Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, 1857-78. Ulysses S. Grant
22nd, 1857.
DEAR SISTER:
Your letter was received on last Tuesday, the only day in the week on which we get mail, and this is the earliest opportunity I have had of posting a letter.
I am glad to hear that mother and Jennie intend making us a visit. I would advise them to come by the river if they prefer it. Write to me beforehand about the time you will start, and from Louisville again, what boat you will be on, direct to St. Louis—not Sappington, P.O.—and I will meet you at the river or Planter's House, or wherever you direct.
We are all very well. Julia contemplates visiting St. Charles next Saturday to spend a few days. She has never been ten miles from home, except to come to the city, since her visit to Covington.
I have nothing in particular to write about. My hard work is now over for the season with a fair prospect of being remunerated in everything but the wheat. My wheat, which would have produced from four to five hundred bushels with a good winter, has yielded only seventy-five. My oats were good, and the corn, if not injured by frost this fall, will be the best I ever raised. My potato crop bids fair to yield fifteen hundred bushels or more. Sweet potatoes, melons and cabbages are the only other articles I am raising for market. In fact, the oats and corn I shall not sell.
I see I have written a part of this letter as if I intended to direct to one, and part as if to the other of you; but you will understand it, so it makes no difference.
Write to me soon and often. Julia wears black. I had forgotten to answer that part of your letter.
Your affectionate Brother,
ULYSS.
P.S. Tell father that I have this moment seen Mr. Ford, just from Sacketts Harbor, who informs me that while there he enquired of Mr. Bagley about my business with Camp, and learns from him that the account should be acted upon immediately. Camp is now at Governor's Island, N.Y., and intends sailing soon for Oregon. If he is stopped he may be induced to disgorge. Tell father to forward the account immediately.
U.
[White Haven was the name of the Dent homestead near St. Louis. Grant has rented out his own farm, and taken that of his father-in-law.
Written to his sister Mary.]
White Haven,
March 21st, 1858.
DEAR SISTER:
Your letter was received one week ago last Tuesday, and I would have answered it by the next mail but it so happened that there was not a sheet of paper about the house, and as Spring has now set in, I do not leave the farm except in cases of urgent necessity. Father's letter, enclosing Mr. Bagley's relative to the Camp business, was received one or two weeks earlier, and promptly answered. My reply was long, giving a detailed account of my whole transactions with Camp, and a copy of which Father can have to peruse when he comes along this way next.
Julia and her children are all well and talk of making you a visit next fall—but I hardly think they will go. But if any of you, except Father, should visit us this spring, or early summer, Julia says that Fred. may go home with you to spend a few months. She says she would be afraid to let him travel with Father alone; she has an idea that he is so absent-minded that if he were to arrive in Cincinnati at night he would be just as apt as not to walk out of the cars and be gone for an hour before he would recollect that he had a child with him. I have no such fears however. Fred does not read yet, but he will, I think, in a few weeks. We have no school within a mile and a half, and that is too far to send him in the winter season. I shall commence sending him soon however. In the meantime I have no doubt but that he is learning faster at home. Little Ellen is growing very fast, and talks now quite plainly. Jesse R. is growing very rapidly, is very healthy and, they say, is the best looking child among the four. I don't think however there is much difference between them in that respect.
Emma Dent is talking of visiting her relatives in Ohio and Penna this Summer, and if she does, she will stop a time with you. Any talk of any of us visiting you, must not stop you from coming to see us. The whole family here are fond of planning visits, but poor in the execution of their plans. It may take two seasons yet before any of these visits are made; in the meantime, we are anxious to see all of you. For my part I do not know when I shall ever be able to leave home long enough for a visit. I may possibly be able to go on a flying visit next fall. I am anxious to make one more visit home before I get old.
This Spring has opened finely for farming and I hope to do well; but I shall wait until the crops are gathered before I make any predictions. I have now three negro men, two hired by the year and one of Mr. Dent's, which, with my own help, I think, will enable me to do my farming pretty well with assistance in harvest. I have however a large farm. I shall have about twenty acres of potatoes, twenty of corn, twenty-five of oats, fifty of wheat, twenty-five of meadow, some clover, Hungarian grass and other smaller products, all of which require labor before they are got into 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.]
St. Louis,