Grant The Last Photograph of Gen Grant Four Days Before Death

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Asst. Regtl. Quartermaster Gettysburg 2017
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The last photograph of Ulysses S. Grant was taken 133 years ago on this day, after Grant completed his memoirs. Some items in this photo including Grant's top hat and the chair in which he is sitting, are on display at Grant Cottage today,

Photo and caption courtesy of https://www.grantcottage.org/
 
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OnThisDay in 1885 Ulysses Grant requested a ride in his Bath chair to see the view from Mt. McGregor’s overlook. His physician, John Douglas, later wrote of this final outing that Grant seemed to wish to linger at the popular site with a view of Saratoga and beyond.

Upon returning to the cottage, Grant had to dismount from his chair and climb a staircase at the train’s freight platform while his chair was hoisted up and over an obstruction. The exertion caused profound fatigue and weakness from which he did not recover.

Photo and text courtesy of https://www.grantcottage.org/
 
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Today, in 1885 Ulysses Grant, age 63, died in the cottage parlor surrounded by his adoring family. Eldest son Fred stopped the mantle clock at 8:08 a.m. It hasn’t ticked since & remains a lasting symbol of the end of a great life at a place where time stands still.

Julia Grant described the death of USGrant in her memoir: “…on the morning of July the twenty-third, he, my beloved, my all, passed away, and I was alone, alone."

Photo and text courtesy of https://www.grantcottage.org/
 
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Amidst the fury surrounding an American hero's death, there was an artistic endeavor taking place. A 32-year-old sculptor was making a plaster cast of the face of the recently passed US Grant at the cottage on Mt. McGregor.

The story of Karl Gerhardt and his relationship with the Grants https://www.grantcottage.org/blog/2018/7/23/masking-death
 
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The last photograph of Ulysses S. Grant was taken 133 years ago on this day, after Grant completed his memoirs. Some items in this photo including Grant's top hat and the chair in which he is sitting, are on display at Grant Cottage today,

Photo and caption courtesy of https://www.grantcottage.org/

I find pictures like this almost haunting, knowing the person pictured is so close to his death. I've never seen this photo of Grant before, so thanks for sharing.
 
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The last photograph of Ulysses S. Grant was taken 133 years ago on this day, after Grant completed his memoirs. Some items in this photo including Grant's top hat and the chair in which he is sitting, are on display at Grant Cottage today,

Photo and caption courtesy of https://www.grantcottage.org/
Did they know where he had been or was going? Definitely not casual clothes he's wearing- especially in July's heat and being so ill. Or is the sketch the same day?
 
Not sure if this image was posted before of a sick and dying U.S. Grant working on his memoirs, which he finished just days before dying 133 years ago. I apologize if it was posted before but it's such a juxtaposition from the top hat and cane next to him in the other pic.View attachment 197713

The picture belongs here. Thank you for adding it. I will look up your other question when I get home.
 
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OnThisDay in 1885 Ulysses Grant requested a ride in his Bath chair to see the view from Mt. McGregor’s overlook. His physician, John Douglas, later wrote of this final outing that Grant seemed to wish to linger at the popular site with a view of Saratoga and beyond.

Upon returning to the cottage, Grant had to dismount from his chair and climb a staircase at the train’s freight platform while his chair was hoisted up and over an obstruction. The exertion caused profound fatigue and weakness from which he did not recover.

Photo and text courtesy of https://www.grantcottage.org/

A very sad irony that the boy who could tame any horse, the best horseman in his day at West Point, should be pulled in a cart on his last outing. A few months earlier he had written in his memoirs about having to drive an unbroken horse seventy miles back to his home at the age of fifteen. After a close call when he stopped the nervous horse at the edge of a steep embankment his adult companion deserted him, but the ingenious boy calmed the horse with the help of a bandana and made it home, much to the surprise of his former passenger. One of many close calls in a life full of them. I wonder what went through his mind as the man who had done so much heavy lifting, metaphorically and physically, was helped out of his bath chair.
 
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