The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

Review [A] gossipy but thoroughly enjoyable examination of the personal--and particularly marital--relationships of our early national icons...The overall effect is to reveal them as fallible humans without detracting from their well-deserved status.-- "Booklist"[A] solid, sometimes titillating account...Showing the more human and sometimes unlikeable sides of our founders, the author writes good history, debunking more scandal than he confirms.-- "Publishers Weekly"JFK had Marilyn Monroe, and Bill Clinton had Monica, but that doesn't mean twentieth-century presidents had all the fun. 'Knowing and understanding the women in their lives adds pathos and depth to the public dimensions of the founding fathers' political journeys, ' Thomas Fleming writes in this well-researched peek into the boudoirs of America's political architects. -- "Washington Post"Thomas Fleming is one of our most interesting scholars of the Revolutionary period, and in his insightful latest work he does not disappoint. Focusing on the wives and women of the Founding Fathers, The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers is thoroughly fresh, frequently fun, at times touching, and always fascinating. A significant achievement.-- "Jay Winik, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Upheaval and April 1865"Tom Fleming is a rare combination-a fine historian and a fine writer. His assessment of George Washington's relationships with Sally Fairfax and Martha Custis is right on target.-- "Peter R. Henriques, author of Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington"With his ample gifts as a novelist and his brilliant historical reach, the esteemed Thomas Fleming never disappoints...A remarkable achievement-and hard to put down.-- "Brenda Wineapple, author of White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson " Product Description With his usual storytelling flair and unparalleled research, Tom Fleming offers a compelling, intimate look at the founders-George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison-and the women who played essential roles in their lives.From hot-tempered Mary Ball Washington to promiscuous Rachel Lavien Hamilton, the founding fathers' mothers powerfully shaped their sons' visions of domestic life. But lovers and wives played more critical roles as friends and often partners in fame. We learn of the youthful Washington's tortured love for the coquettish Sarah Fairfax, wife of his close friend; of Franklin's two wives, one in London and one in Philadelphia; of Adams' long absences, which required a lonely, deeply unhappy Abigail to keep home and family together for years on end; of Hamilton's adulterous betrayal of his wife and their reconciliation; and how the brilliant Madison was jilted by a flirtatious fifteen-year-old and went on to marry the effervescent Dolley, who helped make this shy man into a popular president. Jefferson's controversial relationship to Sally Hemings is also examined, with a different vision of where his heart lay.Fleming nimbly takes us through a great deal of early American history, as the founding fathers strove to reconcile their private and public lives, often beset by a media every bit as gossip-seeking and inflammatory as ours today. He offers a powerful look at the challenges women faced in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While often brilliant and articulate, the wives of the founding fathers all struggled with the distractions and dangers of frequent childbearing and searing anxiety about infant mortality. All the more remarkable, then, that these women loomed so large in the lives of their husbands-and, in some cases, their country. About the Author Thomas Fleming is the author of more than fifty books of historical fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestseller The Officers' Wives. A distinguished historian, he has served as president of the Society of American Histo