April 28, 1862
President Lincoln responds to an inquiry regarding General Charles Stone, who was being punished for his alleged responsibility in the Union defeat (and 1000 casualties) at Ball’s Bluff the previous October, President Lincoln write Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, serving as president of the Senate: “In the wake of In answer to the Resolution of the Senate in relation to General Charles Stone, I respectfully state he was arrested and imprisoned under my authority and with my sanction, upon evidence which, whether he be guilty or innocent, required in my judgment such proceedings to be had against him for the safety and welfare of the Country. He has not been tried because in the state of Military operations at the time of his arrest, and ever since, the Officers to constitute a Court, and for Witnesses, could not be withdraw from duty, without serious injury to the service. He will be tried without any unnecessary delay, the Charges and Specifications will be furnished him in due season, and every facility for his defence will be afforded by the War Department.’
Two days later, when Massachusetts Senator Henry Hamlin complains that the letter was dated from the War Department, President Lincoln revises the letter from the White House. Stone was held in prison until the summer when he was released; no charges against him were ever prosecuted. Subsequently, he served briefly in the Union Army, but his real claim to fame came in the 1870s when he served as chief of staff to the Egyptian army.
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War 
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