Tag: Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site

Digging into the Past

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In honor of International Archeology Day – coming up this weekend – we thought we’d (ahem) dig into some of the fascinating finds uncovered at our partner parks.

Archeology is an important part of many historic National Park Service sites. It provides unique perspectives on places and people from our past that cannot be identified any other way. Archeologists can figure out exactly when events happened, reconstruct ways of life that no longer exist, and ultimately understand changes in human culture over time.   

Several of our partner parks have relied on archeological studies to broaden our understanding of the stories and events that shaped their sites. 

Gateway Arch National Park

In 2014, archeologists discovered the remains of three French colonial house sites that had been buried just south of the Arch, the first evidence of French settlement some 250 years ago. Among the artifacts they uncovered were ceramic trade items related to the Indigenous inhabitants in the early 1700s. They also found items from St. Louis’ French colonial period in the late 1700s, including fragments of imported Faience plates and musket flint.

An excavation on the Arch grounds in 2015 uncovered a trove of 1840s artifacts from a hotel called the Jefferson House. These items showed what travelers coming through St. Louis had used during their hotel stay, like imported English crockery, whiskey and wine bottles, a French mustard bottle, and a chamberpot. Findings like these shed new light on how settlers and travelers lived in the city back then.

Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park

Expanding our knowledge of French colonial history in America was also the goal of recent archeological work at our partner site in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. In 2022, specialists from the NPS Midwest Archeology Center spent several days investigating the grounds of the park’s 18th century buildings. They searched for evidence of old trash pits, for the remains of outbuildings like barns, kitchens, stables, and even privies, and for remnants of household items like tools and food serving items.

Information like this is invaluable to creating a complete picture of a historic community, and can reveal insights into how people lived or worked on-site, including enslaved men and women or hired servants.

During this visit, the archeologists didn’t actually dig into the ground but analyzed each property they studied with magnetometers, ground-penetrating radar equipment, and electromagnetic induction meters. The data they collected is being analyzed and the park is awaiting the result of their studies.

Meanwhile, third graders on field trips to the park can learn about the importance of archeology when they conduct “mock digs” for buried artifacts.

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site

Depressions made from an earthlodge village

The discovery of more than 50 archeological sites within this North Dakota park show the region has been home to various peoples for up to 11,000 years. The tribes who eventually settled here from the early 1500s to the mid-1800s – the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara – pioneered an agricultural lifestyle on the Northern Plains while hunting bison and harvesting the crops they grew. Additional tribes traveled from across the plains to trade, socialize, and occasionally wage war.

left: Depressions made from an earthlodge village. right: Replica of an earthlodge

The park today contains the remains of three large village sites, which show up as round depressions in the landscape along the Knife River. Each circle represents the depression caused by the round earthlodges that housed extended families. These settlements date to 1525 and thrived until 1837, when smallpox greatly reduced the populations.

Artifacts on display in Knife River visitor center

The park’s visitor center features some artifacts that were discovered on the site, as well as information on the lives of the region’s early inhabitants.

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site

Although the life and military career of Ulysses S. Grant is the main focus of this park, the 25 archeology studies conducted at this site have shed considerable light on the conditions of slavery at this 19th century plantation. White Haven and its surrounding 850 acres were home to approximately 30 enslaved people: the men worked the fields and orchards while the women and children maintained the home, tending to laundry, cooking, cleaning, and other domestic duties. 

Remains of household items uncovered by archeologists

NPS archeologists found more than 2,200 artifacts during excavations of the stone summer kitchen building, which sits behind the main residence. These include numerous objects that would have been used by enslaved workers, many of them related to food preparation, laundry, and sewing duties. Other objects like marbles and even a domino were probably used by children.

In addition, researchers also uncovered evidence of spiritual traditions that were practiced by the enslaved. In the winter kitchen (on the ground floor of the main house), archeologists uncovered ritualistic bundles known as minkisi hidden beneath the winter kitchen floorboards. These were thought to be used in hoodoo spiritual practices, which were secretly used by enslaved people on numerous American plantations.

