allant troops.

This army has been more disgusted than surprised that by some
sinister process on the part of certain individuals at home, its
numbers have been, generally, almost trebled in our public
papers, beginning at Washington.

Leaving, as we all feared, inadequate garrisons at Vera Cruz,
Perote, and Puebla, with much larger hospitals; and being
obliged, most reluctantly, from the same cause (general (p. 333)
paucity of numbers) to abandon Jalapa, we marched (August 7-10)
from Puebla with only 10,738 rank and file. This number includes
the garrison of Jalapa, and the 2,429 men brought up by
Brigadier-General Pierce, August 6.

At Contreras, Churubusco, etc. (August 20), we had but 8,497 men
engaged, after deducting the garrison of San Augustin (our
general depot), the intermediate sick and the dead; at the
Molinos del Rey (September 8), but three brigades, with some
cavalry and artillery, making in all 3,251 men, were in battle;
in the two days, September 12th and 13th, our whole operating
force, after deducting again the recent killed, wounded, and
sick, together with the garrison of Miscoac (the then general
depot) and that of Tacubaya, was but 7,180; and, finally, after
deducting the new garrison of Chapultepec, with the killed and
wounded of the two days, we took possession (September 14th) of
this great capital with less than 6,000 men. And I re-assert,
upon accumulated and unquestionable evidence, that, in not one of
those conflicts was this army opposed by fewer than three and a
half times its numbers, in several of them, by a yet greater
excess. I recapitulate our losses since we arrived in the basin
of Mexico.

_August 19-20._ Killed, 137, including 14 officers. Wounded, 877,
including 62 officers. Missing (probably killed), 38 rank and
file. Total 1,052.

_September 8._ Killed, 116, including 9 officers. Wounded, 665,
including 49 officers. Missing, 18 rank and file. Total 789.

_September 12, 13, 14._ Killed, 130, including 10 officers.
Wounded, 703, including 68 officers. Missing, 29 rank and file.
Total 862.

Grand total of losses, 2,703, including 383 officers.

On the other hand, this small force has beaten on the same
occasions in view of their capital, the whole Mexican army, of
(at