his last year at the academy, F. T. Dent. One of Dent's sisters
was a young lady of seventeen, educated at a St. Louis boarding school.
After she returned to her home in the late winter young Grant found the
Dent homestead more attractive than ever.

This was the time of the agitation regarding the annexation of Texas, a
policy to which young Grant was strongly hostile. About May 1 of the
next year, 1844, some of the troops at the barracks were ordered to New
Orleans. Grant, thinking his own regiment might go soon, got a
twenty-days leave to visit his home. He had hardly arrived when by a
letter from a fellow officer he learned that the Fourth had started to
follow the Third, and that his belongings had been forwarded. It was
then that he became conscious of the real nature of his feeling for
Julia Dent. His leave required him to report to Jefferson Barracks, and
although he knew his regiment had gone, he construed the orders
literally and returned there, staying only long enough to declare his
love and learn that it was reciprocated. The secret was not made known
to the parents of the young lady until the next year, when he returned
on a furlough to see her. For three years longer they were separated,
while he was winning honor and promotion. After peace was declared, and
the regiment had returned to the States, they were married. She shared
all his vicissitudes of fortune until his death. Their life together was
one in which wifely faith and duty failed not, nor did he fail to honor
and esteem her above all women. Whatever his weaknesses, infidelity in
domestic affection was not one of them. In all relations of a personal
character he reciprocated trust with the whole tenacity of his nature.

In Louisiana the regiment encamped on high ground near the Sabine River,
not far from the old town of Natchitoches. The camp was named Camp
Salubrity. In Grant's case, certainly, the name was justified. There he
got rid of the cough that had fastened upon him at West Point and had
caused fears that he would early fall a victim to consumption. In
Louisiana he was restored to perfect, lusty health, fit for any exertion
or privation. He was regarded as a modest and amiable lieutenant of no
great promise. The regiment was moved to Corpus Christi, a trading and
smuggling port. There the army of occupation (of Texas) was slowly
collected, consisting of about three thousand men, commanded by General
Zachary Taylor. Mexico still claimed