By 3:00pm on May 12, 2019, we had completed the 16-mile drive from Tuckahoe Plantation to Hollywood Cemetery. The first thing that popped into my resin-filled head when I heard we were in Hollywood was whether or not I would see any graves of some famous movie stars. But this cemetery was in Richmond, Virginia and although the large 130-acre burial ground featured the graves of two American Presidents; one Confederate President; and 28 Confederate generals; there wasn’t any movie star graves to be found there. Unless, of course, we counted the grave of stage actress Sallie Partington who did some work with actor John Wilkes Booth. When she died in 1907, Sallie went to her grave believing that Booth had never been captured and killed; only because she saw evidence that Booth lived out his life in Australia. Even though she had a remote Presidential connection due to working with Lincoln’s assassin, we chose not to visit the gravesite of Sallie Partington. We may not have been able to locate her grave anyway.
My photographer and Bob Moldenhauer had been to Hollywood Cemetery in the past; but this was my first trip to the huge burial ground that was named “Hollywood” because of the holly trees that once dotted the hills on the property. Once Tom had driven the Acadia blindly around the winding and hilly roadways within the cemetery, we finally stopped near an area known as “President’s Circle”. It was within that circular roadway that two American Presidents had been laid to rest; the gravesites of James Monroe and John Tyler were within 75 feet of each other. I rolled my painted eyes when I heard my photographer tell Mongo that he refers to them as the “Dime Store Presidents” because they were numbers five and ten.
Tom carried me along a pathway that led to the center of “President’s Circle” where the tomb of James Monroe was located. I think my jaw dropped when I first saw the gray-colored, 14-foot-tall cast iron birdcage; it was one of the most unusual-looking Presidential tombs I had ever seen. Even though the tomb was designed with a Gothic Revival look in mind, the gaudy iron cage looked as though it was used to imprison giant birds.
President James Monroe died on July 4, 1831; fifty-five years after the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed and five years after the deaths of Adams and Jefferson. Monroe’s last words were: “I regret that I should leave this world without again beholding him.” The fifth President had referred to James Madison, who was one of his closest friends. Originally entombed in the Gouverneur’s family vault in New York City’s Marble Cemetery, Monroe’s body was transported to Richmond in July 1858 via the steamship ‘Jamestown‘. Today, Monroe’s body lies in a granite sarcophagus that rests on a granite platform within that large cast iron cage. After I posed for a few images near Monroe’s tomb, Tom reached inside the ornate cage and set me onto the sarcophagus. Even though I had no concerns that I would fall, I was worried that my photographer might not be able to retrieve me once our photos were finished and I’d be forced to spend eternity with President Monroe.
Once I was safely removed from Monroe’s birdcage, I was carried along a brick-paver walkway that led to the final resting-place of tenth President John Tyler. There was no other place in the country where a bobble head, like me, could see two Presidential tombs at the same time; except for the final resting places of John and John Quincy Adams. Both father and son were entombed in the same crypt below the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts.
John Tyler was an interesting President who had some unusual circumstances that were attached to his legacy. Tyler was the first to hold the office of President without being elected to it; he was Vice President to William Henry Harrison who died just a month into his term. Because of that, Tyler gained the nickname “His Accidency”; mainly because the U.S. Constitution did not contain specific language concerning Presidential deaths and replacements. When Harrison died, Tyler moved into the White House, took the Oath of Office, and finished Harrison’s four-year term – no questions asked. Sixteen years after he left the White House, John Tyler was elected to the Confederate Congress; but before he could officially take his seat, he died on January 18, 1862 at the age of 71. President Lincoln viewed him as a traitor and Tyler’s death was not officially recognized in Washington; the only time in history that has happened. John Tyler also requested a simple burial, but Confederate President Jefferson Davis devised a more elaborate affair that painted Tyler as a hero of their new nation. His casket was draped with the Confederate flag and John Tyler remains the only U.S. President ever laid to rest under a flag not of the United States. As a matter of fact, he was the only President to die outside of the United States – expiring in the Confederate capital city of Richmond.
I had mixed emotions as Tom carried me towards the ornate twenty-foot-tall granite monument that featured a bronze bust of Tyler. An open-winged bronze eagle graced the top of the monument as well. Part of me felt that if ol’ Honest Abe had ostracized the former President, then I should just “go through the motions” in honoring his legacy. But on the other hand, Tyler became President under extraordinary circumstances, and he held steadfast in his beliefs of doing what was right for our country and not just for his political party. I’ve always admired people who lead with their heart to do what is right and not just follow the path of least resistance to be popular. And John Tyler did that; even though at the age of 51 he was younger than any previous President. After my photographer placed me at the base of Tyler’s monument and I reflected on our tenth President’s legacy, a mystifying peace came over my entire body. As I stood there and looked out towards the James River in the distance, I thought about John Tyler the dad; after all, he had fathered 15 children – more than any other President. As a matter of fact, his grandson Harrison Tyler still resides today in the President’s Sherwood Forest Plantation.
