Smith on Abigail Adams on C-SPAN

“I wish I could write to you, much oftener than I do,” John Adams assured his wife Abigail on this date in 1774. “I wish I could write to you, a Dozen Letters every day.”

Abigail’s last letter to John included news of Braintree stepping up its militia practice, a rumor about “a conspiracy of the Negroes,” and criticism of slavery as “a most iniquitious Scheme.”

In her next, she advised:

The People in the Co[untr]y begin to be very anxious for the congress to rise. They have no Idea of the Weighty Buisness you have to transact, and their Blood boils with indignation at the Hostile prepairations they are constant Witnesses of.

This period seems to have been when Abigail Adams started growing into John’s closest political advisor. Telling him about events in Massachusetts while he was away on government business emboldened her to include her own observations, and then opinions.

Because Abigail and John Adams were separated at many crucial periods, and they and their descendants carefully preserved their letters, we can see that relationship evolve. It’s likely that some other politicians’ wives were giving them advice, too. But with Abigail, we know she was.

C-SPAN has just posted the recording of a talk by John L. Smith, Jr., author of The Unexpected Abigail Adams, a biography published earlier this year.

Smith spoke this past June at the Fort Plain Museum’s American Revolutionary War 250 Conference. The museum also sells Smith’s book at a discount.