The moving story of Ulysses S. Grant's final battle, and the
definitive account of the national memorial honoring him as one of
America's most enduring heroes
The final resting place of
Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious general in the Civil War and the
eighteenth president of the United States, is a colossal neoclassical
tomb located in the most dynamic city in the country. It is larger than
the final resting place of any other president or any other person in
America. Since its creation, the popularity and condition of this
monument, built to honor the man and what he represented to a grateful
nation at the time of his death, a mere twenty years after the end of
the Civil War, have reflected not only Grant's legacy in the public mind
but also the state of New York City and of the Union.
In this
fascinating, deeply researched book, presidential historian Louis L.
Picone recounts the full story. He begins with Grant's heroic final
battle during the last year of his life, to complete his memoirs in
order to secure his family's financial future while contending with
painful, incurable cancer. Grant accomplished this just days before his
death, and his memoirs, published by Mark Twain, became a bestseller.
Accompanying his account with numerous period photographs, Picone
narrates the national response to Grant's passing and how his tomb came
to be: the intense competition to be the resting place for Grant's
remains, the origins of the memorial and its design, the struggle to
finance and build it over the course of twelve years, and the
vicissitudes of its afterlife in the history of the nation up to recent
times.
