On November 14, 1847, General Scott acknowledged General Worth's letter of the 13th, and said: "The General Order No. 349 was, as is pretty clearly expressed on its face, meant to apply to the letter signed 'Leonidas' in a New Orleans paper, and to the summary of two letters given in the Washington Union and copied into a Tampico paper, to the authors, aiders, and abettors of those letters, be they who they may." It may be well questioned if an officer has a right to demand of his superior in command whether or not certain expressions used in written orders apply to him. If one officer could claim this privilege another also could, until every officer in the command had interrogated the commanding officer as to the intention of words used in general orders. To comment upon and disapprove or censure the official acts of his subordinates is not only a privilege of the commanding general, but an obligation, for the maintenance of discipline and the _morale_ of the army. But any officer aggrieved by any censure or disapproval may demand a court of inquiry, which General Worth did in a letter dated November 14, 1847, addressed to General Scott, in which he says: "I have the honor to receive your letter in reply, but not in answer to mine of yesterday, handed in this morning. The General Order is too clearly expressed on its face to admit of any doubt in regard to papers, and, in public military opinion, in regard to persons. The object of my letter, as I endeavored clearly to express, was to seek to know distinctly, and with a view to further measures to protect myself, if, as is supposed, I was one of the persons referred to. Regretting the necessity for intrusion, I am compelled again respectfully to solicit an answer to that question. I ask it as an act of simple justice, which it is hoped will not be denied." To this General Scott replied through his assistant adjutant general [H.L. Scott], November 14, 1847, "that he [General Scott] can not be more explicit than in his reply through me already given; that he has nothing to do with the suspicions of others, and has no positive information as to the authorship of the letters alluded to in General Orders No. 349. If he had valid information he would immediately prosecute the parties before a general court-martial." The correspondence on this subject was terminated by General Worth in the following letter: "HEADQUARTERS FIRST DIVISION, "MEXICO, _November 14, 1847_.