“WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, January 28, 1847.

“The President of the United States directs that paragraph 650 of the General Regulations of the Army, established the 1st of March, 1825, and not included among those published January 25, 1841, be now published, and its observance, as a part of the general regulations, be strictly enjoined upon the army.

“By order of the President.

“W.L.  MARCY, Secretary of War.”

The following is the paragraph referred to and ordered to be “published”: 

“Private letters or reports relative to military movements and operations are frequently mischievous in design, and always disgraceful to the army.  They are therefore strictly forbidden, and any officer found guilty of making such report for publication, without special permission, or of placing the writing beyond his control, so that it finds its way to the press within one month after the termination of the campaign to which it relates, shall be dismissed from the service.”

Upon the appearance in print of the two letters referred to, the commanding general issued the following: 

“HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,

“MEXICO, November 12, 1847.

“GENERAL ORDERS No. 349.

“The attention of certain officers of this army is recalled to the foregoing—­650th paragraph, 1,825 regulations—­a regulation prohibiting officers of the army from detailing in private letters or reports the movements of the army, which the general in chief is resolved to enforce so far as it may be in his power.  As yet but two echoes from home of the brilliant operations of our army in this basin have reached us—­the first in a New Orleans and the second through a Tampico newspaper.

“It requires not a little charity to believe that the principal heroes of the scandalous letters alluded to did not write them, or especially procure them to be written; and the intelligent can be at no loss in conjecturing the authors, chiefs, partisans, and pet familiars.  To the honor of the service, the disease—­pruriency of fame not earned—­can not have seized upon half a dozen officers present, all of whom, it is believed, belonged to the same two coteries.

“False credit may no doubt be attained at hand by such despicable self-puffings and malignant exclusion of others, but at the expense of the just esteem and consideration of all honorable officers who love their country, their profession, and the truth of history.  The indignation of the great number of the latter class can not fail in the end to bring down the conceited and envious to their proper level.”

The day after the publication of the above General Orders General Worth forwarded to army headquarters a communication in which he said: