nited States, and all the professorships are sought after by
persons whose early advantages were the 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