Matthew Fontaine Maury

OF the Southern careers that were ruined by the war, that of Lieutenant Maury is one of those to be most regretted. He had been a faithful officer, whose service to his profession and his country had been of the highest practical value, when the civil war removed him from his place, and by interrupting the course of his scientific labors virtually wasted the later years of his mature life. He was widely and honorably known North and South ; his reputation and work had been national in character ; in a peculiar sense he belonged to the country. He is now forgotten. This biography ¹ will be novel to the new generation ; but it recalls his services, puts them permanently on record, and adds a portrait of him in private life. The claim that is made for him by his daughter, that he was a benefactor of his race, has a large measure of justice in it. The activity of his mind, the diversity of his practical enterprises, his success in much that he undertook, make him an interesting figure ; and, besides, his biography discloses a character in the man which will gain upon all, an energy, a sense of duty, a capacity to meet the exigencies of fortune and misfortune alike, that cannot fail to secure respect, and to deepen our regret for the untoward circumstances which have limited his reputation.

Maury was Virginia-born, but reared in Tennessee, upon the ground of the pioneers. The opening chapters of this volume show us the life of the emigrants who went from the South, and none of its rudeness has been smoothed over. The family had already given brilliant officers to the navy, and young Maury’s ambition naturally turned to a similar career. He was forbidden to try for West Point, and it was without the knowledge of his father that he secured an appointment to the navy, and without his assistance that he set off, at the age of nineteen, on a borrowed horse and with thirty dollars in money, for Virginia. There his relatives received him hospitably, and he went on to join the cadets with their good-will. He was remarkably industrious, and the story is told that he used to chalk problems in spherical trigonometry upon the shot in the racks, in order not to waste his idle time when on guard. He succeeded, was a favorite with his officers, and rose by the usual steps to be master of a sloop-of-war. His restless mind, however, led him into authorship ; he wrote a successful work on navigation, and from that time his pen was always busy. An accident lamed his leg, and in consequence he had to remain on land-service, and was placed in the charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments at Washington. It was here that he made his mark. Out of this institution he really created our Naval Observatory. The important matter which first made him known was the preparation of his Wind and Current Charts and Sailing Directions. His attention had been drawn to the ignorance in which we were with respect to the best courses for navigation, at the time when he commanded the sloop-of-war. He now found in the old log-books stored as rubbish in his office a large number of observations, or data, which he could use ; out of these, with such information as he could derive from other sources, he made his first charts. It was soon found that vessels following his directions made quicker voyages, and the later charts were accepted and used as soon as issued. The saving effected to commerce by this shortening of merchant voyages was many million dollars annually. Other nations were interested ; our navy department and masters of merchantmen coöperated with him in obtaining the widest data for ocean meteorology ; finally an International Congress assembled at Brussels for the furtherance of the new branch of science, and Maury had the honor of uniting the civilized trading world in this enterprise, the immediate material value of which was felt to be so great. It was a natural consequence of these sea observations and their utility that Maury should urge the extension of the system to the land. For this he worked hard, by memorials to Congress, reports, and lectures, but he was not to have the satisfaction of bringing about the desired result; it was not until after the war that the weather bureau and signal service were founded. It should not be forgotten, however, that this important institution originated in Maury’s brain, and was the outgrowth of his great work in furtherance of the commerce of all nations. He had thought it out completely, and argued the case with full knowledge of what were the ends to be arrived at in land meteorology. It was the war which deprived him of the fruits of his labors.

This is the best known fact respecting Maury’s career. He took part, however, in other large affairs. The character of the sea-bottom had long been an object of special interest to him, and he wrote a popular book on its physical geography. He was led to believe that there existed a plateau between Newfoundland and the British Islands, on which a cable could be laid. A vessel was placed at his disposal by the government, and on exploring the ground his inference was found to be a true one. In all that concerned the cable, with regard to the sea conditions surrounding it, he held the position of an expert. He was enthusiastic in the enterprise, and his share in it was fully acknowledged by Cyrus Field when he said, at a public dinner celebrating the arrival of the first message, “ I am a man of few words. Maury furnished the brains, England gave the money, and I did the work.” He also supported the scheme for the Nicaragua Canal, and it was in accordance with his advice that the Darien expedition was sent out. He had already formed a scheme for a naval line of defense, extending from the Lakes to the Mississippi, by means of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, by which the naval forces of the gulf and the river could be transferred rapidly to the Lakes. He had advised the establishment of navy depots at Pensacola and Memphis, and for the latter site he was especially strenuous. It was he, too, who suggested the placing of the water-gauges upon the Mississippi for the benefit of the river commerce. Indeed, the number of subjects of this practical sort which received his attention is remarkable ; and whenever he made a suggestion it was usually found that his judgment was wise. He had much at heart the establishment of a line of communication between the West and the capes of Virginia. He urged the building of trans-continental railways, one by way of Texas, and one by way of the Northwest. At the very close of his life he was interested in the project of the direct line of steamers from Norfolk to Flushing. We mention the more important of these enterprises in order to illustrate the range of Maury’s interests and the unwearied versatility of his mind. To stop such a man in full career was the malice of fate.

