The Grants' World Tour, 1877–1879

The Grants' departure from Philadelphia in May 1877, from journalist John Russell Young's two-volume Around the World with General Grant (1879), illustrated with hundreds of lithographs.

Ulysses S. Grant was president from 1869 to 1877, the years of Reconstruction's rise and fall, a long effort to reunite the country and guarantee civil rights for all. His presidency had its successes, but it was eight stressful years of challenges, frustration and disappointment.

Leaving the White House, the Grants wanted a quieter life. They planned a trip to England to visit their daughter Nellie, who had married Englishman Algernon Sartoris at the White House in 1874. The trip grew into an unprecedented tour of two and a half years through Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. Crowds cheered them, royalty entertained them, and they received lavish gifts. It was the grandest tour any American couple had made, and it signaled the world's recognition of the United States as a rising power.

Britain and Europe

On May 17, 1877, Ulysses and Julia Grant sailed from Philadelphia on the steamer Indiana with their son Jesse and New York Herald journalist John Russell Young. Eleven days later they reached Liverpool to huge crowds, and the scenes were repeated in London, Birmingham and Newcastle, where workers turned out enthusiastically. In the textile city of Manchester, which had strongly backed the Union in the Civil War despite needing Confederate cotton, Grant was moved by his welcome. Britain's working people found a hero in him.

Grant's address at Newcastle, from Around the World with General Grant.

The aristocracy celebrated the Grants too. They attended a royal concert at Buckingham Palace, went to the races with the Prince of Wales, and dined with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. They visited Shakespeare's Stratford and Sheffield's steel mills, then traveled to Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Russia, among other countries, greeted warmly everywhere.

In Germany they traveled with British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and heard music by Richard Wagner. Grant also met Germany's Prince Otto von Bismarck, and smoking together at the Radziwill Palace, the two discussed the American Civil War. They shared an admiration for General Philip Sheridan and agreed on the need to preserve the Union. Bismarck remarked that Grant "had to save the Union just as we had to save Germany." Grant replied: "Not only save the Union, but destroy slavery. As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle." Bismarck called it a long war and a great work well done, and asked whether it meant a lasting peace. Grant said he believed so.

Egypt, the Holy Land and India

The pyramids of Egypt, from Around the World with General Grant.

The Grants were especially captivated by Egypt, India and Jerusalem, a world of ancient pyramids and ruins alongside staggering modern poverty. They rode elephants, sailed the Nile, explored sacred caves and temples, and Julia bought jewelry and trinkets in the bazaars. She was deeply moved by the Christian holy sites at Bethlehem and Gethsemane. Grant admired Hinduism's kindness and respect for people and animals, calling it "a good system of morals for the guidance of its followers."

China and Japan

Ulysses S. Grant with Chinese leader Li Hongzhang during the tour. Library of Congress.

In China, huge crowds carried the Grants through the streets in chairs amid cannon fire and gongs. Grant expressed sympathy for the prejudice Chinese people faced in the United States and elsewhere, saying, "I am not prepared to justify the treatment the Chinese have received at the hands of the foreigner." General Li Hongzhang was so impressed that he asked Grant to intercede with Japan over a territorial dispute, and Grant, wanting to see disputes settled peacefully, served as an unofficial go-between for the two nations.

Grant found Japan "beautiful beyond description." In a speech he declared a "spirit of sympathy, support and reconciliation" toward the Japanese and said America had much to learn from the East. At the Nagasaki Art, Industrial and Science Fair, the Grants planted a fig and a camphor tree in honor of Japan, hoping that both trees, "in their growth, prosperity and long life," would "be emblematic of the future of Japan."

Home by way of the West

Ulysses S. Grant Jr. ("Buck"), Julia Dent Grant and Ulysses S. Grant with others at a mine in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1879. Library of Congress.

The Grants landed in San Francisco on September 20, 1879. They visited Yosemite Valley and Fort Vancouver, where Grant had been stationed as a young officer more than 25 years before, and toured Nevada's silver mines, where he lost a bet that Julia would not go down into a mine. Parades honored them in Mississippi and Louisiana, and the tour ended where it began, in Philadelphia, on December 16, 1879.

No former president and first lady had ever toured the world and been received with such honors. The trip was more than a personal exploration of many cultures: the Grants came to embody a nation ready to take a major role on the world stage, and the world noticed.

An 1879 map by J. S. Kemp tracing the Grants' route in red, from Around the World with General Grant.

Itinerary

The Grants' stops in order, including several return visits:

Sources

• National Park Service, Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, "The Grants' World Tour." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-grants-world-tour.htm
• John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant (1879), source of the lithographs and map.
• NPS, "Ulysses S. Grant, International Arbitrator": https://www.nps.gov/articles/ulysses-s-grant-international-arbitrator.htm
• The Park Service's page spells the palace "Radizwall," the general "Phillip Sheridan," and the garden "Gethsemene"; this page uses the standard spellings Radziwill, Philip and Gethsemane.