BY RICHARD B. IRWIN, LIEUT.-COLONEL AND ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL, U. 8. V.
10UT 1 o’clock on the morning of the 9th of February, 1862, General
-UA- Charles P. Stone, a native of Massachusetts , a graduate with honors ofthe United States Military Academy, a distinguished officer of the ordnancecorps during the Mexican war, colonel of the 14th regular infantry, andbrigadier-general of volunteers, commanding a division of ten thousand menin the Army of the Potomac, was arrested in Washington, by the commanderof the provost guard, and sent, in custody of a lieutenant and two policemen,to Fort Lafayette, in New York harbor. There, and at Fort Hamilton, hewas kept in close and solitary confinement, his pockets being emptied andhis letters examined, until the 16th of August, when, after the lapse of 189days, he was set at liberty, under the peremptory requirements of an act ofCongi'ess, approved July 17th, 1862, forbidding the detention of any officeror soldier more than thirty days without charges.
It will be observed that he was held for a fresh period of thirty days beforethis law was allowed to operate, and it is also worth remarking that a law asold as the Government, known as the Articles of War, the fundamentallaw of the army of the United States , contained substantially the same pro-vision, the only essential difference being that the new law, in effect, length-ened the time for preferring charges from eight days to thirty.
Though promptly and often asked for, and repeatedly promised, no state-ment of the charges was ever furnished to General Stone . In truth, nocharges were ever preferred against him. No cause for his arrest has everbeen shown. It has even been disputed upon whose initiative it was ordered.The vague and loose “ evidence,” and the floating suspicions engendered byit, that formed the groundwork for his arrest, never admitted of being con-densed into an accusation, simply because there was nothing in them tocondense. The real cause must be sought for amid the tangled mesh of anet-work of circumstances, such as is occasionally the despair of men whoread history by the light of human sympathy.
Before trying to trace its threads, it may be well to recall how for weeksthe safety, not only of Washington but of the President and his cabinet,had depended mainly upon the loyalty, the prudence, and the vigilance ofColonel Stone and his District of Columbia volunteers. J Well might Mr.Lincoln exclaim, with his smile, “ Oh! I could never believe General Stone would be disloyal! ”
In the autumn of 1861 Stone ’s division, comprising the brigades of Gorman,Lander, and Baker, $ was observing the ferries or fords of the Potomacin front of Poolesville. On the 20th of October, McCall’s division being atDranesville, General McClellan telegraphed to General Stone directing
J See General Stone’s article, “Washington on the Eve of the War,” Vol. I., p. 7 . — Editors.
& Afterward Sedgwick’s division, Second Corps, brigade commanders Gorman, Dana, and Burns.—R. B. I.
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