Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/205

Rh Duncan's motives were different again. He was intimate with Worth; and Pillow, who offered to marry the Colonel to a rich and handsome widow, doubtless promised him the post of inspector general. At any rate he urged Polk to make the appointment, hinting at other reasons than mere qualifications, and it was made; and we know that Duncan gave himself much trouble to assist Pillow as a partisan supporter. The power of such a combination, headed by the President himself, to gather adherents from the many ambitious officers hardly needs to be pointed out; and finally there were, of course, jealous and envious men. "Since we cannot attain to greatness, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it," said Montaigne for the benefit of such persons; and many of the officers knew that greatness was beyond their powers. None of them could monologue as Scott did; none could look in a cocked hat as he looked; none had won the Mexican war; and, moreover, he was the sole general-in-chief.

The result was a powerful movement against the prestige and authority properly belonging to Scott. Pillow's reports on the battles of Contreras and Chapultepec tended to represent the General as a nonentity; and Worth not only did somewhat the same, but referred to the Commander in terms of ridicule and contempt. A letter, doubtless written directly or indirectly by Pillow over the signature of "Leonidas," extolling Pillow shamelessly and belittling Scott, was trickily worked into the New Orleans Delta of September 10, 1847; and another letter, containing a passage intended to show that Worth and Duncan had saved Scott from choosing the wrong approach to the capital, appeared in the United States, then in a Tampico newspaper and finally at Mexico City. Both letters were grossly improper, especially since the army lay in the enemy's country; and Scott found it necessary to act. As he well said, "The general-in-chief who once submits to an outrage from a junior, must lay his account to suffer the like from all the vicious under him," and "even the great mass of the spirited, intelligent, and well affected, among his brothers in arms, would soon reduce such commander to utter imbecility, by holding him in just scorn and contempt" for his recreancy to himself and the country.

On November 12, therefore, he issued his General Orders