Wives of the Signers

Liberty was not won by men alone. Behind the fifty-six signers of the Declaration stood wives who endured dangers no less real. With vivid detail, Harry and Mary Green bring their stories out of obscurity in Wives of the Signers, showing how the Revolution demanded not only soldiers and statesmen, but steadfast women who held families and farms together while war raged.

Here are the forgotten heroines: Abigail Adams, guiding her children through war while John served abroad; Mary Bartlett, fleeing her burning home; Elizabeth Lewis, imprisoned and broken by privation; Annis Boudinot Stockton, left homeless after the British looted and torched her estate; Deborah Hart, driven into exposure while her husband was hunted as a criminal. From New England kitchens where spoons were melted into bullets, to Southern plantations devastated by invading troops, these women faced down fear with resolve.

The Greens do not present them as passive companions but as active participants in the struggle for independence. They worked farms, stitched for survival, sheltered soldiers, resisted occupying forces, and kept faith in Providence when defeat seemed certain. Their devotion nurtured the very generation that would carry the republic forward. Without them, John Quincy Adams admitted, even patriotism itself might not have survived in his household.

For readers seeking more than battles and treaties, Harry and Mary Green restore the heartbeat of the Revolution. Wives of the Signers testifies that America was shaped as much by women’s sacrifices as by men’s signatures. To know the founding fully is to know these wives — patriots in their own right, who secured liberty by living its cost. (2019ed, 283pp, pb)