{"id":14110,"date":"2020-04-27T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=14110"},"modified":"2020-04-28T11:00:48","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T15:00:48","slug":"ulysses-s-grants-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2020\/04\/ulysses-s-grants-philadelphia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ulysses S. Grant\u2019s Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Detail. Grant\u2019s Cabin. Lemon Hill Drive and Sedgley Drive, East Fairmount Park, February 21, 1950 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Philadelphians did all they could to welcome Julia and Ulysses Grant to their newly-adopted city.<\/p>\n

Not long after Lee\u2019s surrender at Appomattox, the Grants moved into the townhouse at 2009 Chestnut, a gift of, as Julia referred to them, \u201ca number of strange gentlemen of Philadelphia\u201d who spared no expense outfitting the place.<\/p>\n

As we saw in our previous post<\/a>, Grant thanked the city\u2019s generosity by making an unusual gift:\u00a0 the log cabin in City Point, Virginia where he directed the final months of the Civil War. Both the General and Julia had fond memories of the place, which also served as the family\u2019s temporary home<\/a>. According biographer Ron Chernow, \u201cWhen Julia joined [the general there] \u2026she domesticated the rough-hewn cabin\u2026and took her meals on equal terms with his officers. She brightened up the table by draping a makeshift cloth over it and had a way of cheering the men with her vivacity and attending to anyone who was ailing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am snugly nestled away in my husband\u2019s log cabin,\u201d she once confided to a friend.<\/p>\n

It must to have been a fond reunion, then, when the family, newly settled in Philadelphia, took the two-mile carriage ride from their new townhouse to Lemon Hill Drive in Fairmount Park where the cabin had been reassembled, log-by-log and brick-by-brick.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Grant\u2019s Cabin. Lemon Hill Drive and Sedgley Drive, East Fairmount Park, February 21, 1950 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But even without the presence of this \u201coversized souvenir,\u201d as Thomas Hine would later call it, the Grants really had hoped to stay in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a horror of living in Washington,\u201d the General privately admitted \u201cand never intend to do it.\u201d But, as Chernow relates, living in the District of Columbia \u201cproved inseparable from high command.\u00a0 [Grant] fantasized about living in Philadelphia and commuting to the capital weekly.\u201d But \u201cupon occupying the house in May [1865] Grant discovered he had woefully underestimated the time he had to spend in Washington. Predictably he became a prisoner of his heavy workload and Julia, after four years apart from her husband, hated being stranded in another city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Grants also underestimated the cost of upkeep. And in November 1865, after only a few months in their Chestnut Street mansion, they \u201crented out the Philadelphia house \u2026 and relocated to Washington, decorating their new home, with furniture from Philadelphia.\u201d For the next twenty years they rented out the Philadelphia house, finally disposing it in 1885 at auction.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Grant\u2019s cabin, which the Inquirer<\/em> predicted would be \u201can ornament to Fairmount Park\u201d and \u201can object of great historical interest to Americans\u201d remained an attraction until it, too, lost its allure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1940s and 1950s,\u201d we learn from archaeologist David Orr, \u201c the cabin barely survived the threats of fire and vandalism; by the 1970s, correspondence between the National Park Service and the City of Philadelphia \u2026 culminated in a letter requesting the transfer of Grant\u2019s Cabin to the National Park Service to relocate it to its original City Point site.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 117-year-old cabin, rotting and scarred with graffiti,\u201d reported The New York Times<\/em>, \u201chas been difficult for the city to keep secure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a blessing it is going,\u201d admitted John McIlhenny, historian for the Fairmount Park Commission, which voted in 1981 \u201cto give the building to the National Park Service. I am certainly glad it\u2019s going home\u201d said McIlhenny. Once again a demolition crew numbered each log and chimney brick and cut \u201cthe larger pieces of the building\u2026along the rafters and joints, so that they could be put on a truck.\u201d<\/p>\n

”We had to throw a lot of rotten stuff on the trash heap,” admitted Henry Magaziner, the historical architect. But what could be saved was shipped back to Virginia and \u201cre-erected slightly askew\u201d on its original site<\/a>, as not to disturb archaeological assets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cabin used by General U.S. Grant during the Siege of Petersburg at City Point, VA. (Wikimedia.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Is Grant remembered in Philadelphia today?<\/p>\n

About a mile from the former site of Grant\u2019s Cabin, at the intersection of Kelly Drive and Fountain Green Drive, stands a monumental equestrian statue by sculptors Daniel Chester French and Edward C. Potter.<\/p>\n

French, according to the Inquirer<\/em>, selected the site \u201chimself after a careful consideration of many available spots in the park.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Grant, Kelly Drive at Fountain Green Drive, March 31, 1959 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe endeavored in the figure of Grant to give something of the latent force of the man, manifesting itself through perfect passivity,\u201d said French. \u201cThe expression is sober thoughtful,\u201d observed the Inquirer<\/em>. \u201cThe spectator fancies that the man is pondering over some stupendous military maneuver. The work is rather restful than dramatic, a quality which gives to the bronze representation some small suggestion of that reserved force which was\u2014according to those who know him best\u2014the secret of Grant\u2019s mysterious power over this troops.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the statue impresses the beholder by its force as having character and stillness,\u201d said French,\u201d it will have fulfilled its mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1896 the statue was cast in fourteen sections at the Bureau Brothers Foundry, 21st<\/sup> Street and Allegheny Avenue. And on April 27, 1899, it was ceremoniously unveiled.<\/p>\n

Today (the day of this post) is 121 years after that dedication and 198 years since the birth of Ulysses S. Grant.<\/p>\n

[Sources: Ron Chernow, Grant<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Penguin Press, 2017); David G. Orr, \u201cCabin in Command, The City Point Headquarters of Ulysses S. Grant,\u201d \u00a0chapter in Huts and history : the Historical Archaeology of Military Encampment During the American Civil War<\/em>, edited by Clarence R. Geier, David G. Orr, Matthew B. Reeves. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, [2006]); David Gerald Orr, \u201cWork in Progress: The City Point Headquarters Cabin of Ulysses S. Grant<\/a>,\u201d Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture<\/em>, Vol. 1 (1982), pp. 195-199; Thomas Hine, \u201cCabin Used by Gen. Grant Being Repatriated to Va.\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, Sept 11, 1981; \u201cThe Grant Statue,\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, September 26, 1897; \u201cGen. Grant\u2019s Philadelphia House. The New York Times<\/em>, May 11, 1885; \u201cGrant’s Civil War Cabin Set to Move<\/a>,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, September 13, 1981.]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphians did all they could to welcome Julia and Ulysses Grant to their newly-adopted city. Not long after Lee\u2019s surrender at Appomattox, the Grants moved into the townhouse at 2009 Chestnut, a gift of, as Julia referred to them, \u201ca number of strange gentlemen of Philadelphia\u201d who spared no expense outfitting the place. As we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}