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Civil War Soldiers - Stone
| Stone, Charles P., brigadier-general,
U.S. Army, was born in Greenfield, Franklin county, Mass., in 1826. He
entered the United States military academy in 1841 and graduated in
1845, when he was appointed a brevet second lieutenant of ordnance. A
month later he was appointed acting assistant professor of ethics in
the military academy, an office he held till Jan., 1846, when he was
ordered to duty in Mexico. He distinguished himself in several battles
under Gen. Scott, was brevetted first lieutenant Sept. 8, 1847, for
gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Molino del Rey,
captain five days later for similar conduct at Chapultepec, and
commissioned first lieutenant in the regular army in Feb., 1853. In
1851 he was sent to California, where he constructed the Benicia
arsenal and acted as chief of ordnance for the Pacific coast. He
resigned from the army in 1856, was engaged in the banking business in
San Francisco for a year and then undertook a survey of Sonora and
Lower California under a commission from the Mexican president. Just
before the inauguration of President Lincoln Mr. Holt, the secretary
of war, called Lieut. Stone to Washington, appointed him a captain in
the army and assigned him to the duty of inspector-general of all the
militia in the District of Columbia then organizing for the protection
of the national capital. On May 14, 1861, he was appointed colonel of
the 14th U. S. infantry and three days later was made
brigadier-general of volunteers. He served in the Shenandoah valley
under Gen. Patterson during July, and when Gen. McClellan assumed
command of the Army of the Potomac, after the battle of Bull Run, Gen.
Stone was selected to command a division and directed to occupy the
valley of the Potomac above Washington as a corps of observation. On
Jan. 5, 1862, he appeared before the Congressional committee on the
conduct of the war and was rigidly examined as to every detail of the
battle of Ball's bluff, which he had been accused of bringing on
without due preparation. His responses were given frankly and seemed
to satisfy the committee, but in February he was arrested and
imprisoned in Fort Lafayette, N. Y. harbor, where he was kept in
confinement for seven months without any charges having been preferred
against him, despite his appeals to Sec. Stanton and President Lincoln
for such a hearing as the military code provided for every accused
officer. After his release he served in the siege of Port Hudson, was
one of the commissioners to receive its surrender, and as chief of
staff of Gen. Banks was engaged in the skirmish of Bayou Teche and the
battles of Sabine cross- roads and Pleasant Hill in April, 1864. He
was mustered out of the volunteer service the same month and remained
unemployed till August, when he was assigned to the command of a
brigade in the Army of the Potomac, retaining it till after the
surrender of Petersburg and then resigning from the army. He was
engineer and superintendent of the Dover mining company of Virginia
from 1865 to 1869, and in 1870 entered the service of the Khedive of
Egypt, becoming chief of the general staff or practically commander-
in-chief of the entire army. For his valuable services in command,
organization and administration he was decorated commander of the
Order of Osmanieh Oct. 10, 1870, grand officer of the Order of Medjii
Jan. 24, 1875, and raised to the dignity of a pasha in 1878. Early in
1883 Gen. Stone resigned his commission in the Egyptian service,
returned to the United States and was appointed engineer- in-chief of
the construction of the pedestal for Bartholdi's statue of Liberty in
the harbor of New York, which proved his last work. Gen. Stone died in
New York city, Jan. 24, 1887. Source: The Union Army: A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal
States 1861-1865, Volume 8 Biographical, 1908
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