Early in December, 1846, all of the regular infantry was withdrawn from General Taylor’s army and ordered to report to Major-General Winfield Scott, the Commander-in-Chief, who had assumed command in person of the fourth great column of attack, whose objective point was the Capital of Mexico, and which was entitled, “The Army of Mexico.” General Taylor’s army was thus reduced to only 4,500 men consisting altogether of volunteers, except three batteries of the regular army, and two squadrons of the 2nd Dragoons. Its numerical weakness invited attack, and General Santa Anna, the most renowned and skilful of the Mexican Commanders, and President of the Republic of Mexico, who had won a decisive victory over the French Army of invasion nine years before, moved his army against it. That army, according to the Mexican official reports, numbered twenty three thousand, two-thirds regular soldiers. General Taylor decided to accept battle, and selected a position admirably adapted for defence at the Rancho Buena Vista. The position was marked by narrow defiles, and rugged and high ridges, that commanded the valley below. The battle began at daylight on February 23rd, 1846, by the attack of the enemy in force on our left flank. It was gallantly repulsed by the fire of the second and 3rd Indiana Riflemen, and a company of Col. Yell’s dismounted Arkansas Cavalry, with Bragg’s and Shermann’s splendidly served batteries, diverged to our left, where the enemy was concentrating for a decisive attack. The extreme left of our line was posted on a high and broad plateau and was composed of the 2nd Indiana, and 2nd Illinois regiments of infantry. The tremendous impact of that attack forced those regiments to retire in considerable disorder after they had sustained for some time a severe cross-fire of artillery, and a heavy fire on their front, by a greatly superior force of infantry. At that crisis of the battle the 1st Mississipi Rifles, the only regiment of that army that was armed with rifles having percussion locks, commanded by Colonel Jefferson Davis, promptly interposed between the retreating regiments, and the charging Mexican cavalry, and doubtless saved the day by their rapid and effective firing, before which the enemy recoiled. There are veterans of Buena Vista, who, though in after years they still remained true to the flag of their country, and struck in its just defence on fields “shot-sown and bladed thick with steel,” do not feel that they sully their loyalty in respectfully saluting Jefferson Davis, _as he was_, recalling him to memory as with tall heroic form he so gallantly upheld the starry ensign of the Union upon the steady and blazing line that sheltered the brave but broken columns of Illinois and Indiana, from the uplifted sabres of a merciless foe. The art of dying at the right time is the art preservative of great reputations.