Although General Worth had served with General Scott as his aid, and the most friendly relations had heretofore existed between them, circumstances occurred in May and June, 1847, that caused an estrangement between them which was never healed.  On June 16, 1847, General Worth issued a circular at Peublo of the following purport:  “Intelligence has come to the headquarters of this division, in a form and from sources entitled to consideration, that food exhibited, and, in tempting form, for sale to the soldiers, is purposely prepared to cause sickness and ultimately death”; and he appealed to every soldier to forbear the procurement or use of such food, as ample rations were issued, and added:  “Doubtless there are among those with whom we are situated many who will not hesitate, as is the habit of cowards, to poison those from whom they habitually fly in battle—­a resource familiar in Spanish history, legitimately inherited and willingly practiced in Mexico.”

General Scott had animadverted upon the terms granted by Worth to the functionaries of the city of Puebla, about May 15, 1847, and strongly censured the circular referred to.  These reproofs induced General Worth to call for a court of inquiry, which was ordered to convene June 17, 1847, at 10 o’clock A.M.  The court met, and General Worth submitted a statement of the matters in which he deemed himself wronged by the general in chief, and to which he invited investigation.  The court gave the matters before it careful consideration on the evidence adduced and the documents submitted, and pronounced their opinions.  The court found nothing in the remarks of the general in chief in regard to General Worth’s terms to the functionaries of Puebla to which he [Worth] could take exception; “that the terms or stipulations granted by Brevet Major-General Worth to the functionaries of the city of Puebla upon his entrance with his advance of the army on the 15th of May last were unnecessarily yielded, improvident, and in effect detrimental to the public service,” and continues:  “The court, as required, further declares its opinion that the ‘circular’ published by Brevet Major-General Worth to his division, dated Puebla, June 16, 1847, was highly improper and extremely objectionable in many respects, especially as it might tend, by exasperating the whole Mexican nation, to thwart the well-known pacific policy of the United States, and, in view of the high source from which it emanated, to disturb the friendly relations of our Government with Spain, or at least give occasion to that power to call for explanations or apologies.  The barbarous offense against which that ‘circular’ warned the soldiers of the First Division, if it exists at all, equally affected the whole army.  The information obtained by General Worth, if worthy of notice, should therefore have been communicated to the general in chief, that he might have exercised his discretion on the means to be adopted for correcting the evil.  With these views of the ‘circular’ alluded to the court is of the opinion that it called for the ‘emphatic admonition’ and rebuke of the general in chief.”