tt. Scott ended his brilliant
campaign in a flagrant quarrel with the Secretary of War, and was
summoned home peremptorily with the prospect of a court-martial.
He was ordered to leave General William O. Butler, a Democratic
general, in command of the army in the city of Mexico after resistance
had ceased.

DEMOCRATIC OFFICERS IN MEXICAN WAR.

The administration had obviously endeavored from the first to create
a Democratic hero out of the war. Authorized to appoint a large
number of officers in the increased military force, raised directly
by the United States, an unjust discrimination was made in favor
of Democrats. Thus William O. Butler, John A. Quitman, and Gideon
J. Pillow, prominent Democratic leaders in their respective States,
were appointed Major-generals directly from civil life. Joseph
Lane, James Shields, Franklin Pierce, George Cadwalader, Caleb
Cushing, Enos D. Hopping, and Sterling Price, were selected for
the high rank of Brigadier-general. Not one Whig was included,
and not one of the Democratic appointees had seen service in the
field, or possessed the slightest pretension to military education.
Such able graduates of West Point as Henry Clay, jun., and William
R. McKee, were compelled to seek service through State appointments
in volunteer regiments, while Albert Sidney Johnston, subsequently
proved to be one of the ablest commanders ever sent from the Military
Academy, could not obtain a commission from the General Government.
In the war between Mexico and Texas, by which the latter had secured
its independence, Johnston had held high command, and was perhaps
the best equipped soldier, both by education and service, to be
found in the entire country outside the regular army at the time
of the Mexican war. General Taylor urged the President to give
Johnston command of one of the ten new regiments. Johnston took
no part in politics; but his eminent brother, Josiah Stoddard
Johnston, long a senator from Louisiana, was Mr. Clay's most intimate
friend in public life, and General Taylor's letter was not even
answered. The places were wanted for adherents of the administration,
and Tibbatts of Kentucky, Jere Clemens of Alabama, Milledge L.
Bonham of South Carolina, Seymour of Connecticut, and men of that
grade,--eminent in civil life, active partisans, but with no military
training,--were preferred to the most experienced soldiers. This
fact disfigures th