Contents of ritual bundles

Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument

The site of a horrific race riot in Springfield, Illinois, stands as a memorial to one of America’s most deadly incidents of racial violence. And while there is nothing left of the burned-out buildings, archeological evidence gives us a rare glimpse into a Black community devastated by racial hatred. The mob, consisting of thousands of White residents, destroyed Black homes and businesses, and lynched two Black men over several days in August 1908.

The foundations of five homes and related artifacts show give us a glimpse into the lives of those who lived in Springfield’s predominantly Black neighborhood, known as the “Badlands.” The NPS site is very near where the riot started. Archeological evidence shows the buildings burned in the riot and never reoccupied. But the artifacts that have been recovered – on display at the Illinois State Museum – are powerful reminders of the rioters’ victims.

The vase and seedling pot seen here, for example, were recovered from the remains of a house on North 10th Street. They tell us that members of the William Smith family took an interest in gardening, a common practice among African American families who sought to supplement their food supply.

This melted glass medicine bottle – also from the Smith home – is a silent reminder that William and his son were both on medication and confined to bed when the riots broke out. Both men were severely injured by the attacking mob.

The shattered dishware recovered from the home of Smith’s next-door neighbor, Robert N. Wright, evokes the moment that rioters ransacked the house. Archeologists also found Wright’s U.S. Army service medals dating from his time serving in the Spanish-American War. Some were fused together as his home was burned.

The archeological findings at Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument helps us not only confront the injustice these residents endured but also helps us see them as real people who showed strength and resilience during a pivotal Civil Rights turning point.

War Balloons? The Rise (and Descent) of the Union Army Balloon Corps   

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Now here’s a new one (at least to us) – waging war from a hot air balloon. Yes, you read that right. Forget your traditional image of a colorful balloon peacefully drifting over a bucolic landscape. During the Civil War, the Union Army used hot air and hydrogen balloons to spy on Confederate positions and to direct artillery fire on the enemy.

Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe

This unique chapter of American history began in 1861 at the outset of the war, when President Abraham Lincoln commissioned a miliary aeronautics division, primarily for map making and aerial reconnaissance. Professor Thaddeus Lowe was named Chief Aeronaut of the newly created Union Army Balloon Corps. When airborne, Lowe was able to direct flag signals to gunners on the ground, helping them fire accurately at targets they could not see – a military first.

The Intrepid being inflated from gas generators for the 1862 Battle of Fair Oaks,
photo by Mathew Brady

The largest Union balloons, the Intrepid and the Union, could carry up to five people and reach elevations of 1,000 feet. This height permitted the Army a vantage point that was heretofore unavailable. The Balloon Corps constructed an additional five smaller hot air balloons outfitted for military service.  

Battle of Fair Oaks, 1862 – the Intrepid is visible in the distance, print by Currier & Ives

Most balloons that ascended during the Civil War were used in the Eastern Theater. Lowe sent the first air-to-ground battlefield reconnaissance report on July 21, 1861, at the first battle at Bull Run. By late spring 1862, he had three balloons in operation and each ascended multiple times daily to track enemy movements. 

Inflating the Intrepid using the smaller balloon Constitution prior to the Battle of Fair Oaks, photo by Mathew Brady

The Intrepid was the largest balloon in the Union Army inventory, inflated via hydrogen gas generators that were transported in special field wagons and sometimes cross-filled from the Constitution, a second balloon. Lowe conducted aerial reconnaissance from the Intrepid during the 1862 Battle of Fair Oaks in Virginia. He was able to spot concealed Confederate troop movements and send back reports to commanders via telegraph, alerting them to prepare for a full-scale offensive.

The Confederate Army also tried using hot air balloons during the war but was hampered by the unavailability of critical supplies needed to both build and inflate them. And ultimately, the Union Army’s balloons became increasingly unpopular with military commanders. In 1863, Lowe’s Balloon Corps was disbanded.

If you want to learn more about this curious chapter of Civil War history, be sure to attend the upcoming ranger talk at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site on Saturday August 29 at 10 a.m. Park Ranger Jonas will explore the use of hot air and hydrogen balloons during the war. He will also discuss Thaddeus Lowe, the eccentric scientist and architect behind the Union Army’s balloon experiment.  

The program is free but please call 314-842-1867 ext. 230 for reservations.

An Unlikely Friendship between Two First Ladies  

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On the face of it, it’s not surprising the two women became friends later in life, since their lives were remarkably similar. Still, their late-in-life friendship shocked Gilded Age America.  

They were the same age, born in 1826. They were both well educated, fiercely independent, and unafraid to voice their opinions. Yet they were also devoted mothers and renowned hostesses. Despite their upbringing within slave-owning Southern families, both women were ambivalent about the institution of slavery. They married men who went on to occupy illustrious public careers during the Civil War years, resulting in their becoming First Ladies. After they were widowed, both women moved to New York City, eventually living within a few blocks of each other.  

But there was one critical difference between Julia Dent Grant and Varina Howell Davis. One was married to the President of the United States, the other to the President of the Confederacy – men who personified opposing sides in the Civil War.

Wedding photograph of Jefferson and Varina Davis, 1845 

When Jefferson Davis was named President of the Confederate States of America in 1861, Varina Davis became a reluctant First Lady. Although she openly supported the Confederacy, she expressed misgivings about her husband’s fitness for his new role and privately doubted that the South had the resources to win the war. Toward the end of her life, she publicly noted that the “right side won the Civil War.” She also expressed ambivalence about the institution of slavery.

After the South surrendered and the war ended, Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe. Varina fought tirelessly to achieve his release, which came about two years later. When her husband died in 1889, Varina moved to New York City, finished his biography, and wrote for various newspapers.

Julia Grant had shared in the mixed fortunes of Ulysses S. Grant during the 37 years they were married – supporting him through his stint as a farmer, through his military career, his U.S. presidency, and beyond. She was by his side when Ulysses succumbed to throat cancer in 1885.  

The two widows eventually met when they were in their sixties in 1893, a full 28 years after the Civil War ended. Staying at the same hotel for a West Point event, the friendship began when Julia walked to Varina’s hotel room and knocked on the door. Their cordial meeting made headlines in northern newspapers, where it was viewed as a vital step in healing the fractured nation. The reaction in the former Confederate states was considerably more muted, where many conservative White southerners considered Varina’s close association with their former wartime enemy as a betrayal.

Nevertheless, the former First Ladies became close friends and were periodically seen chatting in open carriage rides through New York City, where they lived just blocks away from each other. Even their daughters became good friends.  

Grant’s Tomb

In 1897, Julia invited Varina to attend the dedication of the newly completed Grant’s Tomb. Varina accepted the invitation, joining more than one million people who came to pay their respects to the Commanding General of the Union Army and the nation’s 18th President.

Varina and Julia remained close until Julia’s death in 1902 and was buried next to her husband within the New York memorial. Varina died just four years later and was laid to rest next to her husband in the Davis family plot in Richmond, Virginia.  

Plant Like Grant? 

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Say the name Ulysses S. Grant to most people, and they’ll likely mention his role as a U.S. president or as a renowned Civil War general or maybe as a force behind the 15th Amendment (banning racial discrimination in voting). What probably won’t come to mind is Grant as a farmer. 

When Grant abandoned his early military career in 1854, he returned to White Haven, the suburban St. Louis estate he shared with his wife Julia and their young children. He had decided to try his hand at farming the 80 acres he was given as a wedding present, part of the 850-acre plantation belonging to his father-in-law, Fredrick Dent. In a letter to a fellow soldier that year, he wrote:

“Whoever hears of me in ten years, will hear of a well-to-do Missouri farmer.” 

With the help of enslaved laborers, Grant initially cultivated fruit and vegetable crops only on his 80 acres. He also built a cabin on his land, which he dubbed Hardscrabble. But when Col. Dent moved to the city several years later, Grant took full control of day-to-day farming operations on the entire plantation.   

Grant’s initial forays into farming were filled with optimism. In 1856, he wrote to his father, Jesse R. Grant, with updates on his farm operations, as well as a request for a loan of “about $500.00 for a year at 10 percent [interest].”

As many farmers can relate to, Grant faced numerous obstacles during his farming venture despite his best efforts. Persistent droughts, illness, a failing economy, and unseasonable frosts took their toll on the White Haven harvests, and he began to fear he would no longer be able to support his family. He resorted to selling firewood to help make ends meet. 

