Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/330

 274 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS incensed by the occasional issue of orders from the war department directly to his subordinate officers; such orders sometimes stupidly thwarted his plans. The usual course for a commanding general thus annoyed would be to make a private representation to the government; but here, as ordinarily, while quite right in his position, Jackson was violent and overbearing in his methods. He published, April 22, 1817, an order forbidding his subordinate offi cers to pay heed to any order from the war depart ment unless issued through him. Mr. Calhoun, who in October succeeded Crawford as secretary of war, gracefully yielded the point; but the public had meanwhile been somewhat scandalized by the collision of authorities. In private conversation Gen. Scott had alluded to Jackson s conduct as savoring of mutiny. This led to an angry corre spondence between the two generals, ending in a challenge from Jackson, which Scott declined on the ground that duelling is a wicked and unchris tian custom. Affairs in Florida now demanded attention. That country had become a nest of outlaws, and chaos reigned supreme there. Many of the de feated Creeks had found a refuge in Florida, and runaway negroes from the plantations of Georgia and South Carolina were continually escaping thither. During the late war British officers and adventurers, acting on their own responsibility