Ten Facts About Battle of Ball's Bluff-- Part 8: Who Was to Blame?

Fact 8:  Both Stone and McClellan blamed  Col. Edward Baker  for the tremendous loss.

When called before the Joint Committee, Charles Stone testified that he had given Edward Baker the responsibility to decide whether to send more troops across the river or to withdraw the ones already there.  By sending reinforcements, Stone argued, "Colonel Baker chose to bring battle."

General McClellan agreed.  After hearing  Stone's version of the events, McClellan publicly exonerated Stone from any blame and published in an army circular that "the disaster was caused by errors committed by the immediate commander [Baker]."

Although Stone and McClellan both  testified that Baker was the cause of the defeat, Stone remained the popular scapegoat for the failure.  When Stone was called to appear before the Joint Committee, they laid the blame  on him.  Stone was the friend of McClellan, a known Democrat, and his word amounted to little for the abolitionist Radical Republicans who dominated the committee.

They accused Stone of disloyalty to the Union, and Stone was arrested on February 8, 1862,  on the orders of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.  He was taken to Fort Lafayette, a prison designated for known Confederate  sympathizers, where he was held in solitary confinement without trial.

With no charges filed against him, Stone was released after six months, and Stanton ordered him demoted to colonel. and kept out of field work.  In 1864, Stone resigned from  the army.

--Old Secesh