White Haven Plantation

Having received no response to his first letter, Grant sent his father an even more desperate plea for money about six weeks later:

It’s believed that Jesse Grant never loaned his son money. By the fall of 1858, Ulysses began making plans to sell off his farming equipment and he eventually moved his family to the city of St. Louis.  

To learn more about Grant’s experiences as a would-be farmer, join Ranger Blake this Sunday April 26 at 1:00 p.m. for Plant Like Grant! Farming at White Haven, a lecture at the park. The program is free but call 314-842-1867 ext. 230 for reservations.

Two Different Lives for the Women of White Haven

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A life of privilege or of hardship. For the women who lived on the White Haven plantation in the 19th century, their overlapping fates depended on the color of their skin.

Ulysses S. Grant spent most of his pre-Civil War civilian years living at the 850-acre plantation. It was also home to his wife Julia Dent Grant and their growing family of four children, Julia’s parents and six siblings, and several of Grant’s own relatives. The family enjoyed a life of wealth and privilege, benefiting mostly from Colonel Dent’s success as a planter and merchant.  

At the other end of the spectrum, White Haven was also where dozens of enslaved African Americans lived and toiled. Long before Grant married into the Dent family, slave labor had been essential to the daily operations of the plantation, whether the enslaved worked in the field and orchards or in the home.  

The family matriarch at White Haven, Ellen Wrenshall Dent, managed the domestic duties of the household, overseeing food preparation, clothing production, childrearing, entertaining of guests, and other daily routines (primarily carried out by the enslaved staff). Julia described her mother as “a great reader, fond of poetry and music. She was beautiful, kind, and gentle.”

Julia and her younger sisters Nellie and Emma had access to education, leisure, and social mobility. From the ages of 10 through 17, Julia attended the Misses Mauros’ Academy, a boarding school in St. Louis. She studied literature, history, philosophy, and other subjects considered appropriate for young women of her class, as well as an apt preparation for a woman who would become one of the most prominent First Ladies of the 19th century. 

Contrast the Dent women’s genteel lifestyle with that of the enslaved women at White Haven. Like their male counterparts, they lived under a system of forced labor, enduring restrictions on their freedom, harsh working conditions, and the threat of family separation.  

The African American women on the plantation were charged with cleaning the home, feeding the livestock, cooking the Dent and Grant families’ meals, helping raise their children, and serving guests – all the while having to live in crude cabins on the property.  

Among these women were Mary Henry, who was enslaved by the Dent family prior to the Civil War and was a playmate of Julia’s as a child; Mary Robinson, another childhood friend of Julia’s who eventually became the family cook;  Jule, whom Julia described as “always a favorite of mine” though she ran away while on a journey with Julia; and Henrietta Jones, who nursed the White Haven children. 

The children of the enslaved were forbidden to attend school, or to read or write, though chalk and other tools found hidden in the floorboards of the winter kitchen show that the plantation’s enslaved were learning to write. Countless other indignities formed the daily life of the enslaved women of White Haven, despite the assertion from Julia and her sisters that they were always treated well.

Slave quarters at White Haven (left image)
Summer kitchen at White Haven where Mary Robinson cooked and may have lived (right image)

Little wonder that during the Civil War, the remaining enslaved laborers at White Haven simply walked off, as they did on many plantations in both Union and Confederate states. Little is known about where most of them wound up, although Mary Robinson and Mary Henry apparently remained in St. Louis and were interviewed by local newspapers after Grant’s death in 1885.

Want to learn more?  Visit the park for a ranger talk on The Women of White Haven on at 10 a.m. Saturday March 21. The lecture is free, but please call 314-842-1867 ext. 230 for reservations.

Happy 200th Birthday, Julia!! 🎂

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Who doesn’t love a birthday? Well, Julia Dent Grant has a milestone birthday this month. America’s 18th First Lady was born 200 years ago – on January 26, 1826. Throughout this year Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site will celebrate this auspicious event with special programs and exhibits that focus on various aspects of her life.

The fifth of seven children, Julia Boggs Dent was born in St. Louis and raised in comfortable surroundings on the 850-acre White Haven plantation. She was an active child who fished, played piano, rode horses, and played in the woods. Many of her early playmates were children of the enslaved who lived on the property. Some of these children would later become her servants.

