The National tribune., 1885-10-01
The Burial.placc of Gen. Grant.

To THE EDITOR: | have read with special
interest your views on this sab ject in the issue
Of July 80. Standing as the article does i'm
mediately after your very able presentation of
the character and services of "Our Dead Com
rade " in paper of such excellence and wide
circulation, it has seemed to me, as matters
now stand, that miDilef is liable to result.
Allow me, therefore, Mr.. Editor, stranger as |
am, respectfully TO present few counter con-
sideratiOns.
l. Yo. state that except in New York city
the feeling against that city aS a burial place
for Gen. Grant is universal and earnest" Of
course your knowledge of public feeling is far
more extensive than mine. But even if this
feeling is quite general at present, Il am conf
dent il is not universally may there not be
special reasons for this, and reasons which time
and reflection will "a e;,tiy modify? If the
relatively few people OF New York city" en-
brace his dcvotcdly attached widow and chill
dren, and they, with the lamented husband and
father, had settled upon that as their future
home, and the survivors still expect TO make it
such, and especially if that place is their delib
crate preference for his burial his own choice
really being between two places and he having
left the settling of it to them; if all this is
true, would the old soldiers who 50 loyally fol-
lowed his lead, and the people Of this Nation,
desire lfor any different plans they may nave
entertained to disregard their wishes? Would
/ do not deem it necessary TO enlarge on this
point.
2. In your Judgment he should be buried in
or near Washington, but whether at Mount
Vernon Or at the Soldiers Home or ut Airing
ton does not seem so clear. Is not the fact that
opinion is thus divided between these three
localities IN itself an objection to Washington :?
! doubt not that had his family, and those
friends who so nobly stood by him in his recent
misfortuues and embarrasSments, lived in
Washington, that by common consent, would
have been his final re5ting-placc. The people
OF New York city, as all who know the facts
are aware, have shown Gen. Grant and family
no little kindness, and their wishes and action
should be entitled to some consideration, alSo
III this matter.
3. You say, to bury Gen Grant in Wash
ingtOn would have instituted here what would
have been akin to Westminster Abbcy-a sacred
spot for the interment of those whose history
was part of the Nations and those whose deeds
the Nation delighted TO honor" etc. But is it
desirable in a Republic like ours to have suciI
a Westminster ADbey-a great central bury.hg-
ground for all the Nations heroes? If SO, has
there not been great mistake in huryIng LIN
coin, Garfield, and many others IN tho places
where they now rest? Ard if this is the cor
rect view, should not their remains be removed?
But is there not great advantage i'll having
the remains Of these National men in different
localities, and especially if the choice of their
immediate friends and their own associations in
life render those localities preferable? In my
humble judgment it would be great misfortune
in a Government "by the people and for the
people," the whole people, to have one great
central Mecca, where all our Nations heroes
should lie buried. We have other and better
motives to greatness than this.
A. If the descriptions of Riverside Park, the
place selected for his interment, on the bank
of the beautiful Hudson River near which he
died, in the vicinity of the great metropolis of
the Western World, and of SO many precious
Revolutionary War memories, are correct, there
are surely many considerations aside from
those above stated, to commend it as the final
resting place of our greatest military hero. The
Mayor and most eminent citizens of New York
also have been very prompt to make generous
and abundant provision for the purpose in
view, and there seem to be ample reasons for
believing that that city, now and in the future,
will gladly do for his memory all that could
reasonably be expected of it.
There is not, l venture, q city or State in the
Union which would not feel greatly honored
by having his tomb in their midst. Especially
is this true of Illinois and OF the city of Spring
| field tin and near which the writer has spent
most of his Efe), the resting place of the I'M
mortal Lincoln, our War President aud Grants
| great friend, and st the Gnvailing OF whose
bronze statue and tic dedication of whose noble
| monument, in October, 1871, in the presence of
many of ouf Nations greatest men and women
and a vast throng Of people, Grant spoke such
| generous and apprecative words in behalf of
! tho man he and the Nation so greatly loved.