Category Archives: Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

No more of those hideous monuments!

19 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by in Chester A. Arthur, General Grant National Memorial (NPS), Monuments and Statuary, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President), Winfield Scott Hancock

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Puck magazine, August 19, 1885

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. Blogging will continue to be light for the next week as I squeeze out some last days of R&R before the academic year begins a week from tomorrow. We visited the Newseum in Washington yesterday. I will have more to say about it when I get back from vacation. Today I wanted to share this centerfold from the August 19, 1885 edition of Puck magazine. Grant had died three weeks previously and his funeral was now eleven days in the past when this hit the newsstands. Literally within hours after his death, discussion had begun about the size, location and type of monument he might receive. There was no shortage of ideas; suggestions ranging from the sublime to the surreal were pouring in from across the country.

It is difficult to tell how cheeky or sincere the Puck editors are being here with their recommendation in the lower right hand corner. My favorite part of the cartoon is the statue of William Seward on the left. The statue still stands where it was dedicated in Madison Square Park in 1876. President Grant himself donated to the construction of the statue. Chester Arthur, Grant’s appointee as Collector of the Port of New York, and Winfield Scott Hancock both attended the Seward dedication and also participated in Grant’s funeral nine years later, a few weeks before this Puck cartoon’s release. Arthur himself was the first leader of the Grant Monument Association but, like Hancock, died in 1886 the year after Grant did. The Grant Monument Association and American people would spend the next twelve years hashing out the scope and design of what became Grant’s Tomb.

(image/Library of Congress)

Sunday morning coffee

12 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by in General Grant National Memorial (NPS), Style, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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Ulyyses S. Grant sent his measurements to Brooks Brothers in August 1861 after being promoted to brigadier general. Oddly the tailors did not keep the entire note, instead only saving the portion describing the fit and proportions.

I’m listening to jazz and having my morning coffee before heading out the door for Grant’s Tomb. The sun seems to be shining. I thought we would stay with the Brooks Brothers theme one more day. What we see here is a letter in Ulysses S. Grant’s hand to Brooks Brothers giving his measurements. The letter is from August 1861 and is currently on display at the exhibition I mentioned yesterday at Grand Central Terminal. Grant learned of his promotion when he read about it in the St. Louis newspapers while stationed in the Western Theater. His rise had been meteoric. Grant left the Army in April 1854 and had seven full years in the wilderness before rejoining the military after the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861. Now before the end of the summer he would be a brigadier general. Grant was never one for punctiliousness in military dress, he would famously wear an enlisted man’s blouse later in the war, but it must have been nice to order and put on this general’s uniform that we see here.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Grant rocks the ZZ Top beard wearing his new Brooks Brothers-tailored uniform, Cairo Illinois, September 1861.

The 1865 Colfax Expedition

09 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Law Olmsted, Incorporating New York (book project), National Park Service, Schuyler Colfax, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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In late June 1864, with the country still reeling from Ulysses S. Grant’s bloody Overland Campaign, President Lincoln signed legislation granting Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove to the state of California. I speak in my manuscript about how forward-thinking many were even in the worst depths of the war about what might come afterward, hence the passage of the Pacific Railroad, Homestead, and Land-Grant College bills as early as 1862. The 1864 Yosemite Act was a part of that optimism. Eight years after this, President Grant put Yellowstone under federal control. In between, in the summer of 1865, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax led an expedition out west just after the Civil War to review the situation. Three years after all this Colfax became Grant’s running mate and then served four years as vice-president from 1869-73.

Frederick Law Olmsted (second from left front row) read his report on Yosemite and Mariposa Grove to House Speaker Schuyler Colfax and his entourage on 9 August 1865. Olmsted, his wife Mary (seated next to him), and the expedition then sat for this image. With the Civil War finally over, Americans were thinking of the possibilities for the future.

