Finding Providence in a Forgetten Tomb

 Finding Providence in a Forgotten Tomb

By: George Dissinger

The tomb of our nation’s 18^th president and great civil war general Ulysses S. Grant stands like an ancient monument in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. It is a piece of New York history and architecture that’s significance seems to fail its immense physical size and forceful beauty. The tomb’s magnificent presence feels lost in time, as if the quite immaculately restored monument was a mere pile of rubble.

Approaching the General Grant National Memorial, as it is officially known, generates deep, spacious feelings. My timing of visiting on a particularly drab Saturday afternoon left me in a strangely empty large grey-stone plaza with only a few other individuals there to visit the monument. Climbing the rigid marble steps to enter the domed, neoclassical tomb at first seemed like more of a decent into stagnant history.

            The tomb surprised me with its warmth and grace. The word “tomb” brings connotation of bleak darkness, but the interior of the monument was graceful and elegant. Maybe this is why the official name of the monument avoids the word. Looking downward from the circular balcony that acts as the main floor, one can see a pair of enormous smooth maroon sarcophagi that entomb Grant and his wife side by side. The basement floor circles the president and his wife in warm, soft lighting with the outer perimeter marked with white marble busts of other famous civil war generals that served under Grant.

          

  A look upward reveals a marvelously spacious dome carved and livened with intricate design and images reminiscent of both America and Greco-Roman style. Three of the four faces of elevated wall under the dome itself had been painted with large crescent shaped murals depicting the heroism and military legacy of Ulysses S. Grant. Of these three murals, the center one directly across from the entrance was most striking and significant to my understanding of the monument. It is positioned one upward glace from a spectator looking down on the resting place of Grant. The mural depicts Grant shaking hands with confederate General Robert E. Lee, with the victorious Union army to their right, and the defeated confederates to their left. Above them is a bald eagle representing the new-found union and strength of the nation that had survived this brutal war.

            A soft grey cloud of light encases the two Generals in their moment of peace. It places them on a visual plane outside of the beaten world of the exhausted armies on each side. The luminous cloud is reminiscent of the religious altarpieces and frescos of Europe, and their infinite influence in American art and propaganda. The framed Generals occupy a plane that represents a religious elevation. But it is not so much Grant and Lee who are honored and emphasized, but the handshake and the peace and union it represents.

            This is not a monument dedicated to Grant the president. Nor is it representation of his holistic self and achievement. And despite the civil war images and relics on each flank, the tomb is directed intently on the one defining moment of Grant’s life in respect to the course of American history. It transcends his incredibly important military victories, and his entire tenure as President.

This is a monument to the providence that unites America, from its beginnings to its most volatile times. Ulysses S. Grant was an icon of God’s hand in our union, and this often forgotten monument is a testament to that. It will continue to stand with immense force and beauty way up on Riverside Drive, if only to remind us of the significance of American unity.