The Admiral and the Ambassador: One Man's Obsessive Search for the Body of John Paul Jones

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. Porter had been a driving force in the creation of Grant's Tomb, and he developed a similar sense of duty regarding the final interment of John Paul Jones. The Admiral and the Ambassador details Porter's long, relentless search for the 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 what Porter believed to be the graveyard.

Part history, part biography, and part detective story, The Admiral and the Ambassador is a fascinating look into the compelling real-life characters who populated the first century of the United States of America.