At the close of his second term, in 1877, he made the tour of the whole civilized world, visit ing especially the great countries of Europe and Asia, and receiving, as a soldier and civilian and the first citizen of the United States, all the hon or which rulers and people could bestow. As the unofficial representative of his country, his bear ing was such as to win universal admiration and respect. On his return home in the spring of 1880 a large and influential portion of the Repub lican Party sought to make him a candidate for the Presidency once more; but the movement was defeated, not because the people did not still ad mire and trust him, but on account of the formi dable opposition to the bestowal of the office upon any man, however eminent or able, for more than two terms.
After his long journey General Grant made his home in New York. He became a partner in a financial firm which came to grief and in volved him in pecuniary ruin. The story is a sad one, which will not here be recorded. The only blame that attached to him was that he bestowed too much confidence upon those who misused it. Universal sympathy was accorded to him. With the energy of a young man he took up his pen and wrote out the recollections of his military life, "for the money it gave me," he says, "for at that moment I was living upon borrowed money." Every token of respect was shown to him in the city of his residence, and Congress, by a special enactment in 1884, placed him on the retired list of the army, as General, with full pay—a position he had resigned to be come President..
In the summer of 1884 General Grant entered upon a long period of suffering from a cancerous affection of the throat, and he died at Mount MacGregor, near Saratoga, N. Y., July 23, 1885.
Until a few days before his death he was dili gently engaged in writing his memoirs, in order, by their sale, to make provision for his family. His body found its final resting-place in a mag nificent tomb in Riverside Park, New York City, overlooking the Hudson River.
Memoirs of General Grant's career are numer ous. Soon after the Civil War General Adam Badeau, his aide near the close of the war, wrote his Military History, in three octavo volumes (New York, 1867-81). In his later years Gen eral Grant was induced to contribute to the Century Magazine many articles which attracted widespread attention, and were afterwards pub lished in the work entitled: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York, 4 vols., 1887), and in his Personal Memoirs (New York, 2 vols., 1885). The dedication of the volumes last named, "To the American Soldier and Sailor," is dated New York, May 23, 1885, and the preface at Mount •MacGregor, July 1, 1885. There is a short and excellent biography by Col. W. a Church (New York, l897) ; another by Gen. James Grant Wilson (New York, 1868; re vised ed. 1886) ; a study of the ancestry of General Grant by E. C. Marshall (1869), and a story of his tour around the world by John Russell Young. Less noteworthy are Coprke's Grant and His Campaigns (1866), and Headley's Grant and Sherman (1866). Among the eulogies of General Grant, that by Henry Ward Beecher, in Boston, October 22, 1885, deserves special men tion. For a further account of his administra tions as President. see the article UNITED STATES.