Yet this was what the war did. He was a Union man, and not a friend to slavery. He made some efforts to stay the course of the stars, which now seem as futile as the resistance of a child’s finger. But he was a Virginian, and he went with his State under the call of what he believed to be his duty. He was not in the best of favor with the powers of the Confederacy. At the time when the Naval Retiring Board had exhibited the jealousy of the service at his reputation, and had practically degraded him, using as an excuse his lameness, he had found who were his friends. This action, it should be remarked, had been nullified by a special act of Congress, which restored him to the service, and promoted him to the rank of commander. But Jefferson Davis and his secretary of war were unfavorable to him. He was not of the stuff of which the citizens of the new state were to be made. He was kept for a while in the Confederate service, as the chief of their coast and river defenses, but his advice was little attended to. The most he accomplished was by means of his use of torpedoes, and in this way he was of much use. In 1862, however, excuse was made to send him abroad as an agent to obtain torpedo material in England. It seems to have been a barren undertaking; but there he remained until early in 1865, and he sailed thence only to learn in St. Thomas of the total failure of the Southern cause. He did not come home, but went to Mexico. He was more irreconcilable than his friends, perhaps because he had been living in England those last years. He now formed the plan of a large Southern emigration to Mexico, and obtained from Maximilian, into whose service he had entered, a concession for the proposed colonization. General Lee wrote advising against the plan, and there is an admirable letter from a relative upon the future of the South, which, with its conciliatory spirit and good hopes for a reunited and loyal nation, shows that even in the moment of their worst defeat there were men at the South who had some sense that this was a blessing in disguise. There could be no finer spirit than this gentleman exhibited. But Maury was not to be persuaded. The colonization scheme failed. The only benefit which he succeeded in leaving as a memorial in Mexico was the febrifuge cinchona-tree which he introduced. He won the friendship of the Emperor and his family, but only to meet with the news of the Emperor’s death, which reached him in England. Thrown again upon the world, he now began instruction in the science of sea-mining and torpedo-warfare, which, in its modern form, he had developed. At the time when he left the United States service he had been solicited by the French government to make his home in Paris, and carry on his work there ; a similar and most generous offer had at the same time been made to him by the Grand Duke Nicholas, who assured him that in Russia he should have every assistance he desired, if he would accept of Russian hospitality. He had declined both of these flattering proposals ; and that he now found himself employed in instructing the French officers in this branch of warfare, instead of being at the head of a great meteorological bureau, marks the injury which time had done to his fortunes. The English gave him a testimonial of substantial guineas, and Cambridge made him a Doctor of Laws. But these, after all, were makeshifts. It was about this time that, when some members of his family joined him, whom he had not seen since early in the war, his little daughter cried out, “ That is not my papa; that is an old man with white hair.”

In America, meanwhile, the work of peace went on, and at last he made up his mind to return to his country. He accepted a position in the Virginia Military Institute, near which General Lee was passing his last years ; he still continued to lecture and to take interest in business affairs ; but four years after his coming home he died, at the age of sixty-six.

His private character was amiable ; one of the pleasant characteristics of the volume is the openness with which his life with his family and his affectionate relations with his children are shown. It is sad to read of the mysterious and perhaps cruel death which one of his sons met with in the fighting about Vicksburg. The ruling trait of his nature was conscientiousness. It is hardly enough to say that he was chiefly anxious to do his duty. He made up his mind in youth, he says, to lead a useful life. His industry was unremitting ; the amount of work he did must have been prodigious ; and the entire devotion of his faculties to the business he was engaged upon perhaps accounts for his success. It must be granted, nevertheless, that his mind was highly original and independent; he had the great power of taking an initiative, and he was continually exercising it. His nature was devout as well as scientific, and in him one may observe again that curious union, of which scientific annals afford more than one example, of antiquated and modern ideas, in which the two exist together, as if in ignorance of each other. His religious and Christian temper, however, is something apart from his remarks on Job’s knowledge of the law of gravitation, and adds to the respect one feels for his mental powers. In leaving the service of the nation for the defense of his State, and exchanging science for war, he made a choice which involved the sacrifice of his career. He was but one of those who, being sincerely attached to the Union and morally opposed to slavery, made up the silent South of that time, and were drawn into the war by a contagious patriotic feeling toward their own State and people. It would seem, nevertheless, that the course of the contest embittered him against his country. Of that there is no occasion to speak further. This biography restores his memory to us as that of a brilliant and acute practical genius, whose name should be associated with real achievements in utilitarian science, with the history of our navy and its enterprises in the middle of the century, and with the honors which our officers have won from foreign governments. It is, furthermore, the memory of an honorable man, of great sensitiveness to duty, faithful at all points to his convictions, who lived modestly, and was esteemed in all private relations by these with whom he came in contact. That he fell upon evil times for him, and thus achieved less than was his due, is a matter which all must regret ; but he accomplished enough to deserve remembrance, and it is to be hoped that this volume will be the occasion of bringing that justice to his character and genius which has been delayed.