The New York Herald held the Board up for ridicule, in the following fashion: “I understand there is now in press, and will shortly appear, a history of the lives and eminent services of the late Retiring Board, entitled ‘Lights and Shadows of the Fifteen’. It will embrace all the shades in the lives of those fifteen Spartans, from their entrance into the service up to their ‘Thermopylae defeat’ of 201 brothers in arms, by which gallant action they ‘promoted themselves’. It will be the commencement of a new epoch in the naval history of the country, and will be rich, racy, and spicy”.
Further quotations from the New York Journal of Commerce, the National Intelligencer, and other newspapers might be given, in which the contention was made that, without respect to party, the sentiment was practically unanimous that Maury should be restored to his place on the active list with all the “honor and reparation due to injured merit”, and that this should be done without further delay. But two more years were to pass before justice was done. Even after both the President and the Secretary of the Navy had come to realize that Maury had been unjustly treated, there was considerable further delay while Congress formulated a plan for undoing the action of the Board in cases where mistakes had been made. Petitions had been presented by Senators for about one hundred of the officers affected, and these occasioned endless debates in the halls of Congress during the year 1856. Senator Bell of Tennessee presented the petition on Maury’s behalf before the Senate on January 21, 1856, and made several long speeches in its defense.
Senator Mallory of Florida, who had sponsored the bill for promoting efficiency in the navy, was naturally a strong defender of the action of the Board, and when Maury’s petition was presented he said, among other things, “If the Board has erred in any case whatever, there was no error in the case of Lieutenant Maury”, for he declared that his physical disability was sufficient cause and he had repeatedly shunned sea service. There seems to have been no personal animus in Mallory’s stand, which appears to have been merely the defense of a party measure; indeed, only one year before, when it was proposed in the Senate to make a remuneration of $25,000 to Maury for the service to the country of his wind and current charts, Mallory as chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs made a long and favorable report, in which he reviewed in detail Maury’s work and quoted words of praise from the reports of Secretaries of the Navy Graham, Kennedy, and Dobbin. His report concluded with these words: “This officer has been for years in the public service, has a family to provide for, and is entirely dependent upon his annual pay; and for these reasons your Committee think that a sum of money, insignificant indeed in comparison to his services, yet sufficient to remove his anxieties and to cheer his hopes for the future of those dependent upon him, might be justly bestowed. Your Committee recommend that a sum of 25,000 dollars be thus appropriated, and report a bill accordingly”. Such a sudden turn from eloquent support of Maury to opposition to his interests was indeed remarkable, for it was a long jump from the advocacy of a measure awarding him $25,000 to one which reduced his salary from $3,500 to $1,200 a year. Mallory was supported in his defense of the action of the Board, as it affected Maury, mainly by Senators Clayton of Delaware, Benjamin of Louisiana, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.
Eventually, however, the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs reported a bill to amend the act entitled “An Act to Promote the Efficiency of the Navy”, which was finally passed on January 16, 1857. This provided that an officer whose status in the navy had been affected by the action of the Retiring Board could by written request secure an investigation, by regular court of inquiry, into his “physical, mental, professional, and moral fitness” for the naval service, and that the finding of this court might be submitted to the President, who was to take action accordingly.
The bill originally contained two additional sections, providing for the establishment of the rank of admiral and the organization of a scientific corps in the navy; but they were finally struck out. This scientific corps was to take charge of the Naval Observatory, the nautical almanac, the hydrographical work, and such other scientific matters as the Secretary of the Navy should prescribe; and its personnel was to consist of one captain, two commanders, ten lieutenants, and seven masters. Mallory favored the establishment of such a plan, and, about-facing again, said on the floor of the Senate, “The Committee had an earnest desire that that distinguished officer (Maury) should be at the head of the corps”. Though Maury had written at first rather enthusiastically of the scientific corps, he eventually came to the conclusion that it would not have been wise to establish it, and wrote that he was not sorry it had been struck out of the bill.
Under the main provisions of the amended act, Maury’s case was taken up by a court of inquiry, before whom it was proved by a surgeon that his leg was actually stronger than that of Missroon, one of the members of the Board; that he had not tried to evade sea service but had applied for such service during the Mexican War and had been refused; that other officers retained on the active list had a larger proportion of shore duty than he; and that he had been kept at the Naval Observatory by the various Secretaries of the Navy because of his special fitness for the work. This latter statement was proved by personal letters, of which the following from William A. Graham will serve as an example: “In answer to your inquiry, why you were not ordered to sea during my connection with the Navy Department, I have to state that I considered your services at the National Observatory of far more importance and value to the country and the navy than any that could be rendered by an officer of your grade at sea in time of peace. Indeed, I doubt whether the triumphs of navigation and of the knowledge of the sea achieved under your superintendence of the Observatory will not contribute as much to an effective Naval Service and to the national fame as the brilliant trophies of our arms”.
Resolutions in favor of Maury’s restoration to the active service list were passed by the state legislatures of Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and New York. Of those passed by the last-mentioned state, he wrote, “These resolutions uttered by a great state in the manner of a free people have a charm that is lacking in these honors which, in the shape of medals, orders of knighthood, crosses, and decorations, have been conferred by the hands of strangers”.
Finally, in view of the findings of the court of inquiry and the sympathy for Maury which had been aroused throughout the whole country, the President not only restored him to the active service list but also promoted him to the rank of commander. The announcement of this promotion was as follows: “Sir: The President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, has appointed you a Commander in the Navy from the 14th of September, 1855, on the Active List. I have the pleasure to enclose herewith your commission, dated the 27th instant (January, 1858), the receipt of which you will acknowledge to the Department. I am respectfully, I. Toucey”. Thus was Maury at last completely vindicated.