Louis L. Picone - Grants Tomb

Also by Louis L. Picone

The President Is Dead!
Where the Presidents Were Born

Copyright 2021 by Louis L. Picone

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Grandmaster Flash Words and Music by Edward Fletcher, Clifton Chase, Sylvia Robinson and Melvin Glove. Copyright 1982 SUGAR HILL MUSIC PUBLISHING LTD. and TWENTY NINE BLACK MUSIC. All Rights Controlled and Administered by SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC. All Rights Reserved Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945361

Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

Cover photographs: John Parrot/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images (Grant portrait); courtesy of the National Park Service, Manhattan Historic Sites Archive (Grants Tomb)

ISBN: 978-1-950691-70-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-951627-55-3

Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to my fellow members of the #Sweet16 Francesca, Vincent, Leonardo, Mom, Dad, Rosemarie, Gerry, Ralph, Margie, Joseph, Danielle, Maggie, Katrina, Mary, and Olivia

and

My father-in-law, Mel Leipzig

THE FINAL RESTING place of Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious Civil War general and eighteenth president of the United States, is a colossal, 150-foot-tall neoclassical tomb located in the most important city in the country. It is larger than the final resting place of any other presidentin fact, it is larger than the final resting place of any other person in America. There is nothing like it in the United States or in our neighbor nations. Ulysses S. Grants tomb is the largest in North America, but sadly, many peopletoo manyare completely unfamiliar with it.

Grants Tomb harkens back to the sacred and immense burial wonders of the Roman emperors and Egyptian pharaohs. But while millions travel great distances to see the pyramids, Romes Castel SantAngelo, and the Taj Mahal, a mere fraction of those have climbed into a minivan or stepped onto a subway to visit Grants Tomb. In fact, many Americans (including a surprising number in New York) could not even say where it is. And more than a few do not realize that Grants Tomb is Grants final resting place! This is because what most people do know, unfortunately, is the tired old Groucho Marx gag, Who is buried in Grants Tomb? a joke first used on his TV game show You Bet Your Life as a softball question for those hapless contestants who could answer no others correctly.

But this was not always the case. At the end of the Civil War, Grant was among the most admired Americans, if not the most admired, especially in the North. He epitomized the countrys highest aspirations: Grants presidential campaign slogan was Let us have peace, and he personified the reunification of North and South. When he died in 1885, Grant had become one of the most popular men in the world and undoubtedly the most beloved in America. His death was deeply mourned by people both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line. Let us have peace became his inspiring epitaph.

What followed his death is a story of honor, glory, drama, and intrigue as well as controversy, which began almost the moment Grant passed away. Many cities vied for the privilege of hosting his burial place. The honor was awarded to New York City, leaving many outside the state infuriated, jealous, and resentful. Construction of Grants Tomb was almost canceled before the cornerstone was laid, due to a lack of organization and funding and an abundance of dithering and resistance. When the tomb was finally completed twelve years later, it immediately became the most popular destination in New York City.

But it was never just the tomb of one man. Even before it was completed, there were persistent questions: What does Grants Tomb mean? What is its significance? The answer, as we will see, has evolved over the years and continues to change to this day.

In the decades immediately after death, Ulysses S. Grant was as adored as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. His grave became a sacred and revered shrine to which hundreds of thousands made a pilgrimage each year, many of them Union and Confederate veterans who gathered to celebrate reunification. During this same period, Confederate monuments also began to proliferate in the South.

For two decades Grants Tomb remained the top attraction in New York City. But as the Civil War generation passed into history, the visitors dwindled. A hundred years after the Civil War ended, Grants reputation had declined, he slipped from public memory, and his neglected tomb fell into disrepair. It was vandalized, desecrated, and besieged by junkies, prostitutes, and gang members until only the bravest souls ventured to see it.

But like the man, Ulysses S. Grants Tomb is resilient, and it has endured. Today it is again differentnot the revered site it once was nor the disgraced one it later became. Most dismiss it as an out-of-the-way attraction among the plethora of tourist sites located throughout the city, or just another historic site managed by the National Park Service, or the grave of another president whose accomplishments have long since been forgotten, to be visited by school groups, scout troops, and people who are into that kind of stuff. But it is more, much more, and people should know its story.

One logistical note: the site was not and never has been officially known as Grants Tomb. While it was called that by some from the outset, it was also referred to as Grant Monument or Grant Memorial. Today its official name is the General Grant National Memorial, but Grants Tomb remains its most recognized moniker, and I use it throughout this book to make it easy for the reader.

AMERICAS EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENT, Ulysses S. Grant, left office on March 4, 1877 after two tumultuous terms. As a Civil War general, his accomplishments were unquestioned and his accolades well-deserved. Along with Abraham Lincoln, Grant was heralded as one of the two men most responsible for restoring the Union and abolishing slavery. But because Lincoln was tragically assassinated on the verge of victory, it was Grant alone who survived to receive the nations adulation. Grant never forgot his enemy were fellow Americans, and in accepting the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, he was generous and accommodating. Grant shared rations with the starved Confederate soldiers and allowed them to return to their homes with dignity. For this, he earned the respect of the defeated Southerners. In subsequent history, he has been widely admired as a magnanimous warrior of mythic status to whom the people of the United States turned for leadership time and again in the years after Lincolns assassination, as Joan Waugh has written.