 The printer, inventor, humorist, writer, newspaperman, and diplomat was one of the driving forces of the American Enlightenment. But his own home was torn apart by America's first civil war. Franklin's son, William, was illegitimate, but that never stopped Benjamin from being the father his son deserved. Indeed, William wasn't told about his bastard child, Satus, until he was 19, old enough to absorb such a thing.