Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. III.djvu/49

 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 27 and went to St. Louis, where, on August 22, 1848, he married Miss Julia B. Dent, sister of one of his classmates. He was soon afterward ordered to Sackett s Harbor, N. Y., and in April following to Detroit, Mich. In the spring of 1851 he was again transferred to Sackett s Harbor, and on July 5, 1852, he sailed from New York with his regi ment for California via the Isthmus of Panama. While the troops were crossing the isthmus, cholera carried off one seventh of the command. Lieut. Grant was left behind in charge of the sick, on Chagres river, and displayed great skill and devo tion in caring for them and supplying means of transportation. On arriving in California, he spent a few weeks with his regiment at Benicia barracks, and then accompanied it to Fort Vancouver, Oregon. On August 5, 1853, he was promoted to the captaincy of a company stationed at Humboldt bay, Cal., and in September he went to that post. He resigned his commission, July 31, 1854, and settled on a small farm near St. Louis. He was en gaged in farming and in the real-estate business in St. Louis until May, 1860, when he removed to Galena, 111., and there became a clerk in the hard ware and leather store of his father, who in a letter to Gen. Jas. Grant Wilson, dated March 20, 1868, writes: &quot;After Ulysses s farming and real-estate experiments in St. Louis County, Mo., failed to be self-supporting, he came to me at this place