ate on the trial of a colonel charged with gross
negligence in discipline and administration. By dilatory pleas this
officer had several times escaped justice, but on this trial he was
found guilty and censured. In the winter of 1811-'12 Scott was
frequently on staff duty with General Wade Hampton at New Orleans, and
while there saw the first steam vessel that ever floated on the
Mississippi.

On May 20, 1812, Captain Scott embarked at New Orleans for Washington
_via_ Baltimore, accompanying General Hampton and Lieutenant Charles
K. Gardner. As the vessel on which they had taken passage entered near
the Capes of Virginia it passed a British frigate lying off the bar.
In a short time they met a Hampton pilot boat going out to sea. This
was on June 29th, and this pilot boat bore dispatches to Mr.
Mansfield, the British Minister at Washington, announcing that
Congress had two days before declared war against Great Britain. The
vessel bearing Captain Scott and his companions went aground about
sixteen miles from Baltimore, and he and some others undertook the
remainder of the journey on foot. At the end of the fourth mile they
passed an enthusiastic militia meeting which had just received a copy
of the declaration of war. Scott, having on a uniform, was made the
hero of the occasion, and was chosen to read the declaration to the
meeting. He was here offered a seat in a double gig to Baltimore, but
the driver, who had become intoxicated, overturned the gig twice, when
Scott took the reins and drove the latter part of the journey. On his
arrival at Baltimore he received the pleasing intelligence that he had
been appointed a lieutenant colonel in the United States army. He was
then in his twenty-sixth year.

He went with General Hampton to Washington, where the general asked
him to accompany him on an official visit to the Secretary of War. An
unpleasant correspondence had a short time previously occurred between
the general and the secretary, yet he felt it his duty to make the
call. On General Hampton's name being announced to the secretary the
latter appeared at the door and extended his hand, while General
Hampton simply bowed and crossed his hands behind him. A conversation
on official matters was held, at first formal and cold, but gradually
terminating in one of a friendly character. When General Hampton rose
to leave he extended to the secretary both of his hands; but it was
now the latter's turn, and he bowed and pl