The Admiral and the Ambassador

On July 20, 1792, the body of John Paul Jones, Father of the American Navy, was buried in the St. Louis Cemetery on the outskirts of Paris. The French Revolution was gathering steam, and soon the unmarked location of Jones's grave was nobody's primary concern, lost beneath the soil in the City of Light. Luckily, Jones had been sealed in a lead-lined coffin filled with alcohol to preserve the body. In theory, if somebody could locate that coffin, Jones could be returned to the United States for a proper burial. That somebody was Horace Porter, Civil War hero, aide to General (and later President) Ulysses S. Grant, Republican Party fundraiser, and US Ambassador to France from 1897 to 1905. The Admiral and the Ambassador details Porter's long, relentless search for Jones's lead-lined coffin, first through scraps of archive material and written recollections of funeral attendees, and then beneath the rickety buildings that had been constructed over the graveyard. And if he ever did find the coffin, he had return Jones to the United States for a worthy burial. The Admiral and the Ambassador is part history, part biography, and part detective story, and a fascinating look into the compelling, real-life characters who populated the first century of the United States of America. Veteran journalist Scott Martelle is the author of Detroit: A Biography, The Fear Within, and Blood Passion and currently writes for the Los Angeles Times.