General U.S. Grant.; Taken at Mr. McGregor Three Days Before His Death.

1885. One of multiple copies made, few have survived. Photograph. Format is 4.25 inches by 6.5 inches, with the image size 5.5 inches by 3.5 inches. According to the HistoryNet website, this is the last photograph taken of former President Grant. There are other similar versions from different days, as he often sat out on the veranda working on his memoirs or reading the paper. The image is somewhat faded, but still quite distinct. A circle with the initials M.L.A. is stamped on the back. There is no indication as to who the photographer was. Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who created the Justice Department and worked with the Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction. As Commanding General, he led the Union Army to victory in the Civil War. In his retirement, Grant was the first president to circumnavigate the world on his tour, dining with Queen Victoria and meeting many prominent foreign leaders. In the final year of his life, facing severe financial reversals and dying of throat cancer, he wrote his memoirs, which proved to be a critical and financial success. He was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. The cabinet card was a style of photograph which was widely used for portraiture after 1870. It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a card typically measuring 4.25 by 6.5 inches. Nestled on the slopes of Mount McGregor, just 20 minutes north of Saratoga, Grant Cottage is where the nation’s 18th president spent the last weeks of his life and finished his personal memoirs (it’s also where Grant’s funeral was held). Grant spent only the last five weeks of his life at Mount McGregor. He arrived in nearby Saratoga Springs on June 16, 1885, via a special train aboard the private rail car of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Only eight months before, Dr. J.D. Douglas of New York diagnosed Grant with terminal throat cancer. A team of doctors believed the region’s clear, cool air might prove soothing to the ailing general and give him the time he needed to finish writing and editing his memoirs. Mark Twain, believed the general’s reminiscences would provide Julia Grant with the security she would need after her husband died. Joseph W. Drexel owned the cottage that stood in the shadow of his popular resort Hotel Balmoral. He quickly refurbished it for use by the general and his entourage that included family members, servant, stenographer, and medical staff. Grant arrived at the resort via an 11-mile narrow gauge railroad built by Drexel to ferry guests from Saratoga Springs to the hotel. During his good days, Grant usually sat in a wicker chair on the northeast corner of the cottage’s wide veranda, reading galley proofs of what he had written and writing revisions and additions on a tablet resting on a lap board. When not working, he read the newspapers and greeted friends, throngs of well-wishers, and the morbidly curious who steadily streamed up the mountain. When he died, Grant weighed barely 80 pounds. Grant, the unassuming man who vowed “to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,” had held the line long enough to finish his memoirs just four days before he died. First published in December 1885, the two-volume set earned $450,000 in royalties for the Grant family in the first two years (equivalent to $11 million today). The books have never been out of print. The final burial services were held in Riverside Park in New York City on August 8. A million people lined the funeral route, and 60,000 participated in the parade. Joseph Drexel never occupied his cottage again. The cottage has remained essentially unchanged since Grant occupied it. Condition: Good.

Keywords: Ulysses Grant, Cabinet Card, Mt. McGregor, Saratoga Springs, Photograph, Family Portrait

[Book #83165]

Price: $450.00