The current of the Civil War swept Maury away from Washington, and he declined offers from France, Germany and Russia, joining his native state in the Confederacy. He introduced the submarine torpedo, and rendered the South other service before the final wreck, which left him stranded and penniless. He went to Mexico now, to join his fortunes with those of the unhappy Maximilian, and when the Emperor met his tragic end he found himself again resourceless—and crippled. In 1868 when general amnesty was given, he came back to become the first professor of meteorology at the Virginia Military Institute. In October, 1872, he became ill and died in February of the next year.
And this man, who had from Kings and Emperors more decorations than any American has ever received, and for whom Europe had ever ready the highest honors and greatest praise, was ignored by his own government, to which he gave his life’s work. No word of thanks, no tribute of esteem, no reward, was ever given him. A bill to erect a monument to him lies now rotting in some pigeonhole in Congress. But an effort to renew this is underway.
Archibald McPherson
Curiously enough, no more memory is left to Fredericksburg of Archibald McPherson than the tombstone under the mock orange tree in St. George’s Church, the tablets to his memory in the old charity school on Hanover Street (now the Christian Science Church) and a few shadowy legends and unmeaning dates.
He was born in Scotland and died in Fredericksburg in 1854. He was a member of St. George’s Church and vestry.
But what manner of man he was, the few recorded acts we know will convey to every one. He established a Male Charity School with his own funds principally, and took a deep interest in it, and, dying, he left the small fortune he had accumulated by Scotch thrift “to the poor of the town,” and provided means of dispensing the interest on this sum for charity throughout the years to come. Most of this fund was wiped out by depreciation of money, etc., during the Civil War.
Men of Modern Times
Soldiers, Adventurers and Sailors, Heroes and Artists, mingle here.