"These are the times that try men’s souls," Thomas Paine wrote near the end of the turbulent, fear-filled year of 1776. 

It was the soul of a woman, however, that defiantly withstood the weight of the trial — the miraculous fight for American independence — with five children at her hip.

Abigail Adams never flinched, never wavered. 

Neither the crown then nor fellow citizens today can mistake her gamble on a bold new nation called the United States.