It must have been under a painful stress of duty that General Scott
preferred charges against General Worth; they had been friends for
over thirty years, and the latter had been aid-de-camp to the former.
Worth was the first general officer ordered from General Taylor's army
to report to General Scott on his arrival in Mexico.
It was shown that General Pillow had given a written account of the
battles of Contreras and Churubusco to the correspondent of a
newspaper about August 25th, expressing a desire that it should go off
with first impressions and form a part of the correspondent's letter.
The general told the correspondent he had prepared it for him. The
latter examined the paper submitted by the general, found it incorrect
in many details, and did not send it as requested. When, however, the
mail from New Orleans brought the newspaper with the "Leonidas
letter," the correspondent compared the letter with the memorandum or
statement given him by Pillow and pronounced them almost identical.
The arrest of General Pillow was ordered. He was charged: 1. With a
violation of a general regulation or standing order of the army. 2.
With conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
The specification to the first charge was, that he [Pillow] wrote or
caused to be written an account of military operations between the
United States forces and those of the Republic of Mexico, August 19,
1847, in and about Contreras and Churubusco, in which operations said
Pillow bore a part, and which account was designed by said Pillow and
in due time, over the signature of "Leonidas," partially printed and
published in the New Orleans Delta of September 10, 1847, and
reprinted entire in the Bulletin and the Daily Picayune of the 15th
and 16th of the same month, all this pending the campaign between the
forces before mentioned. There were eight different specifications to
the second charge, and under the first there were eight different
items or headings. The specifications cover eleven printed pages.
Their substance and effect was that General Pillow's account was not
correct in the very many particulars specified.[B]
Colonel Duncan was charged: 1. With violation of the 650th paragraph
(revised), General Regulations of the Army; and the specification
cited the "Tampico letter," which he confessed to have written. The
second charge had relation solely to matters of fact set forth in the
"Tampico letter."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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