The U.S. Mint and the National Park Service hosted a launch ceremony to celebrate the release of the new Ulysses S. Grant Presidential $1 Coin on Thursday, the 148th anniversary of Grant’s Civil War Vicksburg campaign in Mississippi.
“Beginning today, Federal Reserve Banks are releasing millions of Ulysses S. Grant Presidential $1 Coins into circulation to be used by Americans everywhere in the nation,” U.S. Mint Acting Deputy Director Al Runnels stated in a news release. “Americans know Grant best as the victorious general in the Civil War, and these new coins can’t help but remind us of that defining period in our history, but they will also connect America to Grant’s two terms as our 18th President.”
John Marszalek, executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, joined Runnels at the coin launch, which took place at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in Grantwood Village. The site is where Grant and his wife Julia occasionally resided during the 1850s. Members of the public who attended the event were among the first in the nation to get the new $1 coin.
After the ceremony, each attendee 18 years old and younger received a Ulysses S. Grant Presidential $1 Coin to commemorate the event, while adults exchanged their currency for 25-coin rolls of the new coin.
The Ulysses S. Grant Presidential $1 Coin is the 18th release in the U.S. Mint Presidential $1 Coin Program, authorized by Public Law 109-145, the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005.
The coin’s obverse — heads side — features a portrait of former President Grant by U.S. Mint Sculptor-Engraver Don Everhart and the inscriptions “ULYSSES S. GRANT, IN GOD WE TRUST,” “18th PRESIDENT” and “1869-1877.”
The coin’s reverse — tails side — also by Everhart, features a dramatic rendition of the Statue of Liberty. Inscriptions on the reverse are $1 and “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” with “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” 2011 and the mint mark — P or D — incused on the edge.
