position at Washington making arrangements and preparations for the campaign. In his reply Scott endeavored to explain that those portions of his communication which had given offence were intended to apply to Marcy and the president's advisers,[1] and disclaimed all intention of attributing, either to the president or the secretary of war, any unworthy motives.[2] He concluded by expressing the wish to be retained in command. But the president saw no reason to change his mind, and though Scott, in a further letter on the 27th to the secretary of war, appealed to the justice of the president and the rights of senior rank, Marcy, by letter of the 8th of June, informed Taylor of his assignment to the command, and the president's intention to continue him in it.
Had not congress called for this correspondence and published it, the supersedure of Scott miglht have been regarded by the nation as an injustice; but when the particulars became known it was indorsed by public opinion, which was biased, however, by the ridicule ungenerously heaped upon him by his enemies, to whom he gave an unfortunate opportunity of displaying their malignity by an unlucky expression in one of his letters.
Taylor's position at Matamoros was not an enviable He was embarrassed by the arrival of volunteers in numbers far exceeding his requisitions; he was crippled in his movements by the want of means of transportation; he was perplexed by discrepant instructions from Washington, and by the indecision of the government as to the plan of the campaign; and lastly, he felt his responsibility increased by not being one.
- ↑ 'I beg as an act of justice, no less to myself than the president, to sayI meant "impatience" and even "pre-condemnation" on your part, and the known, open, and violent condemnation of me on the part of several leading friends and supposed confidants of the president, in the two houses of congress.' Id., pp. 12-13.
- ↑ 'But I have, for many days, believed that you have allowed yourself to be influenced against me, by the clamor of some of the friends to whom I have alluded.' Ib.
