I am not over sanguine of getting the appointment mentioned in my last letter.  The Board of Commissioners, who make the appointment, are divided,—­three free soilers to two opposed,—­and although friends who are recommending me are the very first citizens of this place, and members of all parties, I fear they will make strictly party nominations for all the offices under their control.  As to the professorship you speak of, that was filled some time ago.  And were it not, I would stand no earthly chance.  The Washington University, where the vacancy was to be filled, is one of the best endowed institutions in the United 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: