"The achievement which we now propose to honor richly deserves it. Seldom, sir, in the annals of military history has there been one in which desperate daring and military skill were more happily combined. The enemy selected his own ground, and united to the advantage of a strong position a numerical majority of three to one. Driven from his first position by an attack in which it is hard to say whether professional skill or manly courage is to be more admired, he retired and posted his artillery on a narrow defile, to sweep the ground over which our troops were compelled to pass. There, posted in strength three times greater than our own, they waited the approach of our gallant little army. "General Taylor knew the danger and destitution of the band he left to hold his camp opposite Matamoras, and he paused for no regular approaches, but opened his field artillery, and dashed with sword and bayonet on the foe. A single charge left him master of their battery, and the number of slain attests the skill and discipline of his army. Mr. D. referred to a gentleman who, a short time since, expressed extreme distrust in our army, and poured out the vials of his denunciation upon the graduates of the Military Academy, He hoped now the gentleman will withdraw these denunciations; that now he will learn the value of military science; that he will see, in the location, the construction, the defenses of the bastioned field-works opposite Matamoras, the utility, the necessity of a military education. Let him compare the few men who held that with the army who assailed it; let him mark the comparative safety with which they stood within that temporary work; let him consider why the guns along its ramparts were preserved, whilst they silenced the batteries of the enemy; why that intrenchment stands unharmed by Mexican shot, whilst its guns have crumbled the stone walls in Matamoras to the ground, and then say whether he believes a blacksmith or a tailor could have secured the same results. He trusted the gentleman would be convinced that arms, like every occupation, requires to be studied before it can be understood; and from these things to which he had called his attention, he will learn the power and advantage of military science. He would make but one other allusion to the remarks of the gentleman he had noticed, who said nine-tenths of the graduates of the Military Academy abandoned the service of the United States. If he would take the trouble to examine the records upon this point, he doubted not he would be surprised at the extent of his mistake. There he would learn that a majority of all the graduates are still in service; and if he would push his inquiry a little further, he would find that a large majority of the commissioned officers who bled in the action of the 8th and 9th were graduates of that academy.