As a schoolgirl, Julia declared that she would marry “a soldier, a gallant, brave, dashing soldier.” After returning home from boarding school, she met that soldier in Lt. Ulysses S. Grant, a former West Point roommate of Julia’s brother Frederick. When he was stationed at nearby Jefferson Barracks, Ulysses soon became a frequent visitor to White Haven, where he and Julia enjoyed walks and horseback rides. The couple fell in love quickly, and Grant proposed marriage on the front porch of White Haven in the spring of 1844. Because of his military service, however, they had to wait until 1848 to marry.  

Neither set of parents was enthusiastic about the match – Julia’s were worried about Grant’s earning potential, while his parents objected to the Dents’ ownership of enslaved workers. However, the couple seemed deeply attached to one another and remained so throughout their 37-year marriage. Their four children were born between 1850 and 1858.

When Ulysses’ military career took him to remote locations, Julia did not accompany him. He suffered from loneliness and eventually resigned from the Army, returning to White Haven in 1854 to try his hand at farming. Julia considered herself “a splendid farmer’s wife,” raising chickens and even churning butter, though most of the daily chores were left to the enslaved laborers. 

The Civil War dramatically altered the Grants’ lives. In 1861 Ulysses left to serve in the Union army, and his responsibilities kept him away from home for most of the war. Letters helped ease the pain of separation, and Julia frequently traveled to her husband’s encampments, both alone and with the children. For a close-up look at the couple’s intimate relationship, check out A Thousand Kisses, a short video that JNPA produced on behalf of the historic site.

When Grant was elected President in 1869, Julia became a trusted confidant to her husband and often participated in presidential matters. She attended Senate hearings, read through Grant’s mail, and met with cabinet members, senators, justices, and diplomats. She apparently enjoyed her role as hostess to the nation and brought a home-like atmosphere to the White House.

Grant succumbed to throat cancer in 1885, but the profits from publication of his memoirs left Julia a wealthy woman. (Pick up your copy of his memoirs at the park or from our online store.) For the next 17 years, she worked to sustain the memory of her beloved husband. She died in 1902. 

Those interested in learning more about Julia are invited to attend Julia Dent Grant – Diplomat, a special lecture at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site on Saturday January 24. The presentation will trace Julia‘s life from her childhood when she interceded with her father on behalf of the White Haven enslaved to her widowhood when she befriended Varina Davis, wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. It will also focus on Julia Dent Grant’s role as a diplomat and unofficial ambassador. The program is free but call 314-842-1867 ext. 230 for reservations.

Grant’s Christmas Present to the Nation

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Most of us probably assume that Christmas Day has always been a holiday in the U.S., even during colonial days. Not so – it wasn’t until 1870 that December 25 was proclaimed a national holiday. And we have President Ulysses S. Grant to thank for that official declaration.

Early Americans’ observance of Christmas depended on where you lived. The Dutch colonists in New York celebrated the day, as did the British in Virginia. But many Puritans in New England looked upon Christmas as a pagan festival; in many communities, including Boston, it was actually a crime to celebrate on Dec. 25. The strict and pious Puritans disapproved of the drinking, feasting, and dancing associated with Christmas, regarding it instead as a muted, solemn affair more appropriate for church services and praying.  

1659 public notice banning Christmas celebrations in Boston 

In the early 1800s, Christmas became increasingly popular in the South, and newly arrived European immigrants in New England managed to lift the local bans on celebrating the holiday. A number of states (beginning with Louisiana in 1830) declared Dec. 25 a holiday. Families started sending Christmas cards, decorating fir trees, and preparing festive meals.

Early American Christmas card, 1850

During the Civil War, soldiers celebrated by decorating their camp trees and singing carols. During the first year of the war President Lincoln and his family observed the day by holding a Christmas party at the White House.

Thomas Nast illustration of Abraham Lincoln welcoming Confederates to Christmas dinner, 1864  

It wasn’t long before business leaders became frustrated with the patchwork holiday celebrations that varied state by state, interrupting their businesses on different days in different places. They encouraged politicians to formalize the Christmas observance nationwide.  

