Chelmsford Public Library

The loyal son, the war in Ben Franklin's house, Daniel Mark Epstein

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

collective biography

mapsplatesillustrations

index present

non fiction

The loyal son

bibliography

958413466

Daniel Mark Epstein

the war in Ben Franklin's house

Ben Franklin is the most lovable of America's founding fathers. His wit, his charm, his inventiveness--even his grandfatherly appearance--are legendary. But this image obscures the scandals that dogged him throughout his life. In The Loyal Son, award-winning historian Daniel Mark Epstein throws the spotlight on one of the more enigmatic aspects of Franklin's biography: his complex and confounding relationship with his illegitimate son William. When he was twenty-four, Franklin fathered a child with a woman who was not his wife. He adopted the boy, raised him, and educated him to be his aide. Ben and William became inseparable. After the famous kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment, it was William who proved that the electrical charge in a lightning bolt travels from the ground up, not from the clouds down. On a diplomatic mission to London, it was William who charmed London society. He was invited to walk in the procession of the coronation of George III; Ben was not. The outbreak of the American Revolution caused a devastating split between father and son. By then, William was royal governor of New Jersey, while Ben was one of the foremost champions of American independence. In 1776, the Continental Congress imprisoned William for treason. George Washington made efforts to win William's release, while his father, to the world's astonishment, appeared to have abandoned him to his fate. A fresh take on the combustible politics of the age of independence, The Loyal Son is a gripping account of how the agony of the American Revolution devastated one of America's most distinguished families. Like Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough, Epstein is a storyteller first and foremost, a historian who weaves together fascinating incidents discovered in long-neglected documents to draw us into the private world of the men and women who made America

Preface: a night journey, 1731 -- Part I. Sons of the empire -- Americans in London: September 22, 1761 -- Colonial contemporaries, 1753 -- Defenses and engagements -- Challenges, 1757 -- Triumphs -- Part II. America and her children -- America, 1763 -- A frenzy or madness -- Blood and money -- Rebellion, 1772-73 -- A thorough government man -- Two roads -- Part III. War -- Trevose, 1775 -- The last word -- The reckoning, 1776 -- Paterfamilias -- The dark night of the soul -- Part IV. Danse macabre -- The scene of action, 1778-81 -- Captain Huddy and the dance of death -- Going home -- Epilogue, 1785-1823