You know that, besides the national institution for discipline in the art of war, there are smaller schools of a similar character in several of the States, besides private enterprises of great merit. The Academy at Alexandria was organized in 1860, and, intended to accommodate two hundred cadets. Whether the State had reference to the possibility of a collision with the Government in this preparatory work we do not know, but are sure that the chief officer had no thought of serving the cause of revolt in taking its management. The town is situated on the Red River, nearly in the centre of the State, three hundred and fifty miles from New Orleans, which lies southeast of it, and down the Mississippi. Louisiana is a great cotton-growing State, and Alexandria is in one of the richest portions of the wide plains skirting the stream which poured its flood into the magnificent tide of the “Father of Waters.” It is beautifully situated in the midst of cotton plantations, which, like snow-fields in summer, spread away in every direction from the village. Here the professor was directing his genius and attainments to carry out the wishes of the founders of the school, when the first ominous sounds of rebellion followed the election of Abraham Lincoln. He knew the Southern feeling well. The intercourse with the people of the cotton States, from the association at West Point with their sons to that hour, convinced him of what we at the North were slow to believe, that they were determined to have their own way or _fight_. His clear judgment and forecast caught the signal of revolution in the stormy councils and secession resolutions which succeeded the political revolution. The evil spirit of rebellion was in the very atmosphere about him. There was hot blood, even in the recitation-rooms of the Academy. The year 1860 closed over a purpose which had slowly but steadily matured, to leave the institution in which he had just begun to feel at home, and was fully qualified to manage. It had cost him anxious thought. But far in advance, as he has been ever since, in his views of the true issue—the men and the measures we must meet—he was sure a sanguinary struggle was at hand. It saddened his heart, but nerved his strong hand to grasp the starry banner and enter the arena of carnage and victory. Thus decided in his convictions and loyalty, he did not wait for the thunder of cannon around Fort Sumter. He wrote the following manly, strong, and patriotic letter, which tells its own glorious story: “JANUARY 18, 1861. “GOV. THOMAS O. MOORE, BATON ROUGE, LA.