While busy negotiating this peace deal, Adams moved his family to Washington. At their new home, as was their custom in Boston, they often invited Sumner to join family dinners. These must have been jovial occasions at first. The son Henry Adams said he “worshipped” Sumner as a boy. Sumner was his hero, a man “far closer than any relation of blood.” Charles Francis Adams Jr. said that Sumner was once “the most intimate personal friend my father had.” They were all close to him until the secession crisis tore them apart.
