The President, however, was no longer satisfied with indecision and excuses, and telegraphed to Buell on January 7: "Please name as early a day as you safely can on or before which you can be ready to move southward in concert with Major-General Halleck. Delay is ruining us, and it is indispensable for me to have something definite. I send a like despatch to Major-General Halleck." To this Buell made no direct reply, while Halleck answered that he had asked Buell to designate a date for a demonstration, and explained two days later: "I can make, with the gunboats and available troops, a pretty formidable demonstration, but no real attack." In point of fact, Halleck had on the previous day, January 6, written to Brigadier-General U.S. Grant: "I wish you to make a demonstration in force": and he added full details, to which Grant responded on January 8: "Your instructions of the sixth were received this morning, and immediate preparations made for carrying them out"; also adding details on his part. Ulysses S. Grant was born on April 27, 1822, was graduated from West Point in 1843, and brevetted captain for gallant conduct in the Mexican War; but resigned from the army and was engaged with his father in a leather store at Galena, Illinois, when the Civil War broke out. Employed by the governor of Illinois a few weeks at Springfield to assist in organizing militia regiments under the President's first call, Grant wrote a letter to the War Department at Washington tendering his services, and saying: "I feel myself competent to command a regiment, if the President in his judgment should see fit to intrust one to me." For some reason, never explained, this letter remained unanswered, though the department was then and afterward in constant need of educated and experienced officers. A few weeks later, however, Governor Yates commissioned him colonel of one of the Illinois three years' regiments. From that time until the end of 1861, Grant, by constant and specially meritorious service, rose in rank to brigadier-general and to the command of the important post of Cairo, Illinois, having meanwhile, on November 7, won the battle of Belmont on the Missouri shore opposite Columbus.