Mr.Ewing offered to confide to me the general management of his share of interest, and Hugh and T.E., Jr., offered me an equal copartnership in their law-firm.
Accordingly, about the 1st of September, I started for Kansas, stopping a couple of weeks in St.Louis, and reached Leavenworth.
I found about two miles below the fort, on the river-bank, where in 1851 was a tangled thicket, quite a handsome and thriving city, growing rapidly in rivalry with Kansas City, and St.Joseph, Missouri.

After looking about and consulting with friends, among them my classmate Major Stewart Van Vliet, quartermaster at the fort, I concluded to accept the proposition of Mr.Ewing, and accordingly the firm of Sherman & Ewing was duly announced, and our services to the public offered as attorneys-at-law.

We had an office on Main Street, between Shawnee and Delaware, on the second floor, over the office of Hampton Denman, Esq., mayor of the city.
This building was a mere shell, and our office was reached by a stairway on the outside.

Although in the course of my military reading I had studied a few of the ordinary law-books, such as Blackstone, Kent, Starkie, etc., I did not presume to be a lawyer; but our agreement was that Thomas Ewing, Jr., a good and thorough lawyer, should manage all business in the courts, while I gave attention to collections, agencies for houses and lands, and such business as my experience in banking had qualified me for.

Yet, as my name was embraced in a law-firm, it seemed to me proper to take out a license.