William A. Crafts, Life of Ulysses S. Grant: His Boyhood, Campaigns, and Services, Military and Civil.

[18] and was quite as content to be called Farmer Grant as Captain Grant, though generally known by the latter title. He carried the produce of his farm to market himself, and might often have been seen driving his laden team through the streets of St. Louis or other river towns, and loading or unloading his wagon with a careless independence of all observers. He was reticent and modest, attended to his own affairs, and never troubled himself about those of other people, unless his advice or opinion was sought. He cared little for politics, and still less for parties, though he always felt the genuine patriotism which he had manifested by his service in the field. But with all his rough work, and his neglect of affairs which engross so much of the attention of men in this country, he did not forget his old studies, or the culture of his mind.

Thus he lived for some years, plodding on with characteristic perseverance in an occupation which, however honorable, was not always remunerative. But in 1860 he embraced the opportunity of entering what promised to be a more lucrative business, and engaged in the leather trade with his father and brother at Galena, Illinois. This was another business for which he was fitted by his early experience in his father's tannery, as he was also fitted for any business by his characteristic perseverance and fidelity to duties. He brought to it his usual quiet energy, and the plans of a well-disciplined mind, and was undoubtedly an acquisition to the firm. What he might have been in this new pursuit it is impossible to say, except that he