Jirafa Narrates from Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober, Chapter 12

John and Abigail Adams were grieving at the loss of their daughter who was stillborn. And the war was getting worse and worse. The congress was thinking that the British were going to attack Philadelphia, but no one could be sure. Finally they fled to Yorktown, Pennsylvania. And then finally congress voted that John Adams and Samuel Adams could take a break and go see their families. They left on the 11th of November, and arrived in Braintree on the 27th. It was 1777.

So John Adams had been away for several years, I don't know how many, maybe a year, but it had been halved into two parts. And he had said that the next time he came back that he would stay for awhile. But he came back and had to go away again for a short period of time to try a law case, but while he was gone Abigail received some letters from Congress that said he was voted to go to France and meet Benjamin Franklin for some reason I can't remember. And then John Quincy, which was their son, asked to go with his father. So Abigail had to get a whole bunch of stuff ready in a short period of time.

Before John left, he gave Abigail a locket of a lonely woman watching a ship go by, leaning on a stone that said, "I yield whatever is is right." Abigail's Uncle Norton lived near where they were going to leave from, so they went there. John and John Quincy then left in a boat called the Boston, to go to France. And his father gave him a notepad to take, a diary type thing. A journal. Four and a half months passed and Abigail thought they were dead because there were rumors that the boat had been seized by the British and every man killed. And also that Benjamin Franklin had been assassinated. But it wasn't so. They couldn't write to her from the boat, because there was no other boat to take the letters back to her. Secondly, many boats were seized by the British, and plus it was winter, so it was harsh weather. So that meant that few letters were able to get through, even though they were writing every time they could get a ship that would take it on. So she was very happy, overjoyed it said, I think, when she got a letter from them. And then Abigail's other son had to go to school about that time, and then Nabby their daughter who was then 14 was begging to go see her father and brother. But Abigail did not let her go.

I can't wait to hear more later, Jirafa!