Past: Fourth Annual US Grant Symposium & Grant Takes Command Exhibit

Very few people realize that our 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant’s story would be very different if he had not spent five days, in early September 1861, headquartered at the St. Charles Hotel in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The newly opened hotel stood at Themis and Main and it was where an altercation occurred between then Brigadier General Grant and Brigadier General Prentiss about which man held the higher rank in the Union Army. General Grant went on from Cape Girardeau to take the South and then the presidency. This altercation is at the core of the exhibit, Grant Takes Command, which will be open Friday, September 15, through November, at Heritage Hall. The exhibit features the Candace Scott Collection of Grant Memorabilia, which is now owned and on loan, to the Kellerman Foundation, from Earl Norman. In addition, a large selection of Civil War artifacts found in Cape Girardeau by Jeff Jamito will be on display to enhance what we can imagine about how this Southern-leaning city was impacted by the Union occupation. Several poems by Father Abram Ryan, the “Poet-Priest of the Confederacy” who served at St. Vincent’s Seminary in Cape Girardeau, provide a poignant perspective of both loss and resolve that is quite relevant for some of our society’s current conversations about memory and history.

Heritage Hall, owned and operated by the Kellerman Foundation for Historic Preservation, exists to preserve and tell the history of the Cape Girardeau community and region. Located at 102 North Main Street, Cape Girardeau MO 63701, Heritage Hall is always free and open to the public Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from noon until 5PM. Grant Takes Command has been created in conjunction with the Fourth Annual U.S. Grant Symposium which will be held at Heritage Hall on Tuesday, September 19, from 1PM – 7:30. The symposium is free and open to the public.