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Abigail Adams to Joseph Warren
Docno: AFC01d135
Recipient: Warren, Joseph
Date: 1775-05-13
[dateline] Braintree May 13 1775
[salute] Sir
A Brother of Mr. Adams'es who has been a Captain of a Company in this Town, is desirous of joining the Army provided he can obtain [a] Birth; he would prefer a Majors to any other. As he has not any acquaintance with any Gentleman in the Army, except Coll. Palmer, he requested me to write you a line, in his behalf; he is a person both of steadiness and probity, and if there should be any place open in the army wherein he could serve his Country, I believe he would discharge the Trust reposed in him to acceptance. Your intrest Sir in his favour, would oblige [both him?]
1 and his absent Brother, as well as your Humble Servant,
[signed] Abigail Adams2
1. Facsimile (and presumably the MS) mutilated.
2. AA's application was in behalf of JA's brother Elihu. Warren told JA in a letter dated at Cambridge, 20 May (Adams Papers), that he had received AA's letter and would “do all in [his] Power to obtain” a major's commission for Elihu “in one of the Regiments.” But it does not appear that he succeeded
{p. 197}
in doing so. The opposition of Elihu's mother may have been the stumbling block; see AA to JA, 25 June, below. In the following August, while serving as a captain of Massachusetts troops in the army besieging Boston, Elihu caught the prevailing camp dysentery and died (AA to JA, 10–11 Aug., below).
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/
http://www.masshist.org/ff/