In June 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill into law establishing Christmas Day and New Years Day, among others, as nationally observed holidays. In addition to appeasing the business community, it was hoped the move would help unify a nation still divided by the Civil War. 

To honor Grant’s historic act, Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site has created a special Christmas exhibit in the park’s museum. Artifacts on display include holiday letters from Julia Dent Grant to family members, seasonal political cartoons, and a nutcracker representing Grant. The exhibit will last through early January.

You’ll also want to visit the park at 5:30 Sunday December 14 to experience White Haven by Candlelight. Lights and decorations will adorn the historic house both inside and out, carolers and musicians will entertain guests, and 19th century foods will be on hand. At 7:00, visitors can enjoy a concert by the Buckhhannon Brothers in the park’s theater.

A Most Skilled Horseman

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Many of our U.S. presidents were accomplished horsemen. George Washington was known as the “finest horseman of his age;” Thomas Jefferson rode nearly every day until late in life; Andrew Jackson bred and raced horses, stabling several at the White House; and Zachary Taylor grazed his beloved warhorse on the White House lawn. But Ulysses S. Grant is considered by many to be the most skilled horseman to ever occupy the Oval Office.

Even as a small boy, Grant’s connection with horses was obvious. There are numerous stories of young Ulysses breaking in horses nobody else could ride and doing daredevil stunts on horseback. By age five, he was an accomplished and daring rider, known for standing on one leg while maintaining his balance at a gallop. His mother was heard to say, “Horses seem to understand Ulysses.” 

Throughout adulthood, Grant continued to ride, train, and care for horses. For him, riding was more than a pastime – it was a form of discipline and excellence.  When he attended West Point, his riding abilities were legendary. Fellow cadet James Longstreet described Grant’s skills: “In horsemanship…he was noted as the most proficient in the Academy. In fact, rider and horse held together like the fabled centaur.” 

During the Civil War, riding was Grant’s preferred means of transportation since he found it a useful way to scout the terrain. His most famous horse, Cincinnati, was given to him as a gift after the Battle of Chattanooga and quickly became his favorite. (The horse was the son of Lexington, at one time the fastest four-mile thoroughbred in the country.) Cincinnati was a reliable warhorse, remaining even tempered during the fiercest of battles, and Grant continued to own him until the horse’s death of old age.

Courtesy NPS.

After the war, Grant turned to horse breeding. In 1866 he bought the 860-acre White Haven estate outside St. Louis from his wife’s family, primarily to breed and raise horses. To do this, he needed to convert the bulk of the land from fruits and vegetables to grass and hay to provide feed for the horses. He wrote his caretaker: “I want to get all the ground in grass as soon as it can be got rich enough, except what will be in fruit.”

Original stable at White Haven.

In 1871, he also designed and built a large stable that could accommodate 25 horses, including his beloved trotters, thoroughbreds, and Morgans. Today, the stable remains standing and serves as the museum at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. 

Grant’s breeding farm produced a number of very fine horses, which in 1873 were valued at $25,000 ($675,000 in today’s dollars). And yet the operation was barely turning a profit. Grant decided to shut down the farm and put its resources to auction in 1875. He lost the farm when he was swindled by a New York City business partner in 1884. 

Today, the last ten acres of Grant’s horse farm constitute Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site.

Currier & Ives print, 1885.

Did Mark Twain Help Ulysses S. Grant Write His Memoirs?

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The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant are considered one of the best military commentaries ever written. Yet rumors persisted for many years that Mark Twain helped write and edit them. Detractors doubted that the lucid prose used in the papers couldn’t possibly have been penned by the former president. However, the claim – first suggested by a disgruntled aide to Grant – proved untrue. The original hand-written manuscript still survives and is entirely penned in Grant’s own handwriting. What’s more, though the two men were indeed friends, Twain was not even involved with the project when Grant began writing.

In 1884, near the end of his life, Grant was struck by financial disaster. He had invested most of his assets with a firm headed by one of his sons, which was later involved in a scam that lost all of the investors’ money. Now broke and with no source of income on the horizon, Grant was concerned about providing for his beloved wife Julia. He reluctantly accepted an offer from a magazine to write articles about his experiences during the Civil War and soon decided to turn the effort into writing his personal memoirs. Although the magazine offered to publish the memoirs, his friend Mark Twain made him a much more lucrative offer through Twain’s own publishing company. Grant eventually accepted Twain’s offer, hoping the memoirs could secure Julia’s financial future.

