Status Updates From My Dearest Friend: Letters ...

"I have patiently as I could endured [3 years of separation] with the Belief that you were serving your Country, and rendering your fellow creatures Essential Benefits. May future Generations rise up and call you Blessed, and the present behave worthy of the blessings you are Labouring to secure them, and I shall have less reason to regret the deprivation of my own particular felicity." —Abigail Adams, Oct. 25, 1777

"Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it." —John Adams, April 26, 1777

"It may be the Will of Heaven that America shall suffer Calamities still more wasting and Distresses yet more dreadfull. If this is to be the Case, it will have this good Effect, at least: it will inspire Us with many Virtues, which We have not, and correct many Errors, Follies, and Vices, which threaten to disturb, dishonour, and destroy us. The Furnace of Affliction produces Refinement..." —John Adams, July 3, 1776

It's always fascinating to see everyday life mixed in with the bigger life changing events of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of the Adamses.