The Loyal Son

The dramatic story of a founding father, his illegitimate son, and the tragedy of their conflict during the American Revolution--from the acclaimed author of The Lincolns . 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 spotlight on one of the more enigmatic aspects of Franklin’s biography: his complex and confounding relationship with his illegitimate son William. When he was twenty-four, Franklin fathered a child with a woman who was not his wife. He adopted the boy, raised him, and educated him to be his aide. Ben and William became inseparable. After the famous kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment, it was William who proved that the electrical charge in a lightning bolt travels from the ground up, not from the clouds down. On a diplomatic mission to London, it was William who charmed London society. He was invited to walk in the procession of the coronation of George III; Ben was not. The outbreak of the American Revolution caused a devastating split between father and son. By then, William was royal governor of New Jersey, while Ben was one of the foremost champions of American independence. In 1776, the Continental Congress imprisoned William for treason. George Washington made efforts to win William’s release, while his father, to the world’s astonishment, appeared to have abandoned him to his fate. A fresh take on the combustible politics of the age of independence, The Loyal Son is a gripping account of how the agony of the American Revolution devastated one of America’s most distinguished families. Like Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough, Epstein is a storyteller first and foremost, a historian who weaves together fascinating incidents discovered in long-neglected documents to draw us into the private world of the men and women who made America. “The history of loyalist William Franklin and his famous father has been told before but not as fully or as well as it is by Daniel Mark Epstein in The Loyal Son . Mr. Epstein, a biographer and poet, has done a lot of fresh research and invests his narrative with literary grace and judicious sympathy for both father and son.”-- The Wall Street Journal ...

ldquo;The history of loyalist William Franklin and his famous father has been told before but not as fully or as well as it is by Daniel Mark Epstein in The Loyal Son. Mr. Epstein, a biographer and poet, has done a lot of fresh research and invests his narrative with literary grace and judicious sympathy for both father and son. . . . William Franklin’s motto was ‘Pro Rege & Patria.’ Mr. Epstein’s engrossing account of his ordeal in striving to be faithful to that motto illuminates the plight of the hundreds of thousands of British Americans who remained, during the Revolution, devoted to both crown and country.”—The Wall Street Journal

 “Elegant . . . moving . . . In Epstein’s hands, the case of Benjamin and William Franklin becomes superbly illuminating.”—The New Republic

“A fully immersive experience [that] illuminates the tangled family relationships of one of the pillars of the American Revolution.”—Library Journal

“A riveting narrative about the bizarre turmoil between Benjamin Franklin and his son William. The amount of new research undertaken is deeply impressive. And the writing is elegant and always informative. Highly recommended!”—Douglas Brinkley, professor of history, Rice University, CNN presidential historian, and author of Rightful Heritage

“This poignant, absorbing portrait of Benjamin Franklin and his son William is a powerful reminder that America’s fight for independence was also an agonizing civil war, in this case pitting a father against his beloved son. In exploring Franklin’s tormented relationship with William, the royal governor of New Jersey, who remained loyal to Britain, Daniel Mark Epstein brilliantly illuminates the American Revolution’s tragic human cost.”—Lynne Olson, New York Times bestselling author of Citizens of London and Last Hope Island

“Daniel Mark Epstein has written a textured, sympathetic account of a fallen founder, William Franklin: patriot, public servant, son, and political partner of Benjamin. Epstein shows, from the inside, his ambitions, yearnings, decisions good and bad, and final, crushing failure.”—Richard Brookhiser, author of Founders’ Son

“The Loyal Son is must reading for those who want to see the American Revolution from the other side—the Tory side—and to be acquainted with Benjamin Franklin’s darker side.”—John Ferling, author of Whirlwind and Jefferson and Hamilton

“A gripping history of a family torn apart by political upheaval . . . Drawing on much unpublished correspondence as well as published works, the author constructs a fast-paced, vivid narrative with a host of characters whose appearance and personality he etches with deft concision. . . . A perceptive, gritty portrayal of the frenzy of war and a father and son caught at its tumultuous center.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Auteur

Daniel Mark Epstein

Échantillon de lecture
PREFACE
 
A Night Journey, 1731
 

Works of fiction often benefit from prefaces that are non-fictional statements. These are usually personal and sometimes historical remarks by the writer that help us find our way into the story. Is it possible that a book of history might profit from a nearly fictional preface? Might an author part from convention just long enough to favor the reader by turning the tables? I don’t know if it has ever been done before; but, begging the reader’s indulgence I mean to try it.
When I am done with my preface, I will resume my vocation as a historian with no constellation to guide my craft but the facts.

 
On a starry night in April 1731, a young man in a borrowed two- wheeled shay drove along the Lower Post Road from Burlington, New Jersey, toward Cooper’s Ferry, where he hoped to cross the river into Philadelphia before daybreak. There was enough of the moon in its last quarter to light the muddy road.

Beside him on the seat was a packing crate lined with blankets, and wrapped in the blankets andwound in bunting was a baby. Right now the baby was sleeping, lulled by the rhythm of the horse’s hooves and the easy jouncing of the carriage upon its creaking wheels. The driver
guided the horse carefully in the hope that a bump in the road wouldn’t set the baby to crying again. Just eight months old, he had never been long away from his mother. She had explained a few hours ago that if the baby cried he was to pick him up, just so, and put him up on the shoulder and pat him, once, twice, and again to raise the air in his belly. Then rock him or sing to him and he would go back to sleep. He was a good baby, she said, sobbing. “He does not cry or fuss but when he is hungry or raw or has the air in his belly.”

She had weaned him early in anticipation of this terrible hour. In a separate compartment of the crate were a pewter sucking pot, a silver pap boat and spoon for pabulum, and a covered jar of mixed flour, bread, and water. He knew nothing about babies but meant to figure it out.

Franklin was famously capable. In the fullness of his twenty-four years he had proved this to himself and a few other people and was sometimes frightened of his own power. The advantage was partly a…