Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars/2
In 1824, my father, Captain John Minor Maury, while serving as flag captain of Commodore David Porter's fleet against the pirates of the West Indies, died in the twenty- eighth year of his age. He had been an officer of the Navy since his thirteenth year, and had led a most active and adventurous life; and at the time of his death he was the highest ranking officer of his age in the service. Some years previously he sailed with Captain William Lewis as first officer of a ship bound for China. They had both obtained furloughs for this voyage. Maury, with six men, was left on the island of Nokaheeva to collect sandal- wood and other valuable articles of trade against the return of the ship.
The war with England broke out, and Captain Lewis was blockaded in a Chinese port. Maury and his men were beset by the natives of one part of the island, though befriended by the chief of that portion where ships were accustomed to land, and at last all of the party save Maury and a sailor named Baker were killed by the savages. These two constructed a place of refuge in the tops of four coconut trees which grew close enough together for them to make a room as large as a frigate's maintop. A rope ladder was their means of access. Here they were one day, when their eyes were brightened by the sight of a frigate bearing the American flag. It proved to be the Essex, Captain David Porter commanding, which he had just captured. He named her the Essex Junior, and armed her as a consort, placing Lieutenant Downs in command, with Maury as first lieutenant. After refitting they sailed away to Valparaiso, where the British ships Cherub and Phoebe, under Captain Hilliard, fought and conquered them.
Maury's next service was with McDonough in the battle of Lake Champlain, whence he wrote to a friend in Fredericksburg: "We have gained a glorious victory. I hope the most important result of it will be to confirm the wavering allegiance of New York and Vermont to the Union. They have been threatening to secede unless, peace be made with England on any terms!" This was in 1815.
About 1822, Porter organized his fleet for the extinction of the pirates of the West Indies. He was allowed to select his officers, and his first choice was of John Minor Maury to be his flag captain. After serving with distinction on that expedition, he died of yellow fever on his homebound voyage, and was buried almost within sight of Norfolk harbor, where his young wife and two young children were anxiously awaiting his coming.
After my father's death his younger brother, Matthew Fontaine Maury, became practically the guardian of my brother, William Lewis Maury, and myself. My brother died at the age of twenty, of heart disease, a victim to the barbarous medical practice of the day. He was a very handsome, attractive young fellow, and a great favorite in society. The doctors subjected him to the "moxa," a cruel invention of that time. A spot as large as a half dollar was burned into the flesh over his heart. He was bled frequently. It was proposed to bleed him periodically. For several years he ate no meat, and for the last year of his life he was kept in bed. Our uncle protested vainly against this practice, which he realized was killing my brother, but the highest medical authorities of the day upheld this system of depletion. At last, after ever increasing torture, he was released from a life which had dawned full of brightness and promise for him, and had become one of continued suffering.
After my brother William's death my uncle's interest centered in me, and no son ever had more tender and sympathetic father than I. As long as he lived this mutual confidence and affection existed unimpaired. He was the most lovable man I ever knew, and he won the confidence of all who came within his gentle influence. He ever used cordial praise and approbation as an incentive to endeavor, and if admonition were needed, he gave it in a playful manner which left no sting. Oftentimes a playful jest would serve the purpose of his correction. From my earliest boyhood I went to him for counsel and for comfort in all my troubles, and always left him with renewed purpose and self-respect.
"Well, Dab, how did you come out?"
"Very poorly, Uncle Matt. I graduated thirty-fifth."
He looked sorry he had asked me, but suddenly taking heart he inquired, "How many were in the class?"
"There were sixty of us."
"That was first-rate. You beat me all hollow. I was twenty-seventh, and there were only forty in my class."
This was truly encouraging. He had a pleasant greeting for everyone, but was especially kind in his way of treating the mechanics and workmen with whom his business brought him in contact. He made them feel he was learning something from them, while he never failed to leave with them something instructive about their own branch of work. He was thus learning and teaching all of his time.
In his youth he read Scott and other English classics, and was very fond of Shakespeare, and all his life he read and studied the Bible. I do not think he ever read any novels after he began to develop the great thoughts with which his brain was teeming. His power of concentration was wonderful. Writing upon the subject in which he was interested, in the midst of his family, he would pause, pen in hand, to laugh at some jest or to say a word apropos of the question under discussion, and return in an instant to his work. He wrote his Navigation and many strong papers on Naval Reform, which first attracted attention to him, before he was thirty years old. Mr. Calhoun said of him, Maury is a man of great thoughts; and Mr. Tyler was urged and desired to make him Secretary of the Navy.