Frederick Law Olmsted left his position as secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission in mid-1863 and took a position in California managing the Mariposa mining estate. There he was horrified by the corruption and environmental depredations he saw. A bright spot was that he was eventually placed on a committee to examine how the state of California might preserve Yosemite and Mariposa. Back in Washington on 14 April 1865 Grant and Colfax both begged out of attending My American Cousin at Ford’s Theater with President and Mrs. Lincoln. That same day Lincoln spoke to Colfax excitedly about the Speaker’s upcoming trip out west. As Colfax remembered it, Lincoln told him, “Mr. Colfax, I want you to take a message from me to the miners whom you visit. I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible. It abounds all over the Western country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and its development has scarcely commenced.” Later that evening Booth shot Lincoln and the president died the next morning.

Colfax and his entourage headed west shortly after the president”s assassination and traveled many thousands of miles by various means, taking in what they saw and thinking optimistically about the possibilities for the reunified country. By early August they reached Yosemite and toured that beautiful valley along with the sequoias at Mariposa Grove. On 9 August 1865 Speaker of the House Colfax and others listened to Frederick Law Olmsted read his “Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report,” the study that Olmsted and his team had written for state officials outlining how California might best preserve these sites. The state eventually did nt pursue many of the commission’s recommendations, deeming them too expensive and impractical. It was not a total loss. The Colfax Expedition helped lay the groundwork for President Grant’s signing in March 1872 of the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act. It was the start of the environmental movement here in the United States. Yosemite and the great sequoias too eventually came under the management of the National Park Service.

(image by Carleton Watkins; Courtesy Yosemite National Park Research Library)

 

Margaret Suckley and the 27th Division

07 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by in 27th (New York) Division, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Margaret L. Suckley, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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Yesterday a friend and I braved the heat and ventured to Roosevelt Island to visit Four Freedoms State Park, architect Louis Isadore Kahn’s tribute to our only four-term president and the man who gave the world so much of what many people sadly take for granted today. When I got home I finished Jean Edward Smith’s FDR, an outstanding biography I have been reading over the summer in addition to finishing my book manuscript and boning up on my U.S. Grant. (Last week I picked up a brand new hardcover copy of the same author’s Grant for $5 that I will get to in a few weeks.) This morning I have been going through copies of “Gas Attack,” the newspaper published by the 27th “New York” Division during the First World War. The men had published a previous newspaper called the “Rio Grande Rattler” when they were stationed on the Texas/Mexico border during the Punitive Expedition in 1916. The reason I say all this is because in pursuing “Gas Attack” I came across this extraordinary photography that includes Margaret L. Suckley.

Margaret Suckley was a volunteer with the 27th “New York” Division when the unit trained at Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina in 1918. She went on to be a friend and confidant of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom she met a few years after the war. The Elizabeth Suckley pictured here is presumably a sister or cousin.

The image we see here is from the May 4, 1918 edition, published at Camp Wadsworth and the last installment of the paper before the division shipped out to France. Suckley (the first vowel in her name rhymes with book) was one of the two dozen or so canteen women who provided refreshments to the men of the 27th Division. Most of these women were married and had spouses within the unit. Suckley though was not one of these. In 1918 when this photograph was taken she was 26 and unmarried. A few years earlier she had been a student at Bryn Mawr but for whatever reason her mother forced her to drop out before getting a degree. Franklin Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy at this time but he and Suckley did not yet know each other; they would not meet until 1922. In the 23 years after that, until FDR’s death in April 1945, they would be confidants and close friends. She was one of the few people unafraid to tell Franklin when he was wrong. Margaret was one of the women present in Warm Springs when Roosevelt died.

(image/Gas Attack of the New York Division)

 

Paying respects to Grant in Albany, August 1885

05 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by in Governors Island, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President), Winfield Scott Hancock

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Stereoscopic view of General Grant’s Albany, NY funeral procession, August 4 or 5 1885

I spent a good portion of the day today telling visitors to Grant’s Tomb that this is the anniversary week of General Grants funeral. The famous procession attended by 1,000,000+ persons was held on August 8, 1885 in New York City. The Grant family held a private service at the Drexel house at Mt. McGregor on August 4, after which Winfield Scott Hancock and his staff from Governors Island brought Grant’s remains to Albany. There on August 4-5 some 80,000 people passed through the New York State Capitol to pay their respects. Not present was the Grant family, who had already gone on to New York City where they were staying at the Fifth Avenue Hotel on 23rd Street preparing for the event on the 8th. Widow Julia remained at Mt. McGregor, too distraught to take it all in. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted in its August 5 edition that “Albany did not go to bed last night.”

