President Grant, a chief executive undergoing a renaissance, had notable ties to Washington
Courtesy of Samuel Richards
When he was president, Ulysses S. Grant came to Washington to visit his friend, William Wrenshall Smith (pictured above).
Photo by Matthew Brady
Ulysses S. Grant
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
The grave of William Wrenshall Smith, a friend of Ulysses S. Grant, in Washington Cemetery
Courtesy of Samuel Richards
Reporting in the Monongahela Valley Republican newspaper on Ulysses S. Grant’s visit to Washington
Observer-Reporter
Grant’s visits to Washington have been commemorated in what was once Trinity Hall. It is now part of the Trinity High School complex.
For the longest time, the take on Ulysses S. Grant was that he was a great general and a not-so-good president.
Oh, and he was also the answer to the riddle about who is buried in Grant’s Tomb.
In recent years, however, perceptions of Grant have started to shift. While he has not yet vaulted into the pantheon occupied by the likes of George Washington or Franklin Roosevelt, some historians now believe Grant deserves better than being lumped into the string of hirsute mediocrities who occupied the Oval Office between Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Grant fought the Ku Klux Klan, supported Reconstruction and the rights of Black men to vote in the South. The transcontinental railroad was completed on his watch, and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began.
Born 200 years ago in April, bicentennial events have been happening at key sites in Grant’s life this year. The website that has been established to mark the occasion, usgrant200.com, calls Grant “the general who saved America in the Civil War and the president who labored mightily against great odds for a lasting peace and fairness for Black Americans.”
Two books also figure into the Grant renaissance. The memoir he penned with an assist from Mark Twain is considered the high-water mark of presidential autobiographies and is still in print. Plus, Grant was the subject of a 2017 door-stopping biography by Ron Chernow, the historian whose study of Alexander Hamilton served as the basis for the smash Broadway musical, “Hamilton.”
“Pushing for the right to vote in the South was huge,” said Samuel Richards, a Bentleyville native and historian who has written about Grant and Washington County history. “That’s partly why the legacy of Grant is so important.”
The black mark on Grant’s record as president is that his administration was rife with scandal. In an era when robber barons were starting to romp through American life as industrialization gathered steam, Grant’s associates reveled in corruption. They took bribes, gave good jobs to unqualified cronies and engaged in a sordid variety of self-dealing and skullduggery. One of the more noteworthy scandals unfolded when Grant departed from Washington, D.C., for six days of rest and relaxation in Washington, Pa.
Grant was drawn to the smaller Washington in September 1869 thanks to his enduring friendship with William Wrenshall Smith, one of his aides-de-camp during the Civil War and a cousin of his wife, Julia. The details of his journey to the city have been well documented. During his journey, he slept at the mansion that was then called Spring Hill, and later became the Trinity Hall Military Academy and is now part of the Trinity High School complex. He was feted with a dinner, at which the Washington Observer reported, “Mrs. Grant chatted pleasantly with everybody, but (Grant) maintained his usual reticence.”
Grant also laid the cornerstone at the town hall that was being constructed, and was serenaded by a “colored men’s marching club,” according to the Pittsburgh Telegraph. With his pivotal role in the Civil War still fresh in the public mind, he was referred to as “the general” by the Observer in its reporting, and not “the president.”
But while Grant was away, some of the more underhanded figures in his orbit decided it was time to play. Financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk had been patiently working on a scheme where they would drive up the price of gold and corner the market by getting Grant to halt the sale of gold being held by the U.S. Treasury to pay off debts incurred as a result of the Civil War. Working along with fellow speculator Abel Corbin, who had married Grant’s sister, they successfully convinced Grant to stop gold sales from the Treasury, telling him it would hurt western farmers.
As the plot unfolded throughout September and Fisk and Gould raked in ill-gotten gains, Grant was unable to muster an effective policy response because he was out of touch in Washington. When Grant finally returned to the White House, he ordered government gold be unleashed on the market, which drove down the price and delivered an enduring blow to the economy.
“Grant was naive to people and when they had ulterior motives,” Richards said. “He had a problem with putting people in a position of trust and they took advantage of it.”
The saga didn’t have an entirely satisfying ending. Neither Gould nor Fisk were convicted for their misdeeds, and Gould died more than 20 years later with $70 million in his coffers – the equivalent of about $2 billion today. Fisk ended up being involved in a love triangle and was murdered at the age of 36 a little more than two years later.
Despite the woes that befell Grant, he was reelected resoundingly in 1872, easily overcoming Democratic opponent Horace Greeley, who died three weeks after the election. Grant was the first president to serve two full terms since Andrew Jackson, who left office in 1837, and was the only president to serve two full, consecutive terms until Woodrow Wilson’s presidency more than 40 years later.
Grant’s ties to Washington didn’t end with his September 1869 trip. His returned for additional spells of rest and relaxation. His son and namesake served on the board of Trinity Hall, and his grandson, Chaffee Grant, was a student there and married Washington resident Helen Dent Wrenshall in 1907 at the Wrenshall home on North Wade Avenue. The wedding was officiated by the Rev. John J. Faughman of Immaculate Conception Church.
Also, U. Grant Miller, whose name was affixed to the library at Washington & Jefferson College for decades, was named after Grant. One year after Grant’s 1869 visit, William Wrenshall Smith fathered a son, Ulysses S. Grant-Smith, who went on to become a diplomat who served in Hungary, Albania and Uruguay.
Although Washington was named for America’s first president, its college was named for him and Thomas Jefferson, and presidents including Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama have visited Washington, it could well be that Grant had the deepest and most significant ties to the community.
According to Richards, Washington “played an important role in Grant’s presidency.”