years and three months. In May, 1845, I procured a leave for twenty
days, visited St. Louis, and obtained the consent of the parents for the
union, which had not been asked for before.

As already stated, it was never my intention to remain in the army long,
but to prepare myself for a professorship in some college. Accordingly,
soon after I was settled at Jefferson Barracks, I wrote a letter to
Professor Church--Professor of Mathematics at West Point--requesting him
to ask my designation as his assistant, when next a detail had to be
made. Assistant professors at West Point are all officers of the army,
supposed to be selected for their special fitness for the particular
branch of study they are assigned to teach. The answer from Professor
Church was entirely satisfactory, and no doubt I should have been
detailed a year or two later but for the Mexican War coming on.
Accordingly I laid out for myself a course of studies to be pursued in
garrison, with regularity, if not persistency. I reviewed my West Point
course of mathematics during the seven months at Jefferson Barracks, and
read many valuable historical works, besides an occasional novel. To
help my memory I kept a book in which I would write up, from time to
time, my recollections of all I had read since last posting it. When
the regiment was ordered away, I being absent at the time, my effects
were packed up by Lieutenant Haslett, of the 4th infantry, and taken
along. I never saw my journal after, nor did I ever keep another,
except for a portion of the time while travelling abroad. Often since a
fear has crossed my mind lest that book might turn up yet, and fall into
the hands of some malicious person who would publish it. I know its
appearance would cause me as much heart-burning as my youthful
horse-trade, or the later rebuke for wearing uniform clothes.

The 3d infantry had selected camping grounds on the reservation at Fort