Summary
Ben Franklin is the most lovable of America's founding fathers. His wit, his charm, his inventiveness--even his grandfatherly appearance--are legendary. But this image obscures the scandals that dogged him throughout his life. In The Loyal Son, award-winning historian Daniel Mark Epstein throws the... Full description
- Preface: a night journey, 1731
- Part I. Sons of the empire
- Americans in London: September 22, 1761
- Colonial contemporaries, 1753
- Defenses and engagements
- Challenges, 1757
- Triumphs
- Part II. America and her children
- America, 1763
- A frenzy or madness
- Blood and money
- Rebellion, 1772-73
- A thorough government man
- Two roads
- Part III. War
- Trevose, 1775
- The last word
- The reckoning, 1776
- Paterfamilias
- The dark night of the soul
- Part IV. Danse macabre
- The scene of action, 1778-81
- Captain Huddy and the dance of death
- Going home
- Epilogue, 1785-1823.