In 1853-54 I was spending the winter in Philadelphia, when he wrote to me to go and see Mr. Biddle, who had charge of the annual report of the National Observatory, and deliver to him a message relative to it. After our business was ended, Mr. Biddle said to me: "This uncle of yours is a strange man. Here he is publishing, as an official report, the materials for the most valuable and interesting book of science ever produced. You may tell him from me, that if he does not utilize it, he will have the chagrin of seeing some Yankee bookmaker steal his thunder and reap a fortune from it."
I sat down in Mr. Biddle's office and wrote to him. He replied by next mail that he would take Biddle's advice, and the Physical Geography of the Sea was soon published by the Harpers. It created a world wide interest, and before the war broke out eleven editions had been issued. He used to say to me, "Dab, that is your book."
At the outbreak of the war, he was at the height of his great scientific career, in the most desirable position possible for the exercise of his talents. But he did not hesitate a moment as to his action, but promptly gave up all of his prospects in life for his people's sake, and calmly faced the uncertainties and anxieties of a new career. When his decision became known, the Emperor of Russia, and a little later the Emperor of France, invited him in the most generous terms to come to them and pursue in tranquillity, and in luxurious comfort and ease, those investigations which were for the benefit of all mankind, until peace should once again enable him to resume them at home. He replied, gratefully acknowledging the invitations, but stating that his presence might be of service to his own people, and in their hour of need he could not desert them.
At the age of seventeen I entered the University of Virginia, and enjoyed the life of freedom from home surveillance, and the great pleasure association with men well reared and educated, matured in their purposes, and studying earnestly in the fine professional schools which then, as now, were recognized as among the highest in the country. Johnson Barbour, Randolph Tucker, Robert Withers, John S. Barbour, Stage Davis, Winter Davis, Hunter Murshill, George Randolph, Confederate Secretary of War, Honorable Volney E. Howard, R.L Dabney, and many another who made his mark in life and has gone over the river, were there then.
After leaving the University, where I was in the junior law class, I continued the pursuit of that most exacting study in Fredericksburg. There were twenty-six of us in the class that year, and our instructor was the venerable and learned Judge Lomax, distinguished alike for his legal attainments and the courteous dignity of his bearing. I fear he realized from the first that I would not prove a bright and shining light in my adopted profession, for he used always to select the easiest questions and present them to me for solution. One day he inquired of me. "Mr. Maury, does ignorance of the law justify the commission of an offense?"
"Certainly, sir," I promptly replied. I noticed that he looked at me with a kind of hopeless forbearance, and as I had by that time begun to have grave misgivings of my own as to my legal qualifications, I went to him and told him that I had decided not to pursue further so inexorable and unjust a profession as that of law.
Of our class, Shake Caldwell was facile princeps in his studies, as he was our "glass of fashion and mould of form." He was the son of Mr. James Caldwell of New Orleans, and the beautiful Widow Wormley of Fredericksburg. They were near neighbors of ours, and my relations with Shakespeare were warm and affectionate till the day of his death. He was one of the handsomest and most elegant gentlemen I have ever known, as he was one of the ablest men of his day. He was so handsome, so charming, so witty, that many people credited him with being a society nice man only; but, while brilliant in social life, he was steadfast and strong in his affection and duties, with a great capacity for business, so that when he died he was probably the richest man in Virginia, and he used his great wealth as a trust confided to him for the good of his people.
After we parted, -- I go to West Point, and he to seek his fortune, -- I knew nothing of his career for six years until he told me himself. He went to Mobile to enter upon the practice of the law. After a year of almost hopeless waiting for business, his father, who had by that time successfully established the gas works of New Orleans, resolved to undertake similar works in Mobile, and wrote to his son that if he would take charge of the new enterprise, he would give him $750 per annum, which was more than his law practice brought him. After two years of successful management in Mobile, Mr. James Caldwell decided to establish gas works in Cincinnati, and offered Shakespeare the management of these at &2000 per annum. This property so increased in value in a few years that Mr. Caldwell, enriched by the business in Mobile and New Orleans, transferred to his son, for his sister and himself, all his interests in Cincinnati. Soon after this, having acquired a handsome estate, Shakespeare became attached to a brilliant young girl of Louisville, one of the illustrious Breckinridge family. She was an orphan and an heiress, and had many suitors. His own property was worth about half a million. Their happy married life was only ended by her early death. In 1874 his sister, who had meanwhile become Mrs. Dean, died, and save for a few minor legacies left him her entire fortune, and at his own death his estate was estimated at $3,000,000.
