How This 'Most Unfortunate' Civil War General Helped Give America the Statue of Liberty

On Oct. 28, 1886, Charles Pomeroy Stone became severely ill after serving as the grand marshal of the dedication parade for the Statue of Liberty. Stone never regained his health, and three months later, he died of pneumonia.

Stone -- the former Union Army officer that Ulysses S. Grant considered "the most unfortunate man he had ever known" -- lived quite an eventful life. Before becoming the chief engineer for the construction of an iconic U.S. landmark, Stone was a celebrated Mexican-American War veteran, the organizer of security for President Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, and a brigadier general during the Civil War.

Stone also was in command at one of the Union Army's most humiliating defeats that included the death of Col. Edward Baker, the only time a sitting U.S. senator died during combat.

"Had Baker survived this battle, it would have been merely a footnote of Civil War history," according to the Army Historical Foundation. "Instead, his death turned this minor defeat into a major controversy that incited contemporaries and has fascinated historians ever since."

Given different leadership decisions, the Battle of Ball's Bluff in Virginia on Oct. 21, 1861, might have never happened or possibly had a different outcome. With Union troops stationed on Harrison Island, Maryland, Maj. Gen. George McClellan ordered Stone to stage "a slight demonstration" the day before to determine the presence of any Confederate forces on the Virginia side of the Potomac River.

When no rebel forces responded, a reconnaissance party was dispatched, and after that contingent, led by Capt. Chase Philbrick, moved inland at night toward Leesburg, Virginia, it mistook a cluster of trees for Confederate tents. Rushing to alert the Union hierarchy, Philbrick did not confirm what he saw, compounding his mistake.

Stone ordered Col. Charles Devens of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry to attack at first light, but Devens soon learned that Philbrick's intelligence was incorrect. Instead of pulling back, though, Stone sent the remainder of the 15th Massachusetts to rejoin Devens and scout further. After Baker arrived at the scene, Stone sent him to evaluate the situation.

With Baker’s forces en route, a messenger informed him that Devens' men were fighting Confederates. With limited, if any, experience in river crossings, Baker ordered troops to assist Devens, but a lack of available boats made that virtually impossible. With reinforcements not coming, Devens' forces retreated to Ball's Bluff.

During the battle, their backs against the Potomac River, Union soldiers had nowhere to go. Baker, one of Lincoln's close friends, was shot six times and killed -- one of 223 federal troops to die at the Battle of Ball's Bluff, most of them drowning while futilely attempting to flee. The Union sustained 1,002 casualties overall, more than six times the Confederates' 155.

Baker's death incensed some fellow congressional Republicans and helped lead to the creation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in December 1861. The Battle of Ball's Bluff was its first case -- and Stone its first target. For his part, Stone (and McClellan initially) lay blame on Baker, contending: "The whole story is that Col. Baker chose to bring on a battle." The seven-member committee, which included five Republicans, was not swayed and impugned the reputation of Stone, a Democrat, and sought to portray him as disloyal and a rebel sympathizer.

War Secretary Edwin Stanton wanted Stone arrested, but McClellan initially resisted. Stone confronted a stiff headwind, however, in proclaiming his innocence, especially after a damning newspaper story that recounted a supposed order provided by one of Baker's subordinates. The article claimed that Stone implored Baker "to make a dash on Leesburg," to which the senator responded: "I will obey Gen. Stone's order, but it will be my death warrant." Allegations that Stone ordered that escaped slaves be returned to their owners added to his troubles.

After Stanton again pushed for Stone's arrest, McClellan acquiesced. Stone was detained in February 1862 despite no formal charges, drawing swift rebukes from his supporters. One Army officer labeled Stone's treatment "the greatest outrage," another alleged that McClellan betrayed Stone to save himself, and legendary Gen. Winfield Scott -- who had chosen Stone to defend Washington against the secessionist threat before the war -- fumed, "If he is a traitor, I am a traitor, and we are all traitors."

Stone endured 50 days of solitary confinement at Fort Lafayette in New York before serving the rest of his six-month imprisonment at nearby Fort Hamilton. With the furor over Baker's death and what occurred at Ball's Bluff sufficiently died down, Stone was released that August without an apology or explanation. He remained in the military for another two years but never received another command, and by the time he left the Army in September 1864, he was near a nervous breakdown.

If Stone's story ended there, he would have been viewed forevermore as a broken man. With his health -- not to mention his reputation -- in need of repair, Stone ventured to the other side of the world. A civil engineer by trade, Stone moved to Egypt in 1870 and spent more than a decade building its army and surveying the region.

Partly on Grant's recommendation, Stone was hired to work on the Statue of Liberty in 1883. He served as the statue’s chief engineer, and in that capacity, he was in charge of overseeing shipments, construction and the process of attaching Lady Liberty to its pedestal. It was not an insignificant undertaking; after all, when France gifted the statue to the United States, it came in 350 pieces that had to be assembled into the 151-foot-tall iconic symbol of freedom it became.

Two decades after the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Stone’s work on the Statue of Liberty could be viewed by some as a redemptive act. And it likely was not lost on the former military man that where the Statue of Liberty stands so majestically in New York Harbor is not far from where he was once jailed.

It is also only about two hours south from where the 62-year-old Stone was buried at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with full military honors.

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