The second Grant sculpture, an equestrian grouping, was placed on the lawn below the Capitol. The idea originated in 1895 with the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, veterans who had served under Grant in the West. Their proposed sculpture was incorporated into a plan then being developed for a new, geometric National Mall—the design that exists today. It would serve as a focal point of the east-west axis. At the opposite end would be a memorial to Abraham Lincoln. The Grant sculpture would be the largest that the nation had ever seen. Its components would stretch more than 250 feet across the lawn below the Capitol, forming a plaza almost the length of a football field. The sum of $250,000 was set aside, making the sculpture the most expensive work of art ever federally funded. The project would take decades to complete. But by 1920 when it was finished, many Americans had lost interest in the nation’s most highly decorated general. In only two decades, Grant's reputation had collapsed.