History tends to be told in narratives which focus on the eventful highlights that had the greatest impact on its course. There was, of course, always time in between these events where the people living during those times continued in their daily lives. In October we covered the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, which had political repercussions which far exceeded the immediate military setbacks for the Union. One Union officer was hardest hit by the fallout from Ball’s Bluff and his name was Charles Pomeroy Stone. Stone had no direct impact on the tactical conduct of the battle but since it occurred within the department which he commanded he was easily scapegoated for the defeat and the loss of Senator Edward Baker. Today marks the 150th anniversary of the arrest of Stone by a future Gettysburg general.
Stone was a native of Massachusetts, being born there in the town of Greenfield in 1824. He began attending the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1841, and graduated high in his class in 1845. Fittingly, one of his classmates was Fitz John Porter, who would also see his military career hampered by unjust accusations during the Civil War.
Stone graduated just in time to take part in the Mexican War which began in 1846. He served with Winfield Scott’s army which landed at Veracruz on the Gulf Coast in March of 1847, and proceeded to march and fight westward until the capture of Mexico City in September of the same year. Stone was brevetted to captain for his service in Mexico and after the war ended up an ordnance officer in California. Not finding his Army career to be the most lucrative pursuit, Stone resigned his commission in 1856. He ended up in of all places Mexico where he worked for the Mexican government as a land surveyor.
His tenure as a surveyor had come to a close by the time the Secession Crisis hit, and as luck had it he had moved to Washington, DC where his old commander Winfield Scott was based as general-in-chief of the Army. Stone reentered the army and initially served as an administrator in Washington until he was given a field command in Robert Patterson’s Army of the Shenandoah. He spent the summer of 1861 without seeing any major action due to Patterson’s slow advance, and when the army was reorganized under McClellan the following fall he was given a division.
Above: Stone and his daughter Hettie during the Civil War.
Known as the Corps of Observation, Stone’s Division was responsible for monitoring Confederate activity along the Potomac River in Western Maryland. While in command of the Corps of Observation Stone made political enemies who would come back to haunt him after Ball’s Bluff. Being on the border between the Union and the Confederacy, many escaped slaves came into the Union lines hoping to gain freedom. Stone was part of a large swath of the Union leadership who felt that slavery as it existed should not be harmed while fighting to bring the South back into the Union. Many of the regiments he commanded were from Massachusetts and contained abolitionists who complained about Stone’s policy of returning escaped slaves to their masters. Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner in particular did not care for Stone’s stance, which as we’ll see did not aid him in his career.
In October of 1861 Stone was ordered by McClellan to probe the Confederates near Leesburg, Virginia. Stone sent a force under Senator Edward Dickinson Baker to do the job. Baker’s force was isolated and would be engulfed by Confederate reinforcements at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, resulting in the death of Baker. While the defeat was more likely due to Baker’s own direct mishandling of the action, Stone was seen as responsible as the officer commanding. Stone would be made an example by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War which was dominated by Charles Sumner and other abolitionist congressmen.
150 years ago today Stone was arrested without specific charges, and sent immediately to Fort Lafayette in New York for imprisonment. He was refused a trial or due process, and struggled to clear his name.
There is a Gettysburg connection here, in that the officer who arrested Stone was George Sykes, who commanded the Union V Corps at Gettysburg.
Stone would languish in prison in Forts Lafayette and Hamilton in New York until mid-August of 1862. After his release, friends in the army made efforts to have Stone assigned a command but the War Department refused each attempt. Stone was given a few minor assignments, but ultimately resigned in September of 1864 and returned to civilian life. He worked as an engineer and then became one of many Civil War officers to be employed by Egypt in the 1870’s to update that country’s army and provide experienced leadership. In Egypt until 1883, Stone returned to the US where he supervised more engineering projects which included the construction of the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
Stone died in New York City in 1887, and is buried in West Point Cemetery.