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,