After visiting the final resting places of Monroe and Tyler, there were only two Presidential gravesites remaining for me to see – and both of them were located in Texas. But I wasn’t finished with Presidential graves in Hollywood Cemetery yet. During Bob and Tom’s first visit to this cemetery in 1991, they had asked the guard at the entrance for directions to the two Presidential graves. The sentry sternly said in a thick, southern drawl that sounded similar to the voice of Looney Tunes character Foghorn Leghorn: “Sir, I said sir, there are three Presidents buried in this here cemetery.” And he was right; the gravesite of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was located a short distance west of President’s Circle where the pair of graves of the “real” Presidents were situated.
Tom drove the Acadia to Davis Avenue and took that roadway to the end where we saw a tall statue of Jefferson Davis. It turned out that the bronze statue of the Confederate President was his actual tombstone. As my photographer carried me along the brick-paver walkway towards the gravesite, I found it interesting that the wording on the granite monument below the statue described Jefferson Davis’ dedication to the United States and stated he was a defender of the Constitution. It also acknowledged his time in the U.S. Senate and when he served as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Only after we walked to the back side of the monument did we find any mention that Davis was the President of the Confederate States of America. I had wondered if his widow Varina and daughter Margaret, both of whom dedicated the site on November 9, 1899, tried to downplay their loved-one’s legacy to the Confederacy.
It was a few minutes past 4:00pm when the three of us made our way out of Hollywood Cemetery. The next site on our agenda was the White House of the Confederacy in downtown Richmond and it was less than three miles away. Tom knew tours of the interior closed at 5:00pm and he figured we had plenty of time to get there; until we had trouble finding a parking place near the historic building. Once parked, I was carried in the camera case while Tom and Bob made their way to the house that Jefferson Davis and his family used from August 1861 until the evacuation of Richmond on April 2, 1865. Upon our arrival to the museum behind the house, we were given the bad news: The last tour of the day had already started. At that moment, my photographer went to work with his usual spiel that he’s used dozens of times in the past; and once again it worked – a young man led us to the historic mansion. Tom had told our escort that we didn’t need to tour the entire house; we were only interested in seeing the parlor that Abraham Lincoln had occupied during his visit in April 1865.
The three-story home known as the Confederate White House was actually painted grey and was built in 1818. After he took the Oath of Office in Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis lived in a home near the Alabama State House that became the first Confederate White House. The President, his wife Varina, and their three children lived there for only three months before moving to Richmond – the new Capital of the Confederacy. As I stood near the East portico and looked up at the grey, White House, I envisioned an unsupervised Joseph Davis, the President’s five-year-old son, as he “tight-rope” walked on the handrailing of the porch before accidentally falling to the brick patio below. A sadness came over my resin body as the event played-out in my mind; I could only imagine the grief that his parents had suffered as they arrived home and watched their little boy die in front of them.
Our tour guide led us around to the front of the building and into the house. His first goal was to not disturb the tour that was already in progress, but luckily, we had the front parlor to ourselves. At 9:00am on April 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln arrived at this house – only two days after the Confederate President had vacated it. Lincoln walked through the first floor of the building, but he refused to venture to the upper floors. He insisted that it was improper for a man to visit the private rooms of another man’s house. Instead, Lincoln met with military officials and other dignitaries for about three hours in that front parlor.
The parlor’s décor was busy, to say the least. The walls were covered in a burgundy floral wallpaper and there was a gaudy floral rug that covered the floor. Furniture, which were likely period pieces, decorated the interior of the small room and there was a large mirror above the fireplace. As I posed for a few photos inside the historic room, it was as though I could see President Lincoln and his son Tad as they walked in. The humble leader removed his hat, sat in a chair and crossed his long legs; he was somewhat exhausted from his two-mile walk from Admiral Porter’s flag-ship Malvern. Before he met with others, Lincoln drank some tea as he absorbed the momentous occasion. Ten days after Abraham Lincoln sat in that room, he was shot to death at Ford’s Theater.
