Ulysses S. Grant's funeral procession photograph

General Ulysses S. Grant's funeral procession on Broadway, New York, New York, on August 8, 1885. A horse-drawn catafalque bearing the coffin of Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War general and the eighteenth president of the United States, moves down Broadway accompanied by an honor guard. Spectators, many of them holding umbrellas, line the street. Poles strung with wires bisect the image horizontally. The procession stretched for seven miles. Grant died July 23, 1885, in Mount McGregor, New York. In accordance with his wishes, his family selected Riverside Park in New York City as the site of his final resting place. Grant’s remains were interred in a temporary vault. Shortly after his death a newly organized grassroots organization, the Grant Monument Association, began accepting donations to fund the construction of a permanent memorial. Ninety thousand individuals collectively donated an estimated $600,000 to the fund its construction (the largest public fundraising effort at the time). The cornerstone was laid in 1891, and the memorial was completed six years later. More than one million people attended the parade and dedication ceremony of General Grant National Memorial (popularly known as Grant’s Tomb) on April 27, 1897. Julia Grant died on December 14, 1902, in Washington, D.C., and her remains were interred beside her husband's in a twin sarcophagus. Architect John Duncan designed the granite and marble structure, still the largest mausoleum in North America.