I remember the series written by Allan W. Eckert, each loaded with all the footnotes, printed documents, and personal letters, which left little ‘to flesh out a story’.
The series started the story just before The French and Indian War, and ended not too long after the War of 1812.
It’s hard to denounce actual letters, written by lesser known historical characters, because academia attempts to denounce, in the truest of the Communist style, any leader that precedes the current denouncer.
and, going with that, academics rarely use primary sources. McDonald used the sources you refer to as well as Census data and congressional debates.