I wish the above stereoscopic image were clearer but this was the scene in Albany on either August 4 or 5 1885.

(image/NYPL)

Ulysses S. Grant, 1822-1885

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by in General Grant National Memorial (NPS), Those we remember, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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excerpt from July 23, 1885 Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Grant’s death

What a special day it was yesterday at General Grant National Memorial (Grant’s Tomb) as we remembered the life and memory of the general and eighteenth president. It was an honor to read the Whitman poem and participate in the wreath laying and placement of the white roses. Frank Scaturro gave a very informative talk in the visitor center afterward. This event gets bigger every year and I am sure will continue to grow as the 2022 bicentennial of Grant’s birth gets closer and closer in the coming years.

Remembering Brooklyn’s G.A.R. Post 327

21 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by in Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.), Memory, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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G.A.R. Post 327 marker, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery

The Grand Army of the Republic was the premier fraternal organization for Union Civil War veterans. Returning soldiers founded the GAR just after the war and over the next several decades hundreds of thousands of men who had worn the Union blue joined posts across the nation to socialize, perform charitable works, and advocate for medical care and military pensions. One of the most active was Post 327 of Brooklyn, New York. Post 327 included men from such regiments as the 14th Brooklyn that fought at Antietam, Gettysburg, and elsewhere. The 327 also included many men who had served under Grant and Meade in the Overland Campaign and Siege of Petersburg, some of the toughest engagements of the war. These veterans marched and spoke regularly at Decoration Day commemorations, Fourth of July picnics, and other events, sometimes with Grant in attendance.

At Mount McGgregor on the morning of July 24, 1885, the day after the general died, representatives told Frederick Dent Grant that the post was changing its name to U.S. Grant Post 327 in tribute to their former commander. They were also in Mount McGregor to provide escort for General Grant as he made his way to his final resting place in Manhattan. Not surprisingly, men of U.S. Grant Post 327 participated in General Grant‘s funeral in 1885 and again at the dedication of the Tomb in 1897.

U.S. Grant Post 327 was still going strong in the early decades of the twentieth century, speaking to children at schools, marching in parades and, increasingly, symbolizing the passing of an era. As with other posts across the nation, their numbers were dwindling quickly until finally in the 1920s and 30s just a few remained. Many Civil War veterans who joined Post 327 are today buried in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Often these soldiers’ headstones are marked with circular tablets like the one we see here. I was in Green-Wood recently and wanted to share this image I took of a tablet marking a Union soldier’s headstone. Some of these markers are over a century old but, as we can see, are still quite legible. Note General Grant‘s likeness in the center of the tablet.

New York City, July 1868

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Andrew Johnson, Gettysburg, Horatio Seymour, New York City, Reconstruction, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President), Vicksburg

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I would be remiss if I did not at least briefly mention that the Democratic National Convention began here in New York City 150 years ago today. This was the first presidential election since the end of the war, the assassination of Lincoln, and impeachment of Andrew Johnson. The Republicans had nominated Ulysses S. Grant in Chicago almost two months earlier. Grant would face the winner in the general election that fall. The Democratic field was wide open. President Johnson even sent a representative to take the pulse of the situation and see about maybe running. Few thought that Johnson would get the bid. Instead, George H. Pendleton of Ohio was the favorite coming in. Other leading prospects included Horatio Seymour of New York, Thomas A.Hendricks of Indiana, and Winfield Scott Hancock, one of the heroes of Gettysburg. The Democrats were meeting at Tammany Hall’s new wigwam on 14th Street that had been rushed into completion in time for the convention.

Very little actually happened at the wigwam on July 4, 1868. They did have a reading of the Declaration of Independence, which was a Tammany Fourth of July tradition. There was some talk about holding meetings that evening but that was quickly scuttled because of the holiday. This was all taking place five years after the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. If you know your Gettysburg, you know that the Tammany regiment played a big role in that battle and has a prominent marker at the High Water Mark.