Tom and Bob thanked their guide for the impromptu visit inside Jefferson Davis’ home. Although we were inside for less than fifteen minutes, it was enough time for the three of us to feel the presence of Abraham Lincoln as he sat in that parlor in 1865. Back outside, I posed for a couple of images in front of the historic home – a place where President Lincoln was swarmed by thousands of people upon his arrival. The scene was described by Admiral Porter who had escorted the President from the Malvern: “As far as the eye could see the streets were alive with negroes and poor whites rushing in our direction. They all wanted to shake hands with Mr. Lincoln or his coat tail or even to kneel down and kiss his boots!”
The three of us followed in Lincoln’s footsteps when we made the three-block hike to the Virginia State Capitol. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly in his footsteps as the President and his son Tad rode in a carriage to the deserted Confederate Capitol Building on April 4, 1865. I was removed from the camera case upon our arrival at the State House and I could immediately tell that the building had been designed by Thomas Jefferson. The exterior architecture looked like Poplar Forest, Monticello, and the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. I wished we could’ve toured the interior to see the site where President Tyler had laid in state following his death in 1862, but the Capitol was closed on Sunday. Lincoln likely didn’t venture inside the historic building at the end of the Civil War, either. Instead, he and Tad saw the Capitol Building, which was spared from ruin by the Union, from their carriage ride through Capitol Square.
Once Tom had finished snapping photos of me with the Capitol, he carried me to the northwest side of the historic structure where I saw a large monument that featured George Washington sitting atop a horse. It was called the Virginia Washington Monument and it had several Presidential ties. When the cornerstone of the monument was laid in 1850, President Zachary Taylor and former President John Tyler were on-hand for the ceremony. At the top of the monument, there was a 21-foot tall, nine-ton bronze statue of George Washington. On one side of the base, which wasn’t completed until after the Civil War had ended, there was an opening that featured an iron gate. It turned out that the state of Virginia had wanted the first President’s body entombed inside the crypt of that monument, but Washington’s personal last will and testament stated clearly that he be buried at Mount Vernon. That tomb still remained empty today. Situated around the base of the Washington Monument were six statues that paid tribute to Virginia’s Revolutionary heroes; including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Andrew Lewis, John Marshall, George Mason, and Thomas Nelson, Jr.
During our three-block walk from the Capitol grounds to our Acadia that was parked near the White House of the Confederacy, I heard my photographer mention to Bob that his feet hurt. The brick-paver walkways at the Capitol and the uphill concrete sidewalks that the two of them had hiked had taken their toll on Tom’s feet, which had gotten wet during our visit to Jefferson’s Shadwell birth site the evening before. Although I sympathized with Tom’s pain, I had issues of my own as the gash in my left ankle had gotten worse. But the two of us pushed on, mostly with the help of Mongo’s encouragement and enthusiasm.
The final site of the day was located about 23 miles southeast of Richmond in the town of Hopewell, Virginia. It was around 5:50pm when we parked the vehicle near the entrance to the City Point Unit of the Petersburg National Battlefield park. Once we had made our way inside the park, which was located atop a bluff at the confluence of the James River and Appomattox River, we found our intended destination: The headquarters of General Ulysses S. Grant. The small, L-shaped wooden structure, which was situated about two hundred yards from the Appomattox Manor plantation house, was used by Grant during the waning months of the Civil War. In late March of 1865, President Lincoln visited the General at that cabin where they discussed the details and strategies to end the war. What I found the most interesting about the building was its authenticity – it was the actual two-room cabin where Lincoln and Grant had met. Even though the headquarters had already closed for the day, I could see a table and some chairs as I looked through the window. Was that furniture used by the President and General? Likely not; but even with replica furnishings, it would have been cool to have gone inside and stood in the footsteps of Lincoln and Grant.
At 6:30pm, it was time for my companions to find a place for us to spend the night. Once Mongo had searched the internet and found a motel that was within their budget, we headed south for about 15 miles until we arrived at the Holiday Inn Express near Petersburg, Virginia. The large motel looked nice, especially when it was compared to the Timberlake Motel in Lynchburg and the Red Roof Inn in Charlottesville. Tom placed me alongside the television set as he ate a takeout meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken. At the same time, Mongo dined on some goodies he had brought from home. It had been an amazing day, although I was truly convinced that “Jefferson Fever” had made the open wound in my left leg worse. But since I had listened to Tom complain about his “barking dogs” for the past few hours, there was no way that I was going to whine about my injury – even though my stainless steel ‘bone’ was exposed, and it was getting harder for me to stand up straight. As a matter of fact, my leg had gotten so bad that I nearly considered changing my name to Eileen. The idea of suing the bobble head company for my injuries ran through my resin-filled head as well, but I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on in a court of law. And with that, the room went dark, and I was left only with the thoughts of Sherwood Forest and whether or not I would see Robin Hood in the morning.
