“John and Abigail continued to worry over their son’s [Charles’s] alcoholism, and they were outraged when he squandered some of John Quincy’s money that had been entrusted to his care. But something else concerned them as well, although their correspondence and that of Charles’s siblings contains only dark hints and allusions with regard to this other, unspecified behavior. There are references to his alleged proclivity for consorting with men whom his parents regarded as unsavory. John Quincy, who remained a close, tolerant older brother through thick and thin, urged Charles to “be more cautious” and prayed that his conduct would remain within “the limits of regularity.” By the early 1790s, such references may have been occasioned by the fact that Charles was living in New York with an old revolutionary war general, Baron Friedrich von Steuben, who is now thought by some to have been homosexual. Charles clearly adored Steuben – “My dear Mamma there is something in this man that is more than mortal,” he told Abigail – and he was grief stricken when the old man retired to a farm in upstate New York. Following Steuben’s departure, Charles announced his intention of marrying Sally Smith, the sister of his brother-in-law Colonel Smith. Whereas his parents often interceded in John Quincy’s and Thomas’s matrimonial concerns, the vice-president and Abigail seemed almost relived at their son’s decision. Even Nabby breathed a sigh of relief. After “all the Hair breadth scares and iminent dangers he has run, he is at last Safe Landed,” he exalted.”
— John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (via publius-esquire)
Charles also had a long history of extreme emotional fragility and a strange and persistent childishness. He was very wont to court multiple girls at once, none seriously, and, as his money issues show, tended to befriend people who then manipulated and preyed upon him.
Tag: charles adams
The Unfortunate Adams Children
Each of the four surviving children of John and Abigail Adams suffered a great deal of hardship and personal tragedy during their lives. In childhood, they were all frequently separated from their father–and eventually from their mother as well–due to his involvement in the American Revolution. But their struggles had only begun.
The firstborn–Abigail, called “Nabby”–married a financial failure who had difficulty supporting her and their four children. In 1810, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a painful mastectomy, but after two years of remission, she eventually returned to her parents’ home in Massachusetts and died in her father’s arms. John Quincy, the eldest Adams son, had a successful career in diplomacy and politics that mirrored his father’s and culminated in his election as the sixth President of the United States. However, he suffered a bitter political defeat after losing his reelection campaign to Andrew Jackson. He may also have struggled with depression, and two of his own three sons were troubled and died in young adulthood. (He and his wife Louisa lost a daughter in infancy as well.) Charles was a charming child and a favorite of both his parents. Like his brothers, he attended Harvard, married, and began a promising legal career in New York–but behind closed doors, he struggled with a severe alcohol problem. His habits were so disgraceful that his father disowned him, calling him a “Beast,” before he died of cirrhosis of the liver at just thirty years old. The youngest Adams child, Thomas, also began his adult life with promise. He and his wife had seven children, but unfortunately he shared Charles’ alcoholism (the disease ran in Abigail’s family). His decline was much slower, but he was frequently ill and had amassed large debts by the time he died in 1832.
John and Abigail also had a fifth living child, Susanna, but she was sickly and lived for only fourteen months. Abigail’s last pregnancy ended in the stillbirth of what would have been her third daughter. They called the baby Elizabeth.
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