put
in arrest shall continued in confinement more than eight days, or
until such time as a court-martial can be assembled." It was a
direct violation of the spirit of this article, and a cruel straining
of its letter, to consign General Stone to endless or indefinite
imprisonment. Any man of average intelligence in the law--and
Secretary Stanton was eminent in his profession--would at once say
that the time beyond the eight days allowed for assembling a court-
martial must be a reasonable period, and that an officer was entitled
to prompt trial, or release from arrest. The law now passed was
imperative. Withing eight days the arrested officer must be notified
of the charges against him, within ten days he must be tried, and
"if the necessities of the service prevent a trial" within thirty
days after the ten, the officer is entitled to an absolute discharge.
General Stone's case fell within the justice and the mercy of the
law. The eight days within which he should be notified of the
charges against him had been long passed; the ten days had certainly
expired; but by the construction of the War Department the victim
was still in the power that wronged him for thirty days more. From
the 17th of July, thirty days were slowly told off until the 16th
of August was at last reached, and General Stone was once more a
free man. He had been one hundred and eighty-nine days in prison,
and was at last discharged by the limitation of the statute without
a word of exculpation or explanation. The routine order simply
recited that "the necessities of the service not permitting the
trial, within the time required by law, of Brigadier-General Charles
P. Stone, now confined in Fort Lafayette, the Secretary of War
directs that he be released from arrest."

GENERAL STONE FINALLY RELEASED.

The order simply turned him adrift. He was a Colonel in the Regular
Army and a Brigadier-General in the volunteer service; and the
Secretary, according to the rule of the War Department, should have
given him some instruction,--either assigning him to duty or
directing him to report at some place and await orders. Thinking
it might be an omission, General Stone telegraphed the War Department
that he had the honor "to report for duty." He waited five days
in New York for an answer, and receiving none repaired to Washington.
Reporting promptly at the office of the Adjutant-General, he was
told they