a self-sustaining machine, as I informed everybody, including the head of the War Department, and advance to Puebla.
It was in reference to the foregoing serious causes of complaint, and others to be found in my reports at large, particularly in respect to money for the disbursing staff officers, clothing, and M. Trist, Commissioner, that I concluded my report from Puebla, June 4th, in these words:
Considering the many cruel disappointments and mortification I have been made to feel since I left Washington, and the total want of support or sympathy on the part of the War Department which I have so long experienced, I beg to be recalled from this army the moment it may be safe for any person to embark at Vera Cruz, which I suppose will be early in November, probably all field operations will be over long before that time.
But my next report (July 25th), from Puebla, has no doubt in the end been deemed more unpardonable by the department in that paper. After speaking of the happy change in my relations, both official and private with Mr. Trist, I continued:
Since about the 26th ultimo (June), our intercourse has been frequent and cordial, and I found him (Mr. Trist) able, discreet, courteous and amiable. At home it so chanced that we had had but the slightest possible acquaintance with each other, hence more or less of reciprocal, and of the existence of his feelings towards me I knew (by private letters) before we met that at least a part of the Cabinet had a full intimation.
Still the pronounced misunderstanding between Mr. Trist and myself could not have occurred but for other circumstances. 1, His being obliged to send forward your letter of April 14th, instead of delivering it in person with the explanatory papers which he desired to communicate; 2, His bad health in May and June, which I am happy to say has now become good; and 3, The extreme mystification into which your letter and particularly an interlineation unavoidably threw me.
