Nabby died before dawn on Sunday, August 15, 1813. She was forty-nine and for most of her life, as Adams would tell Jefferson, she had enjoyed the best health of anyone in the family. Abigail was shattered. It would be a month before she could write to anyone. “The loss is irreparable,” she said at last in a letter to John Quincy. “Heaven be praised your father and I have been supported through all this solemn scene with fortitude and I hope Christian resignation.”
