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Andrew Johnson National Historic Site

121 Monument Avenue

Greeneville, TN 37743

Phone: (423) 638-3551

Fax: (423) 638-9194

www.nps.gov/anjo/

“To admirers, he was ‘the Old Commoner,’ to critics, a hopeless relic…”

—Richard Norton Smith

The president who proposed Restoration instead of Reconstruction was himself restored to his pre-war place in the Senate by fellow Tennesseeans, most of whom shared his racial and economic views. To admirers, he was “the Old Commoner,” to critics, a hopeless relic who single-handedly thwarted the cause of racial justice while squandering the moral high ground purchased with northern blood. “Pillow my head with the Constitution of my country,” Johnson directed his executors. “Let the flag of the Nation be my winding sheet.” His wishes were carried out to the letter.

On the eve of his funeral, Johnson’s old tailor shop in Greeneville was festooned in mourning cloth. So was the Court House where thousands of plain people—his constituency of the dispossessed—came to pay their respects to the workingman’s president. Today his grave is marked by a marble shaft atop which perches an American eagle. A

Andrew Johnson selected the spot where his marble tomb now stands

billowing stone flag drapes part of the monument. The words of the Constitution are carved into its side, above the simple, generous tribute, even more debatable than most such graveyard summations: “His faith in the people never wavered.”

—RNS

Ulysses S. Grant

Buried: General Grant National Memorial, New York, New York

Eighteenth President - 1869-1877

Born: April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio

Died: 8:06 a.m. on July 23, 1885, in Mount McGregor, New York

Age at death: 63

Cause of death: Throat cancer

Final words: “Water.”

Admission to General Grant National Memorial:

Free

Ulysses S. Grant, hero of the Civil War’s battlefields, was terrified in the presence of animal blood. So consuming was his fear that he ordered steaks extra-well done. Grant’s squeamishness did not extend to the front lines. His military leadership won him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. The war and scandal-weary nation hoped the general could restore peace.

Following his two terms as president, Grant embarked in 1877 on an ambitious two-year tour of the world with his wife Julia and son Jesse. He met with several heads of state, including Queen Victoria, and later cooperated in documenting the tour in a book. When he returned, Grant settled in Galena, Illinois. In 1880 he led the field for the Republican nomination for the presidency. James Garfield edged out the former president by just sixty-six votes, thus preventing Grant from becoming the first person to be nominated for a third term. Grant’s luck worsened when a series of schemes in which he invested failed, leaving him penniless and publicly humiliated.

Entrance to Grant’s Tomb on Riverside Drive and 122nd Street in New York City

After he complained of frequent sore throats in the spring of 1884, doctors ordered the general, a lifelong cigar smoker, to stop smoking. The following year he began to lose his voice and had trouble swallowing. Doctors diagnosed cancer of the throat. Grant had such difficulty swallowing food that by the following spring he’d lost nearly seventy-five pounds, almost half his weight. His doctors treated him with a mixture of pain-relieving drugs—morphine and cocaine, to which the former president gradually became addicted. He soon lost the ability to speak above a whisper and communicated primarily with notes. His coughing fits grew so bad that Grant was frequently forced to sleep sitting up in a chair so as not to choke to death. During those many sleepless nights, Grant began work on his autobiography.

In June of 1885, Grant moved from New York City to Mount McGregor, New York, to continue work on his memoirs; he hoped to earn enough money to leave his wife financially secure after his death. Yet within a month, his health took a turn for