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.

“SIR:  It is due to official courtesy and propriety that I acknowledge your letter No. 2, in answer to mine of this date; and in doing so, and in closing this correspondence with the headquarters of the army, I beg permission to say, and with regret, that I have received no satisfactory answer to the just and rightful inquiries which I have addressed to the general in chief; but inasmuch as I know myself to be deeply aggrieved and wronged, it only remains to go by appeal, as I shall do through the prescribed channels, to the constitutional commander in chief.

“The general in chief is pleased to say through you that he has nothing to do with the suspicion of others, and that he has no positive information as to authorship, etc., granted.  But has not the manner in which the general in chief has been pleased to treat the case established—­whether designedly or not remains to be seen—­an equivocal public sentiment on the subject?  There are always enough of that peculiar pestilential species who exist upon the breath of authority to catch up the whisperings of fancy and infect a whole military community.  I do not design to be stifled under the miasma of such, nor stricken down in my advanced age, without an effort to convince my friends that I scorn to wear ’honor not earned.’  Your obedient servant,

“W.J.  WORTH, Brevet Major General.”

Following this, General Worth prepared the following communication, and sent it to army headquarters: