The mothers of famous men survive only in their sons. This is a rule almost as invariable as a law of nature. Whatever the aspirations and energies of the mother, memorable achievement is not for her. No memoir has been written in this country of the women who bore, fostered, and trained our great men. What do we know of the mother of Daniel Webster, or John Adams, or Patrick Henry, or Andrew Jackson, or of the mothers of our Revolutionary generals? This book is dedicated to Mary Ball Washington, the second wife of Augustine Washington, a planter in Virginia and the mother of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

Contents:

Mary Washington's English Ancestry

The Ball Family in Virginia

Coat Armor and the Right to bear it

Traditions of Mary Ball's Early Life

Revelations of an Old Will

Mary Ball's Childhood

Good Times in Old Virginia

Mary Ball's Guardian and her Girlhood

Young Men and Maidens of the Old Dominion

The Toast of the Gallants of her Day

Her Marriage and Early Life

Birthplace of George Washington

The Cherry Tree and Little Hatchet

The Young Widow and her Family

Betty Washington, and Weddings in Old Virginia

Defeat in War: Success in Love

In and Around Fredericksburg

Social Characteristics, Manners, and Customs

A True Portrait of Mary Washington

Noon in the Golden Age

Dinners, Dress, Dances, Horse-races

The Little Cloud

The Storm

Mary Washington in the Hour of Peril

Old Revolutionary Letters

The Battle-ground

France in the Revolution

"On with the Dance, let Joy be unconfined"

Lafayette and our French Allies

In Camp and at Mount Vernon

Mrs. Adams at the Court of St. James

The First Winter at Mount Vernon

The President and his Last Visit to his Mother

Mary Washington's Will; her Illness and Death

Tributes of her Countrymen