February 21, 2008
You may have heard the question, “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” Well there is good reason for that question. The answer is not what you think.
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Updated February 21, 2008
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First thing’s first, who is Grant? The Grant this question usually pertains to is U.S. Grant. Yes, General Ulysses Simpson Grant, of Civil War fame. It was he who led the Union forces, not only to the North’s first victory, and therefore earned the nick name playing with his initials, “Unconditional Surrender” Grant, but led the North to overall victory over the seceded states.
His real name was not Ulysses Simpson Grant. The birth name of this Ohio-born man was Hiram Ulysses Grant. Upon his application to West Point, his senator accidentally recorded his name as Ulysses Simpson Grant. The name stuck. Grant was never too motivated to place his real initials upon his footlocker at West Point. HUG just wasn’t a very masculine set of initials and would certainly be the cause of much teasing.
Well, the question still remains about HUG’s tomb. In reality, Grant’s tomb is really a mausoleum. And, he was not buried. Buried refers to someone who was placed in the gound. So, the next time the question appears, smile, because you know the answer.
The famous U.S. Grant, who, after the Civil War, became this nations’s 18th president (1869-1877), would later in life become quite poor. He had trusted his entire fortune to his son’s brokerage firm in New York. Little did he know that his son was not the best person in choosing business partners. It seems his business partner was a man named Ferdinand Ward. To call Ward a crook would be being very polite to him. He took nearly all of the money that was entrusted in him and blew it on bad investments. All of Grant’s money disappeared.
With the encouragement of Mark Twain, Grant, after learning he had cancer of the throat, began writing his memoirs. Grant literally died as he was finishing up these memoirs and did not enjoy any monetary benefit. But, because of the income these best-selling memoirs furnished after publication, Grant’s widow became quite wealthy.
The noted PBS documentary producer, Ken Burns, has co-written several books that are based upon his films. These books include Baseball, The Civil War, Horatio’s Drive, The West, Jazz, and the most recent, The War. His co-author on all of these works is a man named Geoffrey C. Ward. Why do I mention this when writing about Grant, you ask? Ferdinand Ward, the one who cleaned Grant out of all of his life’s savings, was a direct ancestor of Geoffrey C. Ward. According to Ward, the author, we will soon learn a lot more about his infamous ancestor. The subject matter of his next book will be Ferdinand Ward.
So I ponder, all is not bad. It can be said that, without Ferdinand Ward, Grant would not have written his memoirs. He had stated that he had no desire to document his life’s record. It was only after learning he had cancer, and the realization that his wife would be poor after he died, that he agreed to write his memoirs. Twain had explained that the profit of the book’s publication would benefit his wife.
Grant's memorial and place of rest is located at Riverside Drive and 122nd Street in Manhattan's Upper West Side. The site is now overseen by the National Park Service and is open to visitors.
