Defenders of the Union [pp. 434-462]

COLONEL GEORGE STONE.
indebted for his later success as a practical engineer.
But garrison duty was not what Colonel Stone desired, so he resigned to
return to the Fourteenth New York Cavalry and the more active and exciting
service in which he first engaged,- and
he got it. He was with General Davidson on his famous raid from Baton Rouge,
through Mississippi to Pass Christian on
the Sound. There was hot fighting and
hard work on this campaign, for "Black
Jack " Davidson loved to battle, and to
him fatigue was almost a luxury. On
the march innumerable deep bayous had
to be crossed by pontoons, and as a
bridge was necessarily laid on an average once a day in order to move the
troops, the labor entailed can be easily
inferred.
In his capacity of Assistant Commissary of Subsistence of the First Cavalry
Brigade, he probably saw as much hard
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service in that memorable but disastrous
movement, the Red River Expedition,
as any one. His command participated
in the battles of Fort Jessup, Wilson's
Farm, Sabine Cross Roads, Crump's,
and in many minor engagements when
the fighting was hot enough for the
most sanguinary. In this campaign
it was not alone fighting that tried the
heroism of officers and men, for the
arduous and long marches made without
proper shelter, subsistence, and clothing,
were fearfully hard to endure, added to
which Lieutenant Stone was captured at
Sabine Cross Roads and suffered imprisonment in a Rebel camp near Tyler,
Texas, for a period of eight months.
After being exchanged he was assigned
to duty as Captain and Ordnance Officer
of Cavalry in the Department of the
Gulf,'serving on the staffs of Generals Canby, Hurlbut, and Merritt, with
headquarters at New Orleans and part