CHAPTER I

No historian can approach this epoch without doing homage to Henry Adams, whose "History of the United States," 9 vols. (1889-1891), is at once a literary performance of extraordinary merit and a treasure-house of information. Skillfully woven into the text is documentary material from foreign archives which Adams, at great expense, had transcribed and translated. Intimate accounts of Washington and its society may be found in the following books: G. Gibbs, "Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams", 2 vols. (1846); Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, "The First Forty Years of Washington Society" (1906); Anne H. Wharton, "Social Life in the Early Republic" (1902). "The Life of Thomas Jefferson," 3 vols. (1858), by Henry S. Randall is rich in authentic information about the life of the great Virginia statesman but it is marred by excessive hero-worship. Interesting side-lights on Jefferson and his entourage are shed by his granddaughter, Sarah N. Randolph, in a volume called "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson" (1871).