THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS

A look at the divided loyalties of several leading Massachusetts families involved in the American Revolution.

It’s hardly news that the Revolution caused irreconcilable rifts in many colonial communities and families; Thomas B. Allen’s Tories and Kevin Phillips’ The Cousins’ Wars are among many books that capably cover the topic. Malcolm, a law professor and author of The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold, wisely concentrates on Massachusetts, with some forays outside the colony—to note, for example, that even as Benjamin Franklin was fomenting revolt, his son was the loyalist governor of New Jersey. The author writes in depth about the divisions in some of the most prominent colonial families, including the Quincy and Adams clans. The revolutionary James Otis, for instance, had a wife whom he described as a “High Tory,” with one of their daughters marrying a British army officer and the other the son of an American general. John Adams lost a best friend to the cause, one of countless loyalists who pulled up stakes and moved to England. Josiah Quincy’s son, Samuel, also sailed off to England. Malcolm examines a number of well-known topics, including the proximate causes of the revolution—taxation without representation, colonial anger at having British troops billeted with them rather than being stationed on the dangerous frontier, and so forth. Regrettably, she has the vexing habit of closing episodes on trite telegraphic notes: “His calm, handsome portrait did not reveal any symptoms of the pulmonary disease that had stricken his brother Edmund and would eventually threaten his life as well”; “Could as prominent and educated a family as the Quincys avoid being enveloped by the whirlwind blowing about them? A better question is: Would they?” This diminishes an otherwise competent, if not entirely original, study.

A serviceable account of the familial costs of the American Revolution.