Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister | Page 6

same as mine, but who have been engaged in
teaching all their mature years. Quimby, who was the best
mathematician in my class, and who was for several years an assistant
at West Point, and for nine years a professor in an institution in New
York, was an unsuccessful applicant. The appointment was given to the
most distinguished man in his department in the country, and an author.
His name is Shorano. Since putting in my application for the
appointment of County Engineer, I have learned that the place is not
likely to be filled before February next. What I shall do will depend

entirely upon what I can get to do. Our present business is entirely
overdone in this city, at least a dozen new houses having started about
the same time I commenced. I do not want to fly from one thing to
another, nor would I, but I am compelled to make a living from the start
for which I am willing to give all my time and all my energy.
Julia and the children are well and send love to you. On your way to
Galena can you not come by here? Write to me soon.
ULYSSES.

[In regard to voting for Buchanan for President, Grant says in his
Memoirs that he believed that the election of a Republican President in
1856 would mean the secession of all the slave States and inevitable
rebellion. Accordingly, he preferred the success of a candidate whose
election would prevent or postpone secession, to seeing the country
plunged into a war the end of which no man could foretell. "With a
Democrat elected by the unanimous vote of the Slave States, there
would be no pretext for secession for four years. I very much hoped
that the passions of the people would subside in that time, and the
catastrophe be averted altogether; if it were not, I believed the country
would be better prepared to receive the shock and to resist it. I therefore
voted for James Buchanan for President."]
St. Louis, Sept. 23d, 1859.
DEAR FATHER:
I have waited for some time to write you the result of the action of the
County Commissioners upon the appointment of a County Engineer.
The question has at length been settled, and I am sorry to say, adversely
to me. The two Democratic Commissioners voted for me, and the Free
Soilers against me. What I shall now go at I have not determined, but I
hope something before a great while. Next month I get possession of
my own house, when my expenses will be reduced so much that a very
moderate salary will support me. If I could get the $3000 note cashed,

which I got as the difference in the exchange of property, I could put up
with the proceeds two houses that would pay me, at least, $40 per
month rent. The note has five years to run, with interest notes given
separately and payable annually.
We are looking for some of you here next week to go to the fair. I
wrote to Simpson to come down and see me but as I have had no
answer from him nor from Orvil to a letter written some time before, I
do not know whether he will come or not. I should like very much to
have some of you come and see us this fall. Julia and the children are
all very well. Fred and Buck go to school every day. They never think
of asking to stay at home.
You may judge from the result of the action of the County
Commissioners that I am strongly identified with the Democratic party.
Such is not the case. I never voted an out and out Democratic ticket in
my life. I voted for Buchanan for President to defeat Fremont, but not
because he was my first choice. In all other elections I have universally
selected the candidates that, in my estimation, were the best fitted for
the different offices, and it never happens that such men are all arrayed
on one side. The strongest friend I had in the Board of Commissioners
is a Free Soiler but opposition between parties is so strong that he
would not vote for any one, no matter how friendly, unless at least one
of his own party would go with him. The Free Soil party felt
themselves bound to provide for one of their own party who was
defeated for the office of County Engineer; a German who came to the
West as an assistant surveyor upon the public lands, and who has held
an office ever since.
There is, I believe, but one paying office in the county held by an
American, unless you except the office of Sheriff which is held by