9 Peacefield

Chapter 9 Peacefield Abigail and John were so happy to be home. They took great pleasure in running the farm. They were surrounded by friends and relatives and grandchildren. There were often as many as twenty people living with them! John and Abigail loved the commotion. On Sundays Abigail cooked a big dinner. For a while all of their grandchildren were living with them except for John Quincy Adams's child. That was because John Quincy was serving as minister to Russia. Abigail didn't like for her son to be so far away, and she was afraid of never seeing him again. It was 1809, and James Madison was president. Abigail wrote to President Madison saying that John Quincy wanted to come home. President Madison wisely

told her that he wouldn't bring John Quincy home unless he heard so from John Quincy himself! Although practically the entire Adams family was together, the happy times did not last. Abigail's dear sister Mary and her husband died. John Quincy in Russia had a one-year-old daughter who died. Now all of Abigail and John's children had lost children of their own. Worst of all for Abigail, Nabby developed breast cancer. She had surgery without any anesthesia. The pain must have been almost unbearable. How hard for Abigail to watch her daughter suffer. Nabby spent a year at Peacefield getting better. Then she moved to New York. In time, the breast cancer came back. Terribly weak, Nabby made the trip back to Peacefield and died there. She was forty-eight years old. Losing her dear daughter and companion was heartbreaking. Nabby's death aged Abigail greatly. People said she became an old woman. Sometimes it was hard for her to write because the pain in her hands hurt so much. Abigail complained that her memory was

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failing, but she stayed very interested in politics. This time, the War of 1812 was on her mind. The United States was at war with England again. The British burned the Capitol building and the president's house in Washington. Although far away, Abigail was outraged. She thought the war against England was right and necessary. When the minister in her church gave a sermon against the war, Abigail stopped going to church! When the war ended in 1814, John Quincy was sent to London to work on the peace treaty with Great Britain. Abigail and John were very proud of their son. Later, when he became secretary of state, they were even prouder. Abigail and John celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1814 with a big supper. Abigail said, "I have great cause for thankfulness." Even so, many of their old friends and relatives had died. Both of Abigail's younger sisters had died. In 1816 John and Abigail were sick all winter. They were both feeling very old. Abigail still managed to have a good attitude

about life. "I always thought a laughing philosophy much wiser than a sniveling one," she wrote to her son John Quincy. In October 1818 Abigail got typhoid fever. It is spread from person to person. It was yet another frightening disease common in Abigail's time. She told John and others by her bedside that she didn't want to live longer if she wasn't useful. She died on October 28 at age seventy- three. John, her "dearest friend," wished he could die with her, but he lived eight more years to age ninety. A little over six years after Abigail died, her son John Quincy Adams became the sixth president of the United States. John, his father, was joyful, but said, "How proud she would have been." Abigail was the wife of one US president and the mother of another.

THE WAR OF 1812 THE UNITED STATES DECLARED WAR ON GREAT BRITAIN IN 1812. IT IS SOMETIMES CALLED THE "SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE." THE BRITISH WERE TRYING TO KEEP AMERICANS FROM BUYING OR SELLING GOODS TO FRANCE. THEY ALSO WANTED TO STOP AMERICA FROM TAKING OVER INDIAN LANDS AND PARTS OF CANADA. BATTLES WERE FOUGHT ON LAND, SEA, RIVERS, AND LAKES. THE UNITED STATES WAS DEFEATED MANY TIMES BY THE BRITISH AND THEIR INDIAN ALLIES DURING THE WAR. WASHINGTON, DC, WAS BURNED IN AUGUST 1814. ONE BATTLE IN BALTIMORE INSPIRED THE WORDS TO "THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER." A TREATY WAS FINALLY SIGNED IN DECEMBER 1814. NEITHER SIDE GAINED OR LOST TERRITORY IN THE WAR. AND FROM THAT TIME ON, THERE HAS BEEN A LASTING PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.