Early on Saturday the eighth day of February General McClellan directed the provost marshal of the district, General Andrew Porter, "to arrest Brigadier-General Charles P.
Stone at once, and to send him under close custody by first train to Fort Lafayette, where he will be placed in charge of the commanding officer, and have no communication with any one from the time of his arrest." Brigadier-General Sykes, commanding the City Guard, executed the order, taking General Stone from his bed at midnight in the hotel where he was stopping, and making him a close prisoner.
Shortly after daylight the following morning General Stone addressed a note to General Seth Williams, Adjutant-General on the staff of General McClellan, informing him of his arrest, and adding, "Conscious of having been at all times a faithful soldier of the United States, I must respectfully request that I may be furnished at an early a moment as practicable with a copy of whatever charges may have been preferred against me, with the opportunity of promptly meeting them." To this respectful communication no answer was made, and General Stone was hurried off to Fort Lafayette, under strict guard, with an order from General McClellan for his imprisonment.

At the fort the money which he had in his pockets was taken from him, and he was placed in solitary confinement in a room ordinarily used for quarters of enlisted men.

No letter was allowed to leave him or reach him without the most rigid inspection.

Under this close _surveillance_, with an armed sentinel pacing before the door of his room, without opportunity for outdoor air or exercise, he was kept for forty-nine days.

He applied at different times to the military authorities in Washington for a statement of the charges against him, for a speedy trial, for access to the records of his own office and his own headquarters, for a change of the place of his confinement.