Grant’s Tomb: The Epic Death of Ulysses S. Grant and the Making of an American Pantheon

Historian Picone (The President Is Dead!) provides a copiously detailed account of efforts to memorialize U.S. president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant after his death in 1885. The result of those efforts, a 150-foot-tall mausoleum next to Manhattan’s Riverside Park, is “larger than the final resting place of any other person in America,” Picone notes. He documents resentment over the site selection (the Soldiers’ Home in Washington, D.C., was a popular alternative), describes the initial design contest as “an unmitigated disaster,” and tracks the ups and downs of fund-raising efforts. In the years after the memorial was dedicated in 1897, Picone writes, it vied with the Statue of Liberty as the most popular tourist attraction in the city. But rising crime rates and poor maintenance in the 1970s and ’80s made the tomb a “grim poster child for urban decay,” according to Picone, until a National Park Service volunteer’s complaints and a 1994 New York Times editorial helped to galvanize restoration efforts. Picone’s level of detail staggers, and readers with a deep interest in Grant’s legacy and the history of America’s monuments will best appreciate this exhaustive account. (Feb.)