(3494] lGAJNES Lo SECRETARY OF WAR]
Headquarters, Western Department, Camp Sabine, June 22, 1836. Sir: I have Lo acknowledge the honor of your lelters of
the 10th and 12th of the last month.
I cannot but see, with much regret, the restricted limit Lo which your Inst-mentioned letter of instruction, compared with that of the 25th of April and 4th of May, confines me. 1n my efforts lo dcvine the cause of this change, I have but recently seen what I ought to have found some weeks past, but which the extraordinary delays of the mails, and the consequent irregularity in the receipt of my newspapers prevented, the enclosed "Postcript," which I have cut from my "National InteUigencer" of the 10th of May, referring to a letter to which I doubt not I am indebted for the change in question. The editors say they are happy to learn that a lel.ler had just been received in that city, from an officer of the army of the highest rank, at New Orleans, stating that there was not the least danger of any hostilities on the Texian frontier, either from Indians or from the Mexican troops, and that the Governor of Louisiana concurred fully in that _opinion, founded on the most recent information from the frontier. The editors conclude with the following characteristic remark: "We infer from this, that General Gaines has been misinformed, and entirely mistaken, as to the fears expressed in his letter to the Secretary of War, which we publish to-day." It is bad enough to be calumniated, as I have been ever and anon, by these editors, since the year 1814; for what cause I have never been able to learn. But for officers of the army of the highest rank, at New Orleans or at Washington, as at Picolata and Fort Drane, to furnish insidious statements, calculated to foment this habitual newspaper slander, is indeed intolerable. I think it due to the public service, to the Department of War, and to myself, that I should notice this publication, and affirm that, whoever the officer may have been, his statement is not true; and the motive of the writer is rendered questionable by the fact that he did not apprize me of the information upon which he hascd his report. Had he done so, or had he taken the trouble
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