In view of this correspondence as well as many other letters which he wrote to influential people in both France and Great Britain, and because of the evidence of the high esteem for him that was shown by the Grand Duke Constantine and the Emperor Napoleon, it was natural that he came to be considered a suitable representative of the South in some foreign country. As early as April, 1862 he was approached with the offer of a mission to Europe to fit out armed cruisers; but time dragged on without the matter being brought to a conclusion. He repeatedly requested of Mallory some active service, as he did not wish to be a drone; and was told by the Secretary that he thought he would be of use doing nothing. In August, Mallory did at last offer him the command of a gunboat at Charleston, but this Maury declined as the vessel could not go to sea and was intended merely for harbor defense.

Finally, in September, Maury was ordered to England on “special service”. That he was not pleased with this duty under the conditions according to which he was supposed to work is revealed in the following letter, which he wrote after the close of the war: “I was sent here really to be got out of the way, but nominally to superintend contracts with men of straw who could not pay their hotel bills but who had made pretended contracts with the Navy Department for about fifty million dollars and who never did anything. There was a great desire to have me in the Navy Department and Mallory was afraid he’d be turned out. Therefore he sent me here with hands tied, and what I did I took the responsibility a la Tennessee.”

With little enthusiasm, therefore, Maury made his preparations for departure to England. He was saddened by the necessity of parting from his family who had already begun to suffer from the fortunes of war. They had been driven from their refuge in Fredericksburg when that place was captured by Union troops on April 18, 1862, and on the following 1st of June his son Richard had his horse shot from under him in battle and was himself severely wounded. But obedient to the call of duty, he bade farewell to his family who were then making their home with relatives in Albemarle County and, with his youngest son, Matthew Fontaine, Jr., he set out for Charleston to take ship as soon as practicable for his new field of work.

CHAPTER XII
His Part in the Civil War: In England

Though Maury arrived in Charleston the latter part of September, it was not until October 12, 1862 that he departed with his twelve year old son “Brave” on board the steamer Herald to run the Union blockade. An attempt had been made some three days before and had been unsuccessful, as the vessel had run into an enemy sloop of war and was forced to put back within the protection of the forts. The second trial was successful, but it almost ended in disaster. “We crossed the bar once”, Maury wrote, “and when we got in about two miles of the enemy the pilots plumped the ship ashore, where she lay all night. In the morning they opened on her but she got off without damage”. Maury certainly could not have looked upon capture with any feelings of pleasure, but to reassure his wife he wrote, before leaving Charleston, “If we get caught, I expect soon to be exchanged. The Brave and I will have a bully time in prison”.

Nothing further of an unusual nature happened on the six hundred miles voyage to the Bermudas except that Captain Louis M. Coxetter, who had never before been very far from land, after groping about for the island had to admit on the sixth day that he was lost.

James Morris Morgan, who as a midshipman accompanied Maury to England, thus relates how the great scientist extricated the captain from his difficulty: “He (Coxetter) told Commodore Maury that something terrible must have happened, as he had sailed his ship directly over the spot where the Bermuda Islands ought to be! Commodore Maury told him that he could do nothing for him before ten o’clock that night and advised him to slow down. At ten o’clock the great scientist and geographer went on deck and took observations, at times lying flat on his back, sextant in hand, as he made measurements of the stars. When he had finished his calculations, he gave the captain a course and told him that by steering it at a certain speed he would sight the light at Port Hamilton by two o’clock in the morning. No one turned into his bunk that night except the Commodore and his little son; the rest of us were too anxious. Four bells struck and no light was in sight. Five minutes more passed and still not a sign of it; then grumbling commenced, and the passengers generally agreed with the man who expressed the opinion that there was too much d...d science on board and that we should all be on our way to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor as soon as day broke. At ten minutes past two the masthead lookout sang out, ‘Light ho!’—and the learned old Commodore’s reputation as a navigator was saved”.[16]

Fortunately Commodore Wilkes’s squadron, which had been hovering about the islands and overhauling all the ships that passed, had just departed and the Herald made her way unmolested into the harbor. Here Maury remained for more than two weeks, waiting for the Royal Mail Steamer Delta from St. Thomas. During this time he was received as a private citizen and world-renowned scientist by the governor of the islands, and was called upon by the commandant of Fort St. George and honored with a dinner on board H. M. S. Immortality then stationed at Port Hamilton.

When the English ship sailed, she was followed to sea by the U. S. Sloops of War San Jacinto and Mohican in a threatening manner as though about to repeat the “Trent Affair” and take Maury from the vessel; but nothing of the sort materialized. At Halifax, where Maury arrived November 9, he received the most distinguished consideration from the general commanding the troops, the admiral of the fleet, and the governor of Nova Scotia. The Confederate flag was flown from the top of the hotel in his honor, and the hand-organs ground “Dixie” under his window all day.