Ulysses’s Odyssey: Ulysses S. Grant’s World Tour at the Dawn of American Empire (2026)
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Shortly after leaving the White House, in May 1877, Ulysses S. Grant embarked on one of the most amazing and historic journeys of the Gilded Age. With a lifelong love of travel and no specific agenda, Grant intended to see the world for as long as his money, and wanderlust, lasted. Thus began an incredible three-year epic adventure, expertly recounted in Louis L. Picone’s Ulysses’s Odyssey: Ulysses S. Grant’s World Tour at the Dawn of American Empire. Grant toured every country in Europe and places no president, and few Americans, had ever seen, including Egypt, the Holy Land, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, India, Siam, Saigon, China, and Japan. He was welcomed by massive crowds and feted by Kings, Queens, Emperors, and heads of state. He also immersed himself in local culture: He hiked Mount Vesuvius, sailed the Nile, rode elephants in India, ate 40-year-old eggs in China, and walked the streets wherever he visited.
In December 1879, he arrived in Philadelphia, where his trip around the globe was celebrated with the largest reception in the city’s history. But he was not done.! Just weeks later, he set out again to see Cuba, Mexico, and the Southern states, where he was cheered by former Confederate soldiers and the formerly enslaved. He finally returned to his home in Illinois shortly before the 1880 Republican convention, with his hat in the ring as a nominee for President of the United States. Throughout his journey, superlatives abounded with a similar gist: Nothing like this has ever been seen before in history!
Grant's Tomb: The Epic Death of Ulysses S. Grant and the Making of an American Pantheon (2021)
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The Definitive Account of the National Memorial Honoring One of America's Most Enduring Heroes.
The final resting place of Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious general in the Civil War and eighteenth president, is a colossal Neoclassical tomb, located in the most important 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.
The President Is Dead!: The Extraordinary Stories of the Presidential Deaths, Final Days, Burials, and Beyond (updated edition 2020)
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Packed with fun facts and presidential trivia, The President Is Dead! tells you everything you could possibly want to know about how our presidents, from George Washington to Gerald Ford (who was the most recent president to die), met their ends, the circumstances of their deaths, the pomp of their funerals, their public afterlife, and stories of attempted grave robbings, reinterments, and vandalism,conspiracy theories surrounding their deaths, and much more!The President Is Dead! is filled with never-before-told stories, including a suggestion by one prominent physician to resurrect George Washington from death by transfusing his body with lamb’s blood. You may have heard of a plot to rob Abraham Lincoln’s body from its grave site, but did you know that there was also attempts to steal Benjamin Harrison's and Andrew Jackson’s remains? The book also includes “Vital Death Information,” which prefaces each chapter, and a complete visitor’s guide to each grave site and death-related historical landmark. An “Almost Presidents” section includes chapters on John Hanson (first president under the Articles of Confederation), Sam Houston (former president of the Republic of Texas), David Rice Atchison (president for a day), and Jefferson Davis. Exhaustively researched, The President Is Dead!, is richly layered with colorful facts and entertaining stories about how the presidents have passed.
Where the Presidents Were Born: The History & Preservation of the Presidential Birthplaces (2012)
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From George Washington to Barack Obama, this book provides the history of the birthplace of every American president, preservation efforts, visitor information, and personal observations. Almost every birthplace has been preserved in some way or another, from the grand monuments of Abraham Lincoln and James Buchanan, to replicas for George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt, or the simple roadside markers for Benjamin Harrison and Zachary Taylor. These places all have unique and often fascinating stories to tell. Discover their owners back to the first settlers and learn about the disasters, acts of vandalism, and other historically significant events that have occurred on these historic locations. Whether you're an armchair historian or have intentions to visit every Presidential Birthplace, this book will equip you with more information than even your tour guides will know!