market, and the money realized upon them.  You are aware, I believe, that I have rented out my place and have taken Mr. Dent’s.  There are about two hundred acres of ploughed land on it and I shall have, in a few weeks, about two hundred and fifty acres of woods pasture fenced up besides.  Only one side of it and a part of another has to be fenced to take the whole of it in, and the rails are all ready.  I must close with the wish that some of you would visit us as early as possible.  In your letter you ask when my note in bank becomes due.  The seventeenth of Apl. is the last day of grace when it must be paid.

Give Julia’s, the children’s, and my love to all at home and write soon.

Your Brother

Ulysses.

[When a boy Grant suffered severely from fever and ague.  This attack now lasted a year and was probably a factor in determining him to give up farming.

To his sister Mary.]

St. Louis, Mo.,
Sept. 7th, 1858.

Dear sister: 

Your letter was received in due time and I should have answered it immediately, but that I had mailed a letter from Julia to Jennie the morning of the receipt of yours.  I thought then to wait for two or three weeks; by that time there was so much sickness in my family, and Freddy so dangerously ill, that I thought I would not write until his fate was decided.  He was nearly taken from us by the bilious, then by the typhoid fever; but he is now convalescing.  Some seven of the negroes have been sick.  Mrs. Sharp is here on a visit, and she and one of her children are sick; and Julia and I are both sick with chills and fever.  If I had written to you earlier it would have been whilst Fred’s case was a doubtful one, and I did not want to distress you when it could have done no good to anyone.—­I have been thinking of paying you a visit this fall, but I now think it extremely doubtful whether I shall be able to.  Not being able to even attend to my hands, much less work myself, I am getting behindhand, so that I shall have to stay here and attend to my business.  Cannot some of you come and pay us a visit?  Jennie has not answered Julia’s letter yet.  Did she receive it?  I was coming to the city the day it was written to hear a political speech, and it was too late to get it in the post office, so I gave it to a young man to put in the next morning.  It is for this reason I asked the question.

Write to me soon.  I hope you have had none of the sickness we have been troubled with.

Your Brother,

Ulysses.

To Mary F. Grant,
Covington, Ky.

[Soon after the date of this letter Grant sold at auction his stock, crops, and farming implements, and gave up farming.  His father, Jesse Root Grant, had founded a leather store in Galena with the expectation of establishing his three sons in the business, and withdrawing from all connection with it himself.  It is this business opportunity that is referred to here with characteristic independence, “I should prefer your offer to any one of mere salary that could be offered.”  But it was not until May, 1860, that he went to Galena, nominally as a clerk, in reality as a future partner in the business.]