Louis, and as
first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster, with a brevet of captain,
he served at Sackett's Harbor and Detroit alternately till June 1852,
when he was ordered to the coast. This was a genuine hardship, for he
was unable to take his wife and child with him; but he concluded to
remain in the army, and went with his command, sailing from New York and
passing by the way of the Isthmus. On the way across the Isthmus the
regiment encountered cholera, and all Grant's coolness, resource, and
bravery were required to get his charge safely across. "He seemed never
to think of himself, and appeared to be a man of iron," his companions
said.

He was regimental quartermaster at Fort Vancouver, near Portland,
Oregon, for one year. In 1853 he was promoted to a captaincy and ordered
to Fort Humboldt, near Eureka in California. In 1854, becoming
disheartened by the never-ending vista of barrack life, and despairing
of being able to have his wife and children with him, he sent in his
resignation, to take effect July 31st, 1854. He had lost money by
unfortunate business ventures, and so returned forlorn and penniless to
New York. Thence he made his way to St. Louis to his wife and children,
and began the world again as a farmer, without a house or tools or
horses.

His father-in-law, Mr. Frederick Dent, who lived about ten miles out of
the city, set aside some sixty or eighty acres of land for his use, and
thereon he built with his own hands a log cabin, which he called
"Hardscrabble." For nearly four years he lived the life of a farmer. He
plowed, hoed, cleared the land, hauled wood and props to the mines, and
endured all the hardships and privations of a small farmer. In 1858 his
health gave way, and he moved to St. Louis in the attempt to get into
some less taxing occupation. He tried for the position of county
engineer, and failed. He went into the real estate business with a
friend, and failed in that. He secured a place in the customs office,
but the collector died and he was thrown out of employment.

In the spring of 1860, despairing of getting a foothold in St. Louis, he
removed to Galena, Illinois, where his father had established a leather
store, a branch of his tannery in Covington, Kentucky. Here he came in
touch again with his two brothers, Simpson and Orvil Grant. He became a
clerk at a salary of six hundred dollars per annum. At this time he was
a quiet man of middle age, and his manner and mode of li