Download The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin's House AudioBook Free
The dramatic history of a founding dad, his illegitimate son, and the tragedy of these conflict through the American Revolution - from the acclaimed writer of The Lincolns. Ben Franklin is the most lovable of America's founding fathers. His wit, his allure, his inventiveness - even his grandfatherly appearance - are legendary. But this image obscures the scandals that dogged him throughout his life. In The Loyal Kid, award-winning historian Daniel Tag Epstein throws the spotlight using one of the more enigmatic areas of Franklin's biography: his complicated and confounding romantic relationship along with his illegitimate son, William. When he was 24, Franklin fathered a child with a female who was simply not his better half. He used the boy, lifted 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 power demand in a lightning bolt trips from the bottom up, not from the clouds down. On the diplomatic mission to London, it was William who charmed London culture. He was invited to walk in the procession of the coronation of George III; Ben had not been. The outbreak of the American Revolution triggered a devastating break up between dad and son. By then William was royal governor of NJ while Ben was one of the main champions of American independence. In 1776 the Continental Congress imprisoned William for treason. George Washington made initiatives to win William's release while his dad, to the world's astonishment, appeared to have empty him to his destiny. A fresh take on the combustible politics of the age of independence, The Loyal Kid is a gripping bank account of how the agony of the American Revolution devastated one of America's most distinguished family members. Like Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough, Epstein is a storyteller to start with, a historian who weaves mutually fascinating incidents found out in long-neglected documents to attract us into the private world of the women and men who made America.
