A very serious controversy arose in 1828 between General Scott and General Edmund Pendleton Gaines on a question of rank. General Macomb had been appointed by President Adams major general of the United States army. There was at that time but one major general, and Scott held the rank of brevet major general, with an older date than Macomb's appointment, and he addressed a memorial to Congress claiming his superiority in rank to Macomb. He argued that from the beginning of the Revolutionary War down to the time of his appointment brevet rank was uniformly held to give rank and command, except only in the body of a regiment, etc.; that there existed in law or in fact no higher title or grade in the army than that of major general, there being no such thing as a commander in chief, except the President. That he [Scott] held a commission as major general, July 25, 1814, of older date than that of either Generals Macomb or Gaines. Congress did not pass an act, however, sustaining his claim, and the result was a construction by the authorities that a brevet appointment did not confer additional rank.
General Scott, on this decision of Congress, tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. When he was informed that the President and others high in authority sustained the action of Congress, he addressed a letter to Mr. Eaton, the Secretary of War, as follows:
"New York, November 10, 1829.
"Sir: I have seen the President's order of the 13th of August last, which gives a construction of the sixty-first and sixty-second articles of war relative to rank or command.
"Humbly protesting that this order deprives me of rights guaranteed by these articles, and the uniform practice of the army under them, from the commencement of the Government down to the year 1828, when the new construction was first adopted against me, in obedience to the universal advice of my friends, who deem it incumbent on me to sacrifice my own connections and feelings to what may, by an apt error, be considered the repeated decision of the civil authority of my country, I have brought myself to make that sacrifice, and therefore withdraw the tender of my resignation now on file in your department.
"I also ask leave to surrender the remainder of the furlough the department was kind enough to extend to me in April last, and to report myself for duty.
Winfield Scott.
"The Hon. J.H. Eaton, Secretary of War."
To this the Secretary of War replied:
"War Department, November 13, 1829.