Matthew Fontaine Maury, the Pathfinder of the Seas

by Charles Lee Lewis

His letter to Governor Packer of Pennsylvania will give an idea of what he hoped to accomplish. “When the affairs of a nation are disturbed”, he declared, “quiet people, however humble their station, may be justified in stepping a little out of their usual way. In all exertions of duty, something is to be hazarded; and I am sure you have only time to hear what I wish to write—none to listen to apologies for venturing to write you this letter. You recollect that, in the nullification times of South Carolina, Virginia stepped forward as mediator, and sent her commissioners to that state with the happiest results. But we are now in the midst of a crisis, more alarming to the peace and integrity of the Union than those memorable times. We have the people, in no less than seven of those states, assembling or preparing to assemble in their sovereign capacity to decide in the most solemn manner known to them whether they will remain in the Union or no. The most remarkable feature in the whole case is, it appears to me, this—that here we have a national family of states that have lived together in unity for nearly three score years and ten, and that a portion of them are preparing to dissolve these family ties and break up the Union, because—because of what, sir? Ask legislators, ask governors, ask whom you will, and there are as many opinions as to the causes of discontent and the measures of redress as there are leaves in the forest. At no time have the people of any of the discontented states, acting in their sovereign capacity, ever authorized a remonstrance to be made to their sister states of the North against their course of action. We have heard a great deal of this from politicians, partisans, and others, but if the people of any one of the Southern states, acting in their sovereign capacity, have ever remonstrated with the people of the Northern states as to the causes of dissatisfaction and complaint, and thus laid the matter formally before you of the North, I cannot call it to mind. Neither has any Northern state so much as inquired of the people of any Southern state, either as to the cause of their offense or as to the terms and conditions upon which they would be willing to remain in the Union.

“It does appear to me that in and out of Congress we are all at sea with the troubles that are upon us; that the people, and the people alone, are capable of extricating us. You, my dear sir, and your state—not Congress—have it in your power to bring the people into the ‘fair way’ of doing this. This brings me to the point of my letter—then why will not the great state of Pennsylvania step forth as mediator between the sections? Authorize your commissioner to pledge the faith of his state that their ultimatum shall not only be laid before the people of the Keystone State, assembled likewise in their sovereign capacity, but that she will recommend it to her sister states of the North, for like action on their part, and so let the people, and not the politicians, decide whether this Union is to be broken up”.

No tangible results, however, came from this effort, and Maury began to despair of the two sections’ being able to arrive at a peaceable solution of the difficult problem. He had a clear conception of the nature of this fundamental question dividing the sections. “The disease”, he wrote, “the root of the thing, is not in cotton or slavery, nor in the election of Lincoln. But it is deep down in the human heart. The real question is a question of Empire. And I do not think our political doctors will be able to treat the case upon any other diagnosis than this. The country is divided into sections; it is immaterial by what influence”.

Meanwhile, Maury went about his work at the Observatory as well as he could with his mind distracted by the unsettled state of the country. In September, 1860, he made a visit with Mrs. Maury and other members of his family to Niagara Falls, and to Newburgh, New York to see the family of his old friend Hasbrouck. During the following month he went to Tennessee to speak at the laying of the corner stone of the University of the South at Sewanee, as has already been related. On this visit, Maury went to Nashville, where he delivered two speeches. One was to the school children on the subject of the sea; the other was before the same audience that heard Robert L. Yancey and on the same subject, the state of the country. Yancey urged war and made extravagant claims for success; but Maury counseled moderation and warned the people that danger was ahead. In November, he was in England whence he had gone to arrange for the copyrighting of a new edition of his “Physical Geography of the Sea”.

During that month momentous happenings occurred in the United States. On November 6, Lincoln was elected President, and the day following the legislature of South Carolina took steps which resulted in the calling of a secession convention. This convention unanimously passed, on December 20, an ordinance declaring the state of South Carolina no longer in the Union.

By that time Maury had returned to the United States, and he made a last effort to secure mediation through Commodore Stockton as the representative of the Governor of New Jersey; but early in the year 1861 he sorrowfully wrote that the New Jersey plan had missed fire. After the failure of this attempt he sought in vain to be made a member of the “Peace Congress”, which was called by the Border States and met in Washington in the month of February. In this he offered to represent Tennessee, which he referred to as his Naomi.

South Carolina had been followed out of the Union by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In February, the seceding states set up a provisional government with Montgomery as the capital and with Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander H. Stephens as Vice President. But Maury urged the “barrier” states, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to remain in the Union in order to conserve the peace, to mediate, and to organize a re-annexation party for the next Presidential election.

On the day of Lincoln’s inauguration, Maury wrote, “The new President is now on his way to the Capitol, and the Express reports ‘All quiet’, as I took it for granted it would be. I have no idea of any disturbance, or any attempt even at a plot. Of course, you will see the Inaugural as soon, if not sooner than I shall, for, having the telegraph, Mr. Lincoln may literally speak his polyglot through tongues of fire. Officers of the Army and Navy—should war come between the sections—will have a hard time; and, indeed, who will not? No military man can permit himself to accept service with a mental reservation. All who are foes of his flag, and whom his country considers enemies of hers, are enemies of his; therefore, if we have a war between the sections, every man who continues in ‘Uncle Sam’s’ service, is, in good faith, bound to fight his own, if his own be on the other side. The line of duty, therefore, is to me clear—each one to follow his own state, if his own state goes to war; if not, he may remain to help on the work of reunion. If there be no war between the sections, we must hoist the flag of re-annexation, to carry the elections of ’64 upon that issue, bring back the seceding states, and be happier and greater and more glorious than ever. As soon as the smoke clears away, you will see that the old party lines have been rubbed out.... Virginia is not at all ready to go out of this Union; and she is not going out for anything that is likely to occur short of coercion—such is my opinion”.

But the broken fragments of the Union were not to be reunited in any such peaceful fashion, and Maury was soon to be forced to follow his native state into the bloody conflict. The overt act precipitating the war was the firing on Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861. Maury thought that the Star of the West with recruits for the garrison of the fort should not have been sent, for it was but an invitation to South Carolina to an overt act which would still further widen the breach between the sections.

In any case, the overt act came, when under fear of reinforcements from a strong squadron which was in preparation President Jefferson Davis on April 12, 1861 ordered General Beauregard to reduce Fort Sumter. Three days afterward President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling on the state governors to furnish 75,000 state militia. This caused Virginia to pass an ordinance of secession on the 17th of April. Moreover, in Tennessee, Maury’s adopted state, sentiment favorable to the Confederacy began to crystallize, and on May 8 her legislature decided also in favor of separation from the Union and leagued the state with the Southern Confederacy. But in spite of the fact that Maury had written of Tennessee as his Naomi, it was his native Virginia that decided his future for him.