A brief sketch of the work of Matthew Fontaine Maury during the war, 1861-1865

by Richard L. Maury

A Brief Sketch of the Work of MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY During the War 1861-1865 BY HIS SON RICHARD L. MAURY

RICHMOND

Richmond

WHITTET & SHEPPERSON

1915

COPYRIGHTED, 1915, BY

KATHERINE C. STILES

INTRODUCTION

When I took charge of the Georgia Room, in the Confederate Museum, in Richmond, Virginia in 1897, I found among the De Renne collection an engraving of the pleasant, intellectual face of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury, so I went to his son, Colonel Richard L. Maury, who had been with his father in all his work here, and urged him to write the history of it, while memory, papers and books could be referred to; this carefully written, accurate paper was the result.

At one time, when Commodore Maury was very sick, he asked one of his daughters to get the Bible and read to him. She chose Psalm 8, the eighth verse of which speaks of "whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea," he repeated "the paths of the sea, the paths of the sea, if God says the paths of the sea, they are there, and if I ever get out of this bed I will find them."