[6] In the 1880 census, Grissom was living in Carondelet Township, adjoining Kirkwood, Missouri, with his wife, Frances R.
[11] Grissom's initial journalistic job, in 1842 or shortly after, was with the St. Louis Evening News, where he first covered a lecture series at the library.
"[6] In September 1861, the first year of the American Civil War, he and Charles G. Ramsey, proprietor of the Evening News, were arrested and the newspaper was ordered repressed .
"[12] He continued as editor when the St. Louis Union bought the News and the name of the combined newspapers was changed to Evening Dispatch.
[4] In 1928, he recalled:[4] Douglas, styled the "Little Giant,' was a small man scarcely 5 feet 4 inches, with broad shoulders and a stalwart neck.
His very loneliness, modest bearing, air of mingled sadness and sincerity excited sympathy and won the hearts of the quiet, plain people.As a journalist with the St. Louis Evening News, Grissom was seated in the last car of the Pacific Railroad train involved in the Gasconade Bridge train disaster of 1855, in which more than thirty people were killed when a bridge collapsed under it.
We realized in a flash what must have happened—the bridge was gone—we were being pulled into the river by the weight of the cars ahead, which had already crashed over the bank!
Hardly a word was spoken as we leaned our heads upon our hands, some uttering groans and low cries of despair caused by their own sufferings or the realization of the loss of friend or relative in the disaster.
[6] Grissom was captain of Company G of the Ninth Regiment of the Enrolled Missouri Militia, which took action against Shelby in September–October 1863, fought at Booneville, Merrill’s Crossing and Dug Ford (near Jonesborough ) and Marshall in October, and was mustered out in November.
[20][21] At a large public meeting in Courthouse Square on June 17, 1865, Grissom was appointed, along with James O. Broadhead and Fred M. Kretschmar, to a committee to protest against the forcible removal of three judges from their chambers by armed men upon the order of Governor Thomas Clement Fletcher.
[21] In 1892, Grissom produced a "handsome pamphlet of eighty-four pages" for the Merchants Exchange of St. Louis in which he laid out a proposal to Congress for separating the Mississippi River from all the other inland waterways of the United States when making appropriations for improvements.
[22] Grissom's Landing on the Ohio River, ten miles below Owensboro, Kentucky, was named for him[23] or his family.