colonial days. Our text books on history so often leave the
impression that the fear of God utterly prevented the colonial home from
being a place of confident love; but it is possible that the social
restraints imposed by the church outside the home reacted in such a
manner as to compel men and women to express more fervently the
affections otherwise repressed. When we read such lines as the following
in Mrs. Adams' correspondence, we may conjecture that the years of
necessary separation from her husband during the Revolutionary days,
must have meant as much of longing and pain as a similar separation
would mean to a modern wife:

"My dearest Friend:

"...I hope soon to receive the dearest of friends, and the
tenderest of husbands, with that unabated affection which has for
years past, and will whilst the vital spark lasts, burn in the
bosom of your affectionate

A. Adams."

"Boston, 25 October, 1777.... This day, dearest of friends,
completes thirteen years since we were solemnly united in
wedlock. Three years of this time we have been cruelly separated.
I have patiently as I could, endured it, with the belief that you
were serving your country...."

"May 18, 1778.... Beneath my humble roof, blessed with the
society and tenderest affection of my dear partner, I have
enjoyed as much felicity and as exquisite happiness, as falls to
the share of mortals...."[76]

And read these snatches from the correspondence of James and Mercy
Warren. Writing to Mercy, in 1775, the husband says: "I long to see you.
I long to sit with you under our Vines & have none to make us afraid....
I intend to fly Home I mean as soon as Prudence, Duty & Honor will
permitt." Again, in 1780, he writes: "MY DEAR MERCY: ... When shall I
hear from you? My affection is strong, my anxieties are many about you.
You are alone.... If you are not well & happy, how can I be so?"[77] Her
loving solicitude for his welfare is equally evident in her reply of
December 30 1777: "Oh! these painful absences. Ten thousand anxieties
invade my Bosom on your account & some times hold my lids waking many
hours of the Cold & Lonely Night."[78]

Those heroic days tried the soul of many a wife who held the home
together amidst privation and anguish, while the husband battled for the
homeland. From the trenches as well as from the congressional hall came
many a lett