Jefferson’s Camp,” The New York Review of Books, December 17, 1970.
37. Ibid., 19–20.
38. Douglas Adair, Fame and the Founding Fathers (New York, 1974), “The Jefferson Scandals,” 160–191.
39. Bernard Mayo, ed., Preface by James A. Bear Jr., Thomas Jefferson and His Unknown Brother (Charlottesville, 1981), 1–6. Also see Family Letters, 66, 182, 343. In Jefferson Vindicated, Cynthia Burton also examines Randolph as a potential father, 52–60.
40. McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello, the Biography of a Builder, 150–51.
41. Jeffersonian Legacies, edited by Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville, 1993), is a good example of this trend. Its essays were delivered at a 1993 conference at the University of Virginia (discussed in the appendix). Pauline Maier’s book American Scripture (New York, 1997) raises questions about Jefferson’s role in writing the Declaration.
41. The top four in the C-Span survey were Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt.
BOOK SIX: James Madison
A SHY GENIUS MAKES A CONQUEST
1. Irving Brant, James Madison, The Nationalist (Indianapolis, IN, 1948), vol. 2, 33.
2. Ibid., 17.
3. Ibid., 284.
4. Ralph Ketcham, James Madison, A Biography (Newtown, CT, 1971), 110.
5. TJ to JM, August 21, 1783, Smith, ed., The Republic of Letters, 264.
6. JM to William Bradford, November 9, 1772, William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (hereafter PJM), vol. 1, 74–76.
7. Carl Van Doren, The Great Rehearsal, the Story of Making and Ratifying the Constitution of the United States (New York, 1948), 37.
8. Katherine Anthony, Dolley Madison, Her Life and Times (New York, 1949), 74–75.
9. Irving Brant, James Madison, Father of the Constitution, 1787–1800 (Indianapolis, IN, 1950), 343.
10. Richard N. Cote, Strength and Honor, The Life of Dolley Madison (Mt. Pleasant, SC, 2005), 109.
11. Catherine Coles to DM, June 1, 1794, David C. Mattern and Holly C. Schulman, The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison (Charlottesville, VA, 2003), 27–28.
12. Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union (New York, 2006), 30–31. There is some disagreement about this advice from Mrs. Washington. Richard Cote dramatizes it as a face-to-face meeting. Whether it was advice in the mail or otherwise, Madison may well have enlisted Martha Washington. He knew her well from his many visits to Mount Vernon. She also knew Dolley, whose sister, as noted in the text, was about to marry a favorite nephew, George Steptoe Washington. Dolley lived only a few blocks away from the President’s House. Cote, Strength and Honor, 115–16.
13. JM to DM, August 18, 1794, Mattern and Schulman, eds., Selected Letters, 28–29.
14. DM to Eliza Collins Lee, September 16, 1794, ibid., 31.
PARTNERS IN FAME
1. Eric McKittrick and Stanley Elkins, “The Divided Mind of James Madison,” The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), 133ff.
2. Cote, Strength and Honor, 149.
3. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 54–56.
4. Cote, Strength and Honor, 155–56.
5. Ketcham, James Madison, 386.
6. Sally McKean to DM, August 3, 1797, Selected Letters, 32.
7. Ketcham, James Madison, 387. General Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a Federalist opponent but an old Princetonian friend, made a similar remark. Congratulating Madison on his marriage, he hoped Dolley would “soften…some of your political asperities.” (Anthony, Dolley Madison, 91).
8. Ibid., 408.
9. James Sterling Young, The Washington Community, 1800–1828 (New York, 1966), 88–93.
10. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 73–74.
11. Cote, Strength and Honor, 207–8.
12. Anthony, Dolley Madison, 104–6.
13. DM to Anna Cutts, May 22, 1805, Mattern and Schulman, eds., Selected Letters.
14. Brant, James Madison, Secretary of State (Indianapolis, IN, 1953), 268.
15. DM to JM, October 30, 1805, Selected Letters, 68.
16. Ketcham, James Madison, 431.
17. Cote, Strength and Honor, 159ff.
18. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 95.
19. DM to Anna Payne Cutts, June 4, 1805, Selected Letters, 61.
20. DM to JM, November 1, 1805, Selected Letters, 70.
21. Garry Wills, James Madison (New York, 2002), 54–55.
22. Anthony, Dolley Madison, 163.
23. Brant, James Madison, Secretary of State, 322.
24. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 133. The writer had a long and valued friendship with the late Margaret Truman Daniel, President Harry S. Truman’s daughter. He told her to pay no attention to anything said about him in the newspapers or on radio or television. She did so and lived a remarkably happy life.
25. Cote, Strength and Honor, 250.
26. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 137.
27. Ibid., 139–40.
28. Virginia Moore, The Madisons, A Biography (New York, 1979), 223.
29. Cote, Strength and Honor, 159ff.
30. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 144.
31. Ibid., 152.
32. Ketcham, James Madison, 477.
33. Anthony, Dolley Madison, 196–97.
34. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 167.
35. Ibid., 171. It was not officially designated The White House until 1901.
36. Ketcham, 478.
37. DM to Anna Cutts, December 22, 1811, Selected Letters, 154.
38. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 193.
