of the character of the testimony submitted against General Stone,
and so rigidly withheld from the knowledge of the person most
interested. On receipt of General McClellan's note, General Stone
immediately asked him for the name of the Leesburg refugee and for
a copy of his statement. A member of General McClellan's staff
answered the inquiry, stating that the general "does not recollect
the name of the refugee, and the last time he recollects seeing
that statement was at the War Department immediately previous to
your arrest." General Stone, victim of the perversity which had
uniformly attended the case, was again baffled. He was never able
to see the statement of the "refugee" or even to get his name,
though, according to General McClellan, the testimony of the
refugee was the proximate and apparently decisive cause of General
Stone's arrest.

General Stone applied directly to the President, asking "if he
could inform me why I was sent to Fort Lafayette." The President
replied that "if he told me all he knew about it he should not tell
me much." He stated that while it was done under his general
authority, he did not do it. The President referred General Stone
to General Halleck who stated that the arrest was made on the
recommendation of General McClellan. This was a surprise to General
Stone, for General McClellan had but recently written him that he
had full confidence in his devotion and loyalty. General Halleck
replied that he knew of that letter, and that "the Secretary of
War had expressed great surprise at it because he said that General
McClellan himself had recommended the arrest, and now seemed to be
pushing the whole thing on his [the secretary's] shoulders." The
search for the agency that would frankly admit responsibility was
rendered still more difficult by the denial of the Committee on
the Conduct of the War that the arrest had ever been recommended
by them, either collectively or individually. They had simply
forwarded to the Secretary of War such evidence as was submitted
to them.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ARREST.

General Stone appeared before the Committee on the Conduct of the
War on the 27th of February, 1863--nearly five months after his
release from imprisonment. He was allowed to see the testimony
which had hitherto been withheld from him, and answered all the
accusations in detail with convincing candor and clearness. As he
procee