When she was young, Shakespeare's sister numbered among her suitors Bob Waring, a member of a wealthy family living in the Northern Neck. As Bob was not very well equipped in his upper story, he was put to work in a dry-goods store in Fredericksburg, where he speedily lost his heart to Sophy Caldwell. About this time Ole Bull came to town to make some music for us, and Bob decided to invite his lady love to enjoy the concert in his company; so he presented himself before her with a request that she would go with him "to hear the old gentleman." She was at first at a loss to apprehend his meaning, but finally discovered, from his blushes and hesitating utterances, that he did not consider it proper to pronounce in her divine presence the name of the great virtuoso! Bob and his lady love and the fiddler have gone long ago where I hope they are each enjoying eternal harmonies.
About 1872, Shakespeare established in Louisville an asylum for indigent men who were cared for, without regard to religious creed, by Little Sisters of the Poor.
In 1875 he came to Richmond, to undertake and organize a similar institution there for the poor of Richmond and Fredericksburg. The endowment of $250,000 was to be under the administration of the Bishop of Richmond, now Cardinal Gibbons. On the day that the Virginia Legislature granted the charter, he was stricken with paralysis, but he soon recovered his mental faculties, and earnestly desired to complete the good work he had so much at heart. But Bishop Gibbons would not permit him to be troubled with business under such circumstances. After two or three months he suffered a relapse, and died in New York city in his fifty-fourth year. He left his great estate to his two daughters, and his generous intentions to his church have been carried out by one of them, who has richly endowed the Catholic University now being erected at Washington.
On relinquishing my arduous pursuit of legal learning, I left Fredericksburg to enter West Point, where I was immured for four years, the only unhappy years of a very happy life, made happy by the love of the truest people whose interest in me has followed me until this day. One hundred and sixty-four boys entered the class with me, of whom few had received either social or educational advantages of a very high order. McClellan was a notable exception to this, being under sixteen years of age when he entered the Academy. He went at once to the head of the class and remained there until the end, enjoying the while the affection and respect of all.
After six months came the first examination, which pronounced a score or more"deficient," leaving Jackson at the foot of the class and McClellan at the head. Jackson was then in his nineteenth year, and was awkward and uncultured in manner and appearance, but there was an earnest purpose in his aspect which impressed all who saw him. Birket Fry, A. P. Hill, and I were standing together when he entered the South Barracks under charge of a cadet sergeant. He was clad in gray homespun, and wore a coarse felt hat, such as wagoners or constables -- as he had been -- usually wore, and bore a pair of weather-stained saddle-bags across his shoulders. There was about him so sturdy an expression of purpose that I remarked, "That fellow looks as if he has come to stay." As the sergeant returned from installing him in his quarters, we asked who the new cadet was. He replied, "Cadet Jackson, of Virginia." That was enough for me, and I went at once to show him such interest and kindness as would have gratified others under the circumstances. But Jackson received me so coldly that I regretted my friendly overtures, and rejoined my companions, rebuffed and discomfited.
His steady purpose to succeed and to do his duty soon won the respect of all, and his teachers and comrades alike honored his efforts and wished him God-speed. His barrack room was small and bare and cold. Every night just before taps he would pile his grate high with anthracite coal, so that by the time the lamps were out, a ruddy glow came from his fire, by which, prone upon the bare floor, he would "bone" his lesson for the next day, until it was literally burned into his brain. The result of this honest purpose was that from one examination to the next he continually rose in his class until he reached the first section, and we used to say, "If we stay here another year, old Jack will be head of the class."