HOW TO SAVE A COUNTRY
1. Brant, James Madison, Commander in Chief (Indianapolis, IN, 1961), 157.
2. Ketcham, James Madison, 553–54.
3. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 291.
4. JM to DM, August 7 and 9, 1809, Selected Letters, 121–22.
5. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 311.
6. Ketcham, James Madison, 548, 570, 575.
7. DM to Lucy Payne Washington, August 23, 1814, Selected Letters, 193–94. There are several versions of rescuing Washington’s portrait. See Algor, A Perfect Union, 313–14. Dolley’s letter, portraying Carroll “in a very bad humor” waiting while the servants struggled with it, seems the most reliable.
8. Brant, Madison, Commander in Chief, 305–6. Ketcham, James Madison, 379. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 314–18.
9. JM to DM, August 28, 1814, Selected Letters, 195.
10. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 319.
11. Ibid., 328.
12. Ketcham, James Madison, 586.
13. Rutland, James Madison, 230.
14. DM to HG, January 14, 1815, Selected Letters, 195.
15. Moore, The Madisons, 342. “Impeach this man, if he deserves the name of man,” one Federalist newspaper shrilled, a few days before the good news arrived. Another paper declared, “His body is torpid and he is without feeling.”
16. Cote, Strength and Honor, 319.
17. Ketcham, James Madison, 610–11.
18. DM to AC, April 3, 1818, Selected Letters, 228–29.
19. Ibid., DM to Sarah Coles Stevenson, February 1820, 238–39.
20. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 351.
21. Selected Letters, Introduction to “A Well Deserved Retirement,” 221.
22. Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers, James Madison and the Republican Legacy (New York, 1989), 144–51.
23. Ibid., 223.
24. Rutland, James Madison, 251. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 377. Paul Jennings, A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison, Electronic Edition, University of North Carolina Press.
25. MJR to DM, July 1, 1836, Selected Letters, 327.
26. Ibid., AJ to DM, July 9, 1836, 328.
27. Ibid., DM to ECL, 329–30.
28. Ibid., Introduction to “Washington Widow,” 317ff.
29. Ibid., 320.
30. Ibid., DM to Henry W. Moncure, August 12, 1844, 374.
31. Jennings, A Colored Man’s Reminiscences.
32. Ibid., Introduction, 324.
33. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 397.
34. Cote, Strength and Honor, 357.
APPENDIX: THE EROSION OF JEFFERSON’S IMAGE IN THE AMERICAN MIND
1. Peterson, Jefferson Image, 186. Also see “The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson, Race and Slavery in American Memory, 1943–1993” by Scott A. French and Edward L. Ayers, in Jeffersonian Legacies, Peter S. Onuf, ed. (Charlottesville, VA, 1993), 422–23.
2. Peterson, Jefferson Image, 187.
3. Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black (Chapel Hill, NC, 1968), 466.
4. Douglass Adair, Fame and the Founding Fathers, Trevor Colbourne, ed. (New York, 1974), 182–83.
5. New York Review of Books, vol. 21, no. 89, April 18, 1974.
6. French and Ayers, in Jeffersonian Legacies, Peter S. Onuf, ed., 432–33.
7. Peter Nicolaisen, “Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson and the Question of Race: An Ongoing Debate,” Journal of American Studies, vol. 37 (2003), 101.
8. “A Note on Evidence, The Personal History of Madison Hemings,” by Dumas Malone and Steven H. Hochman, The Journal of Southern History, November 1975, 527.
9. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies, 77–103, “The First Monticello,” by Rhys Isaac, 181–212; “Jefferson and Slavery,” by Paul Finkelman, 450; “The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson” (Cooley statement).
10. Mr. Burstein later changed his mind and wrote Jefferson’s Secrets, Death and Desire at Monticello (New York, 2005).
11. Joseph A. Ellis, American Sphinx, The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1997), 219. Dr. Eugene Foster’s DNA tests changed Ellis’s mind. In the same issue of Nature that published Foster’s results, Ellis wrote an article in collaboration with MIT geneticist Eric Lander declaring that the report “seems to seal the case” that Sally Hemings was Jefferson’s concubine.
12. Pauline E. Maier, American Scripture, Making the Declaration of Independence (New York, 1997), Introduction, xx-xxi. For quotation, 99. The entire chapter “Mr. Jefferson and His Editors” (97–153) convincingly makes this “work of many” case. Elsewhere in her introduction, Maier states that she has no animus against Jefferson but admits she once nominated him as “the most overrated person in American history” for an American Heritage survey. Her reason was “the extraordinary adulation (and sometimes, execration) he has received” (xvii).
13. The biographers include the writer of this book, who published The Man From Monticello, An Intimate Biography, in 1969.
14. Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, an American Controversy (Charlottesville, VA, 1997), 34–35. In 2008, Gordon-Reed published The Hemingses of Monticello, An American Family. The book won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. The narrative explores the lives of Sally Hemings and the other members of the Hemings family in elaborate detail. But there is little new information about Sally. From the first page, Gordon-Reed assumes that Jefferson was the father of all her children and had a four-decade-long relationship with her. Antipaternity historians have severely attacked the book. At a press conference in Richmond, Virginia, on April 13, 2009, Jefferson’s 266th birthday, they insisted that the case against him remains unproved.