1From Alexander Hamilton to Martha Washington, 12 January 1800 (Hamilton Papers)
I did not thing it proper, Madam, to intrude amidst the first effusions of your grief. But I can no longer restrain my sensibility from conveying to you an imperfect expression of my affectionate sympathy in the sorrows you experience. No one, better than myself, knows the greatness of your loss, or how much your excellent heart is formed to feel it in all its extent. Satisfied that you cannot...
2Abigail Adams to Martha Washington, 25 December 1799 (Adams Papers)
Whilst in Unison with the Sympathetic Sorrow of a Nation; I unite in Deploring the Loss; it has sustained of a Father, Friend and Benefactor. I intreeat Madam, that You would permit a Heart deeply penetrated with Your loss, and shareing Personally in Your Greif; to mingle with You the Tears which flow for the Partner of all Your joys and sorrows. Deep as the Wound You have Sustained is, and...
3Abigail Adams to Martha Washington, [9 February 1797] (Adams Papers)
Your retirement from publick Life excite in my mind many Sensations, Some of them of a nature very different from those which I have ever before experienced. The universal satisfaction Love esteem and Respect which you have ensured from all Ranks of persons, Since you have been in publick Life and more particularly for these 8 years past when your Situation has made you more universally know...
4From George Washington to Martha Washington, c.17 April 1795 (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, c.17 April 1795. On 20 April, Randolph wrote GW that on the previous Saturday he had received GW’s letter of 17 April “together with the one inclosed for Mrs Washington, which I immediately sent to her.”
5From George Washington to Martha Washington, c.6 Oct. 1794 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, c.6 Oct. 1794. On 8 Oct., Edmund Randolph wrote GW: “I was honored by your private letter of the 6th instant, about half an hour ago; and immediately delivered to Mrs Washington the one, addressed to her.”
6Abigail Adams to Martha Washington, 20 June 1794 (Adams Papers)
I cannot omit so good an opportunity as the present by my son of paying my respects to you, and of acknowledging the honor done him by the unsolicited appointment conferd upon him by the President at a very early period of Life I devoted him to the publick, and in the most dangerous and hazardous time of the War consented that he should accompany his Father in his embassys abroad, considering...
7Abigail Adams to Martha Washington, 25 June 1791 (Adams Papers)
I was honourd with your much esteemed favour on the 15 of this month. the state of my Health, Body and mind suffering most Severely with repeated attacks of an intermitting fever will plead my apoligy for omitting to thank you at an earlyer date for your Friendly Letter. I have been so weakned & debilitated as to be unable to walk alone, and my Nerves so affected as to oblige me to seclude...
8From George Washington to Martha Washington, 12–15 May 1791 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, c.12–15 May 1791. On 5 June Martha Washington wrote Frances Bassett Washington from Philadelphia: “I have had letters from the President from savanna” ( Fields, Papers of Martha Washington, Joseph E. Fields, ed. “Worthy Partner”: The Papers of Martha Washington . Westport, Conn., and London, 1994. 231–32).
9From George Washington to Martha Washington, 2–9 May 1791 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, c.2–9 May 1791. Tobias Lear informed GW on 22 May 1791 that “Mrs Washington had the pleasure to receive two letters from you” by the brig Philadelphia, which had just arrived from Charleston.
10From George Washington to Martha Washington, 24–26 April 1791 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, c.24–26 April 1791. On 15 May Tobias Lear wrote to GW : “a letter for Mrs Washington came under cover to me, which she informed me was dated Wilmington.” GW was at Wilmington, N.C., from 24 to 26 April.
11From George Washington to Martha Washington, 26 March 1791 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, 26 Mar. 1791. On 27 Mar. 1791 GW referred Tobias Lear “to a letter I wrote to Mrs Washington from Annapolis yesterday.” Only three of GW’s letters to his wife have survived to the present. Martha Washington’s granddaughter Martha Parke Custis Peter wrote in 1828 that shortly after GW’s death on 14 Dec. 1799 Martha had burned all but two of his letters to...
12From George Washington to Martha Washington, 9 October 1778 (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, c.9 Oct. 1778. GW wrote Benjamin Lincoln on 9 Oct. : “I have declined troubling you with more than one [letter of introduction] to Mrs Washington.”
13From George Washington to Martha Washington, 29 June 1778 (Washington Papers)
Letter not found : to Martha Washington, 29 June 1778. On 30 June , Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold acknowledged receipt of a letter from GW to him, “with the Letter Inclosed for Mrs Washington.”
14From George Washington to Martha Washington, 7 November 1777 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, 7 Nov. 1777. In a letter to Anna Maria Dandridge Bassett of 18 Nov., Martha Washington wrote her sister that “the last Letter I had from the General was dated the 7th of this month he says nothing hath happend since the unsuccessful attack upon our forts on the Dalaware” ( ViMtvL ).
15From George Washington to Martha Washington, 10 June 1777 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, c.10 June 1777. On 10 June GW wrote Maj. Gen. Thomas Mifflin : “If Mrs Washington is in Philada be pleased to deliver the enclosed,” and on 11 June Mifflin wrote GW : “Mrs Washington is still here to whom I deliverd your Letter.”
16From George Washington to Martha Washington, 25 October 1776 [letter not found] (Washington Papers)
Letter not found: to Martha Washington, 25 Oct. 1776. GW wrote Hancock on 14 Nov . that Gen. William Howe had returned the letter “from myself to Mrs Washington of the 25 Ulto” that had been intercepted at Bristol, Pa., on 28 Oct. (see also Hancock to GW, 28 Oct. , and William Howe to GW, 11 November ).
17From George Washington to Martha Washington, 23 June 1775 (Washington Papers)
As I am within a few Minutes of leaving this City, I could not think of departing from it without dropping you a line; especially as I do not know whether it may be in my power to write again till I get to the Camp at Boston—I go fully trusting in that Providence, which has been more bountiful to me than I deserve, & in full confidence of a happy meeting with you sometime in the Fall—I have...
18From George Washington to Martha Washington, 18 June 1775 (Washington Papers)
I am now set down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressable concern—and this concern is greatly aggravated and Increased when I reflect on the uneasiness I know it will give you—It has been determined in Congress, that the whole Army raised for the defence of the American Cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to...