Most of the action that day took place a little farther south at the Cooper Institute. In a sort of shadow assembly, the Soldiers’ and sailors’ Convention was taking place there. Many former general were present including William B. Franklin and Henry Slocum. The preferred candidate here seemed to be Winfield S. Hancock. The South and West were widely represented at Cooper Union, just as they would be at the wigwam starting on July 5. In a precursor to the events that would transpire at the wigwam over the course of that hot week, Major General Ewing’s speech was a refutation of reconstruction.

In the next week I intend to go at least a little deeper into the convention held here in New York City 150 summer ago. Suffice it to say that the 1868 Democratic Convention was one of the most tragic and painful in American history. The only political gathering that may–may–have been worse in its ugliness was the convention in Chicago 100 years after it.

(top image/Library of Congress; bottom, title page of Ewing convention speech)

The Class the Stars Fell On at Gettysburg, 1915

02 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by in Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gettysburg, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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The West Point Class of 1915–The Class the Stars Fell On–toured Gettysburg in early May 1915 a few days before the sinking of the Lusitania and graduated one month later. Two years after this many of these men would be lieutenants and captains serving in France.

We are going to continue with the Gettysburg theme this Fourth of July Week with this photograph of the West Point Class of 1915 posing on the steps of the Christ Lutheran Church on Chambersburg Street. This West Point cohort is called The Class the Stars Fell On because so many of the firsties we see here went on to become generals by the time of the Second World War. Somewhere in here are Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. They arrived in Gettysburg on 2 May and toured for several days under the supervision of Colonel Gustav J. Fiebeger, the legendary instructor who for more than a quarter of a century served as chair of the Academy’s Civil and Military Engineering Department. Among Fiebeger’s important works was “Campaign and Battle of Gettysburg,” which was studied by students at West Point. Remember that military parks like Gettysburg still fell under the auspices of the War Department in 1910s, not being turned over to the National Park Service until the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration.

When these cadets graduated a month later on June 12 they were the largest West Point Class up until that time, comprising 164 second lieutenants. Secretary of War Lindley Garrison was the commencement speaker. This was the first United States Military Academy class to graduate since the outbreak of the Great War the previous year and everyone understood that these young men might eventually be leading men into battle. The Lusitania was sunk later the very week this photo was taken. A very short list of those in attendance when the West Point Class of 1915 graduated the following month included Major General and Chief of Staff Hugh L. Scott; Major General George W. Goethels, who built the Panama Canal during the Theodore Roosevelt Administration; a West Pointer from the Class of 1847 who went on to become a brigadier; and Horace Porter, another West Pointer, who was an important aid to General and President Ulysses S. Grant and who went on to build Grant’s Tomb and was managing the mausoleum up through this time.

 

Grant at Gettysburg

20 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Gettysburg, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Gettysburg on this date in 1867. Grant had been made lieutenant general the year before and, with Andrew Johnson’s presidency increasingly in jeopardy, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Grant might make a feasible run for the White House in 1868. David Wills invited Grant to visit Gettysburg to tour the battlefield and also meet the commissioners of the National Cemetery where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address four years earlier.

The photograph we see here was taken by Charles J. Tyson on June 21. Charles and sibling Isaac were the Tyson Brothers who took so many of the iconic images of the battlefield just after the fighting ended. This image was taken with the boys and girls at National Homestead orphanage for Union soldiers on Baltimore. The girls are on the left and the boys on the right. The photo was taken for charity, with proceeds going to fund the orphanage. The children seem to have been selected from many states to increase public interest in the photograph and thus the orphanage itself.

It is difficult to distinguish the four men but based on other versions of the photograph online that zoom more closely on the adults, Grant seems to be second from the right. Grant and his entourage toured the Gettysburg battlefield and cemetery that day. After that, the busy Grant was off to Harrisburg. In an interesting coda, when Grant indeed assumed the presidency two years later, Wills wrote to him asking to be made U.S. minister to Italy.

(image/Library of Congress)