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also to my mother, Barbara Eckert and my sister Rebecca Sirhal, for digging up family history for the Dedication, as well as their advice and counsel and love.
    In the last two weeks, because of the press of time and the reams of research material, a group of professional researchers came to my assistance to help finish the job, like the Marines coming in over the hill just in the nick of time. Thank you to Kate Maxwell, Kristen Helmstetter, Linda Emery, Inez Feltscher, Jasmina Zahirovic, Scott Whitlock, Megan Higgins, Anna Hyde and Joseph S. Catapano, Queenie Bui, Lauren Elizabeth Merz, Mirah Johnston, Sakari Deichsel, Mark Hensch, and Alex B. Weisman. Each was dedicated and their work invaluable.
    In no particular order, thanks also to the following friends: Mark Levin; Tony Fabrizio, Ken Cuccinelli, Jennifer Harper, Michael Barone, Bill Kristol, Mark Masters, Robert Schlesinger, Charles Pratt, John McLaughlin, Matthew Dallek, Jim McLaughlin, Grover Norquist, Mark Tapscott, Michael Phelps, Shannon Bream, Ken Cuccinelli, Tom McDevitt, Ralph Hallow, Rob and Robert Meyne, Paul Begala, Ricky Greenfield, Chuck Todd, Mark Allen, Matt Continetti, Jay Test, Peggy Noonan, Bill Clark, Joanne Herring, Stephen Moore, Roger Stone, Richard Viguerie, Michele Davis, John Fund, Paul and Carole Laxalt, Bill Schulz, Fred Eckert, David Marks, George and Mari Will, Cleta Mitchell, Tom Loringer, Fred Barbash, David Alpern, Newt and Callista Gingrich, Cheryl Rampy, Lee Edwards, Del Quentin Wilber, John Heubusch, Dave Arnold, Mike Murtaugh, Philip Cavalier, John Morris, Joanne Drake, Jewell and Pal Horning, Rick Perry, Ken Cribb, Jim Burnley, Dick Allen, Ken Khachigian, Stu Spencer, Karen Spencer, Fred Ryan, Carl Cannon, Carolyn Hauer, Pat Nolan, Dennis LeBlanc, Quin Hilyer, Brent and Norma Bozell, Susan McShane, Rick and Sue Johnson, Bruce Baker and Rhonda Lognon, Llewellyn King and Linda Gasparello, Ron Robinson, Frank and Becki Donatelli, Dave Roberts, Peter and Irene Hannaford, Jed Donahue, Dick and Mary Snyder, Lou Cannon, Tom and Lyn Finnigan, Ed Meese, Bill Pascoe, Al Regnery, Tish Leonard, Bob Tyrrell, Jim Pinkerton, Howard Fineman, Kevin and Chris Kabanuk, Dan, Soona, Jinnyn, Dan III, Coury and Raymond Jacob, Ross, Candy, Elizabeth and Katherine Bhappu, Manek Bhappu, Dr. Roshan and Perin Bhappu, and Homee Schroff. And to Ellen and Wayne Masters and Nathan, Todd, Eric and Margaret Shirley. And to Human, Stephanie, Laura and Ethan Sirhal Karen Howard and Michelle and John Bae.
    Thanks to Tish Leonard, Kevin McVicker, Courtney Nolan, Jameson Cunningham and Dan Wilson at Shirley & Banister Public Relations. And thanks to Matthew C. Hanson, Archives Specialist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and to everybody at the Library of Congress.
    In the course of writing and researching this book, I discovered many things including things about my family I did not know until the papers from the Daughters of the American Revolution were given to me by my mother and sister.
    I knew about the many sacrifices of many men in the Shirley, Cone, Abbott, Westbook, Watkins, and McGiveron families in all the wars of America but did not know about Henry Cone of Haddam, Connecticut—on my mother’s side—who enlisted in May 1775 in the 1st Company, 1st Regiment. He was “at the siege of Boston in May, and at Bunker Hill in June. . . .” Under George Washington’s command, our grandfather then “wintered at Valley Forge, 1777–8; was at the battles of Brandywine, Monmouth, and Long Island. In 1781, while still in service, he lost an eye by smallpox. In 1793, he was granted a pension and [died] at Lyme Dec. 15, 1827, aged 83.” Henry’s son Andrew Diodate Cone—another grandfather—served in the War of 1812.
    On my father’s side, Private William Watkins was one of the “men who marched from Connecticut Town for the relief of Boston in the Lexington Alarm of April 1775. . . .” Watkins was