In medio tutissimus was my motto, and the most valued relic of my many years' study of the humanities; for it kept me safe from disgrace in the examinations, except in those special accomplishments of the soldier, in all of which I was facile princeps. Old Jack was very clumsy in his horsemanship and with his sword, and we were painfully anxious as we watched him leaping the bar and cutting at heads. He would do it, but at the risk of his life. It is to be regretted that any of his biographers should claim for him skill and grace as a horseman, when they have with truth so much of real greatness to tell of him.
In the corps of cadets of that time were many who have become famous beside Jackson and McClellan. There was Grant, a very good and kindly fellow whom everybody liked. He was proficient in mathematics, but did not try to excel at anything except horsemanship. In the riding school he was very daring. When his turn came up to leap the bar, he would make the dragoons lift it from the trestles and raise it as high as their heads, when he would drive his horse over it, clearing at least six feet.
Hancock and Franklin were with us too, and although association of the cadets of one class with those of another was rare, I was much with them, and was intimate with Barnard Bee, that most noble South Carolinian who, upon the fatal field on which he bravely fell, gave the name of "Stonewall" Jackson to our hero.
Bee was one of the most admirable young soldiers of that day. Six feet in stature, he was every inch a soldier, and as gentle as he was brave. He was distinguished always for his delicate consideration for others, as for his manly and noble bearing in personal danger. He served with distinction in the Mexican War, and upon the far western frontier, to fall at Manassas in the very moment of our first victory there. About the close of Bee's second year at the Academy, he was court-martialed for some infraction of the regulations, and was meanly sentenced to remain one day behind his classmates, who went off for the biennial furlough. He had the sympathy of all of us in this peculiar punishment, which struck at him through his affections, and I especially strove to cheer and console him. The class notified Bee that as the steamboat passed Gee's Point he must be there, for they would throw over to him a bottle of cocktail to comfort him in his loneliness. Bee liked cocktail, but couldn't swim. I, having promised my mother not to drink while at the Academy, swam for that bottle for the love of Bee. For more than an hour I went up and down the Hudson and nearly across it, in vain search for it. It probably broke from its buoy and went down. Poor Bee was in sorry luck that day.
After I had been at West Point for a year, my uncle, seeing how my mother pined for me, and being in high favor with the Administration, procured for me a three-weeks leave of absence. I joined my mother at the Observatory, and we were all happy there together. We had then, for commandant, a huge Tennesseean, whose chief aim seemed to be to keep the cadet's hair cropped close. When I presented myself before him on my return from this leave of absence, he looked at me disapprovingly, and said, "Go and get your hair cut, sir, and report to me." Joe, our barber, could cut hair quicker and shorter than any than any living man. I stepped into his tent, and he ran his shears around my head, nearly scalping me. In two or three minutes I was back and stood attention.
"Well, sir," said the commandant, "what's the matter now?" "You ordered me to have my hair cut and report to you, sir." "Ah! That's very well indeed, sir." That evening, at dress parade, I was published a corporal.
The course of study of the second class at West Point was most difficult. Bartlett's "Optics" was a fearful book, and the most formidable discussion in it was that called, "optical images." It was a general bugbear to the class; and only men of the first section were expected to be able to demonstrate it. The January examinations were close at hand, and all of the men below me had been found deficient save the "immortal section." I was thoroughly aroused, and being pretty good at a spurt, I made myself master of the course. The "optical images" received my especial attention, for if that were well demonstrated I should be safe. The week before the examinations Professor Bartlett came into our section, and Lieutenant Deshon of the Ordinance Corps, who was our instructor, ordered, "Mr. Maury will go to the board, and demonstrate the 'optical images.' "
It was a complete success, a perfect demonstration. Professor Bartlett and Deshon were both satisfied, and I got "max" on that fortunate effort of mine, and went up seventeen files in my standing. My classmates, who seemed as delighted as I was, said as the section was dismissed, "Peri, you are safe." I had been called "Peri" since my first arrival at the Academy, in consequence of my inability to accomplish anything in the musical line save that plaintive ditty commencing, "Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter." I may as well confess that it constitutes my sole repertory unto this day.
Deshon was a very amiable and able man. After the Mexican War we were stationed together at the Academy. He "got off" on religion, and in our rides together used to try to convince me of the truth of his new found convictions as to transubstantiation, etc. I told him he would end up being a Jesuit, and so he did, having long ago become a member of the great Church of Rome. A purer Christian never lived than he.