January 28, 1862 (Monday): America's Zola

Secretary of War Stanton

ORDER,}                                                        WAR DEPARTMENT,

  NO. __ }                                     Washington City, D. C., January 28, 1862.

     Ordered, That the general commanding be, and is hereby, directed to relieve Brig. Gen. C. P. Stone from command of his division in the Army of the Potomac forthwith, and that he be placed in arrest and kept in close custody until further orders.

                                                                        EDWIN M. STANTON,

                                                                                      Secretary of War.

Official Records, Series I., Vol. 5, Part 1, Page 341.

Coming one day after Lincoln issued orders for the Union armies to all move forward on a date certain, despite advice from McClellan, Stanton here orders the arrest of one of his officers, General Stone, without charges.  The administration made a scapegoat out of Stone, a Democrat, after Lincoln’s close friend Senator Baker brought on the disaster at Ball’s Bluff with his rash mishandling of his command.  Disaffected New York officers engaged in a whisper campaign against Stone, accusing him of having Southern sympathies.  Abolitionists condemned him for returning slaves who came within his lines (as the law required).  A Pinkerton spy, British citizen and New York newspaper reporter Francis Buxton, ominously sent word of signal lights seen across the Potomac before the battle.  The Committee on the Conduct of the War became involved and pressed for Stone’s arrest.  Although Lincoln later denied knowing of the arrest order, records of the Committee’s proceedings showed they visited Lincoln immediately before the arrest and outlined the accusations against Stone.  Stone would become an American Zola, illegally held without charges under harsh conditions until finally Congress passed a bill requiring the administration to adhere to the Articles of War and bring charges within 8 days and a trial within the 30 days.  The administration’s response was consider the time limits as starting from the passage of the bill (although Stone had been held for five months), holding him another 30 days.  The motivation for ruining Stone, according to Stanton, was that he served as an example to other (presumably Democrat) generals.  After the war Stone served as the chief engineer for the construction of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.