At about this time, the former president was diagnosed with advanced throat cancer, no doubt a result of his lifelong cigar habit. He was left in near-constant pain, unable to drink or sleep. Yet from his sickbed he churned out page after page. Twain was a frequent visitor, proof-reading the manuscript and sometimes passing notes back and forth when Grant was eventually unable to even speak.   

Grant’s last days were spent on his porch with pencil and paper, wrapped in blankets, determined to finish his memoirs before he succumbed to his disease. He completed his memoirs just days before his death on July 23, 1885. 

The book was sold in two volumes and became an instant bestseller. Twain said that the book was one of the best written he had ever seen. The publisher presented a check for $200,000 to Julia Dent Grant in early 1886 – the biggest royalty check written up to that time. Grant’s Personal Memoirs are still in print today and are often considered one of the best written ever produced by a former president.

You can purchase your own copy of the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant online or in person at our gift shops at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site and Gateway Arch National Park. 

Accessible to All

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As the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) turns 35 years old this month, the Centers for Disease Control reports that more than one in four Americans – roughly 70 million people – are living with a disability. This can include a wide range of conditions from mobility issues and hearing loss to vision impairment and cognitive limitations.  

Yet there’s no reason people with physical challenges can’t enjoy our national parks. In fact, the National Park Service “strives to make its parks, monuments, and historic sites available to all.” And it offers a wide range of accessible experiences across its 400+ park sites.

Each park has its own accessibility section on its website, where visitors can find details about its accessibility services and programs. These can go way beyond more traditional services like sign language interpretation of tours, accessible camping sites, paved trails, and ramps. Newer accommodations include all-terrain wheelchairs, audio cave tours,  tactile maps and accessible shuttle buses, and Wheels to Water floating kayak launches. 

As challenging as some of these physical accommodations are, making museum exhibits accessible is even more complicated. Designers of the new museum at Gateway Arch National Park, for instance, fully embraced the concept of Universal Design when planning new exhibits. The museum includes multiple accessibility features, like tactile exhibits and interactive computer simulations that are visitor-directed through a touchscreen. Visitors can make use of Braille signage, large-print, high-contrast text versions of exhibit copy, assisted listening and captioning devices, as well as a new device that allows non-speaking guests to type questions for museum staff. Similar accommodations are available in the park’s theater.

And since the tram ride to the top of the Arch is not wheelchair accessible, designers created the next best thing. Inside a full-size replica of the final piece of the Gateway Arch, video screens show live views from each side of the top observation deck, replicating the experience as much as possible for visitors who cannot make the trip to the top. 

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site also offers a range of accessibility services, including free wheelchair use, assisted listening devices for guided tours, audio descriptions of park films, and Braille and large-format brochures.  

At Voyageurs National Park boating, fishing, and camping are the primary activities. All NPS boats are accessible. And visitors can make use of accessible lifts at boat launches as well as accessible campsites.

Similar accommodations are available at Missouri National Recreational River and the Lewis and Clark Visitor Center, both of which are popular with anglers.  In addition to taking advantage of accessible trails, shelters, and cabins, visitors can fish from several piers that are reachable by those in wheelchairs. 

All in all, NPS efforts to improve accessibility have principally focused on well-developed areas within easier reach, such as park visitor centers and established campgrounds. But accessibility advocates want to see more trails, shelters, and other park areas comply with ADA standards, particularly in more remote natural areas. Park Service officials acknowledge there’s a nationwide backlog of existing trails and structures that don’t meet accessibility standards, especially in the backcountry. But they say they’re making progress where they can.

Americans with permanent disabilities are eligible to receive the National Park Service All Access Pass, which provides lifetime benefits at federal lands managed by six agencies, including free entrance to parks managed by the National Park Service that charge an entrance fee. The free passes are available at certain federal recreation sites or can be ordered online (for a small shipping fee). 

All Access Pass
order online