Six primary documents from the war years. The Bunker Hill letter, written the day of the battle. The dysentery letters. The "Remember the Ladies" letter, in full, not just the phrase. John's dismissive reply. Her letter to Mercy Warren on the rebuff. And John's admission, six weeks later, that she shines as a Stateswoman.
On June 17, 1775, British and American forces fought the Battle of Bunker Hill on the Charlestown peninsula, three miles north of Boston. Abigail Adams was at the family farm in Braintree, twelve miles away. She climbed Penn's Hill with her seven-year-old son John Quincy and watched the smoke and heard the cannon. She wrote to John the following day, June 18, 1775, while the battle was still in its aftermath. Dr. Joseph Warren, a close friend, had been killed. Charlestown was burning.
John was in Philadelphia at the Second Continental Congress. He would not learn of the battle for several days. Abigail's letter is the primary eyewitness account from Braintree. It is at Founders Online and the Massachusetts Historical Society.
The Day; perhaps the decisive Day is come on which the fate of America depends. My bursting Heart must find vent at my pen. I have just heard that our dear Friend Dr. Warren is no more but fell gloriously fighting for his Country — saying better to die honourably in the field than ignominiously hang upon the Gallows. Great is our Loss... Charlstown is laid in ashes. The Battle began upon our intrenchments upon Bunkers Hill, a Saturday morning about 3 o clock and has not ceased yet and tis now 3 o clock Sabbeth afternoon... the constant roar of the cannon is so distressing that we can not Eat, Drink or Sleep.
The letter continues: "I saw with my own eyes those fires." She had climbed Penn's Hill with her son and watched Charlestown burn. A cairn now marks the spot on Penn's Hill in Quincy, Massachusetts, erected in 1896 by the Adams Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution.
In the late summer and fall of 1775, a dysentery epidemic swept through Braintree and the surrounding towns. Abigail managed the household through it while John remained in Philadelphia. She contracted dysentery herself. Her mother, Elizabeth Quincy Smith, died of the disease in October 1775. Patty, a household servant, died of it. John's brother Elihu died of camp fever at roughly the same time.
She wrote two letters in September 1775 documenting what was happening in the house. Both are at Founders Online and the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Since you left me I have passed thro great distress both of Body and mind; and whether greater is to be my portion Heaven only knows... His Disorder increasd till a voilent Dysentery was the consequence of his complaints, there was no resting place in the House for his terible Groans... Two days after he was sick, I was seaz'd with the same disorder in a voilent manner. Had I known you was at Watertown I should have sent Bracket for you. I sufferd greatly betwen my inclination to have you return, and my fear of sending least you should be a partaker of the common calamity.
I set myself down to write with a Heart depressed with the Melancholy Scenes arround me. My Letter will be only a Bill of Mortality, tho thanks be to that Being who restraineth the pestilence, that it has not yet proved mortal to any of our family, tho we live in daily Expectation that Patty will not continue many hours. A general putrefaction seems to have taken place, and we can not bear the House only as we are constantly clensing it with hot vinegar... So sickly and so Mortal a time the oldest Man does not remember.
On March 31, 1776, three months before the Declaration was adopted, Abigail wrote to John about the political situation in Boston, about the war, about ordinary household matters, and then, as the letter turns, about something else entirely. The "Remember the Ladies" passage appears without preamble, embedded in a longer letter. The full passage, as written, is the document. The original manuscript is at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
I long to hear that you have declared an independency — and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
John Adams replied on April 14, 1776. His answer was dismissive, he treated the request as a joke, listing other groups that were now also emboldened to demand their rights. He called her "saucy" and said the idea of giving women new protections was impractical. The letter is at Founders Online.
As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient — that schools and Colledges were grown turbulent — that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented. — This is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so saucy, I wont blot it out.
Abigail wrote immediately to her friend Mercy Otis Warren, poet, playwright, and the most prominent woman in Revolutionary New England, to report John's response. The tone is different from her letters to John: direct, unsurprised, and already looking toward the next step. The letter is at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
He is very sausy to me in return for a List of Female Grievances which I transmitted to him. I think I will get you to join me in a petition to Congress. I thought it was very probable our wise Statesmen would erect a New Goverment and form a new code of Laws. I ventured to speak a word in behalf of our Sex, who are rather hardly dealt with by the Laws of England which gives such unlimited power to the Husband to use his wife Ill.
Six weeks after his dismissive reply, John Adams wrote to Abigail and said something different. He had been reading her letters, her analysis of the political situation, her accounts of Braintree, her questions about the war and the Continental Congress, and he acknowledged what he was reading. The letter is at Founders Online.
I think you shine as a Stateswoman, of late as well as a Farmeress. Pray where do you get your Maxims of State, they are very apropos.
He meant it as a compliment. She had been producing better political analysis than most of his colleagues. The "Stateswoman" letter was written six weeks after the "I cannot but laugh" letter. The two together are the record of that exchange.