[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 my expenses will be reduced so
much that a very moderate salary will support me. If I could get the