The heroes who have fought our country’s battles:  may their services be appreciated by a grateful people.

Loud calls being made for Col.  Jefferson Davis, that gentleman arose and said: 

The sentiment to which he was called to respond excited memories which called up proud emotions, though their associations were sad.  He could not reply to a compliment paid to the gallantry of his comrades in the war with Mexico, without remembering how many of them now mingle with the dust of a foreign land, and how many of them have sunk after the day of toil was done by reason of the exposure endured in the service of their country.  The land has mourned, and still mourns, the fall of its bravest and best, and truly are our laurels mingled with the cypress, ’tis well, and ’tis wise, ’tis natural and ’tis proper, that in looking on the laurels of our glory we should pause to pay a tribute to the cypress which weeps over them, and having paid this tribute to the gallant dead, the memory of whose service can never die, we pass to the consideration of their acts, and the beneficial results which their sacrifices have secured.  When that war begun, our history recorded evidence only of the power of our people for defence.  The Fabian policy of Washington, admirably adapted to the condition of the Colonies, achieved so much in proportion to the means, that he would be rash indeed who should attempt to criticise it.  The prudent, though daring course of Jackson, fruitful as it was of the end to be attained, did not yet serve to illustrate the capacity of our people for the trials and the struggles attendant on the operations of an invasive war.  Hence it was commonly asserted that the American people, though they might resist attack, were powerless to redress aggression which was not connected with the invasion of their territory.  The idea of reliance upon undisciplined militia was treated with contempt and derision.  To borrow a simile from the pit, we were regarded as dung-hill soldiers, who would only fight at home.  In the war with Mexico our armies carried their banners over routes hitherto unknown, through mountain passes where nature had almost completed the work of defence, and penetrated further into the enemy’s country than any European army has ever marched from the source of its supplies.  Not to prolong the comparison by a reference to events of a remote period, he would only refer to the last campaign in European war.  The combined armies of France and England, after preparation worthy of their great military power, advanced through friendly territory to the outer verge of the country, against which they directed a war of invasion, and after a prolonged siege by sea and by land, finally captured a seaport town which they could not hold.  Before them lay the country they had come to invade, but there, at the outer gate, their march was arrested, and in sight of the ships which brought them supplies and reinforcements, they terminated a campaign, the