of February 18, 1848. Polk reduced the proceedings against Pillow, Duncan and Worth from a court martial to a court of inquiry which had no criminal implications and added that Pillow could question Scott about the bribery scheme. Polk and Secretary of War William L. Marcy chose the three members of the court for their hostility to Scott. During the court of inquiry that began in March 1848 in Mexico City, Major Archibald W. Burns, a paymaster and Pillow protege, claimed authorship of the "Leonidas" letter, at Pillow's behest. When the court of inquiry took as much testimony as they could in Mexico City, on April 21, 1848 they adjourned to reconvene in Frederick, Maryland. Scott left Mexico City the next day. The court reconvened on June 5, 1848, with Scott ill. Scott dropped the charges against Worth and Duncan and Pillow was exonerated when the court announced their findings on July 1, 1848. Scott resumed his duties as general-in-chief of the army early that month. Pillow was discharged from the United States Volunteers on July 20, 1848. In early 1849, two other courts of inquiry cleared Pillow of any misconduct during the war. Pillow assisted Roswell S. Ripley in writing The war with Mexico. In his memoirs, Scott wrote that Pillow was "amiable and possessed of some acuteness, but the only person I have ever known who was wholly indifferent in the choice between truth and falsehood, honesty and dishonesty:—ever as ready to attain an end by the one as the other, and habitually boastful of acts of cleverness at the total sacrifice of moral character." On the other hand, Pillow's friend and patron, President Polk, stated after the court of inquiry was closed: "General Pillow is a gallant and highly meritorious officer, and has been greatly persecuted by General Scott, for no other reason than that he is a Democrat in his politics and was supposed to be my personal and political friend." Post-war life Pillow was a Tennessee delegate to the 1850 Nashville Convention, which met to consider possible courses of action if the federal government decided to ban slavery in territories acquired and organized as part of Westward Expansion and the Mexican–American War. Pillow supported compromise, opposing delegates who favored nullification and secession. Pillow's antagonism for Scott was reflected in the 1852 election for president, when he opposed Scott and supported Franklin Pierce. Pillow attempted to