President Grant exhibit coming to Cape's Heritage Hall

During September, Heritage Hall at 102 N. Main St. in downtown Cape Girardeau, will feature a 275-square-foot exhibit showcasing President Ulysses S. Grant.

The exhibit will feature banners from the Missouri Humanities Council and Grant memorabilia owned by Cape Girardeau businessman Earl Norman. Norman purchased the collection from a President Grant collector 25 years ago in California.

Mary Ann Kellerman, co-founder of the Kellerman Foundation, said Norman's Grant collection is one of the largest in existence.

"Each place that has been chosen by the council to show the exhibit is encouraged to get special things, regional local resources, and of course we have the best one right here because Earl has probably the biggest [Grant] collection other than the National Museum," Kellerman said. "Anything the Missouri Humanities Council does has wonderful educational materials, so if we can supplement with three-dimensional items, then I think it could really be a great exhibit."

In 1861, during the Civil War, Union Brigadier Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Cape Girardeau a few days before Benjamin Prentiss arrived with orders to command the Union troops that were under Grant's command. A heated argument occurred between the two generals, however, Prentiss was outranked by Grant because of Army seniority regulations. Prentiss returned to St. Louis and Grant remained in command of the Union troops. An artistic interpretation of the argument can be seen on Cape Girardeau's Mississippi River wall.

"Two or three days after my arrival at Cape Girardeau, word came that General Prentiss was approaching that place (Jackson). I started at once to meet him there and to give him his orders," Grant wrote in his memoir. "I gave the General his orders -- which stopped him at Jackson -- but he was very much aggrieved at being placed under another brigadier-general, particularly as he believed himself to be the senior. He had been a brigadier, in command at Cairo, while I was mustering officer at Springfield without any rank. But we were nominated at the same time for the United States service, and both our commissions bore date May 17th, 1861. By virtue of my former army rank I was, by law, the senior."

Grant set up his office in the current Port Cape Girardeau restaurant building at 19 N. Water St. He also had offices at the former Common Pleas Courthouse, located at 44 N. Lorimier St.

Kellerman said there has been an increase in interest about Grant in recent years and multiple books have been written about the former president, including "American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant" by Ronald C. White in 2016. The Kellerman Foundation organized a Grant Symposium in 2017 and hosted 165 patrons at the event, but expected fewer people to attend.

"I think the Missouri Humanities Council was absolutely stumped, they had small crowds before that, and our symposium was by far the biggest and most successful, so there is evidently a lot of interest in the area about Grant," Kellerman said. "Grant has been revered more lately and written about more recently not only about the Civil War, but as a good president. I think there has just been an awakening and a more positive attitude about his background."

A scrimshaw portrait of Ulysses S. Grant engraved on a whale's tooth. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is portrayed on the back.The Kellerman Foundation