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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."

He did begin his deep sea soundings as soon as he was strong enough, and
found that two ridges extended from the New York coast to England, so he
made charts for ships to sail over one path to England and return over
the other.

The proceeds from the sale of this little pamphlet will be used as the
beginning of a fund for the erection of a monument to Commodore Maury in
Richmond.

KATHERINE C. STILES.




TORPEDOES


Torpedoes as effective weapons in actual war were first utilized by the
Confederate navy, and Captain Matthew F. Maury introduced them into that
service, and continually improved and perfected their use until they had
become the mighty engine of modern warfare and revolutionized the art of
coast and harbour defense. He, it was, who in 1861 mined James River,
who, in person commanded the first attack with torpedoes upon the
Federal fleet in Hampton Roads, and it was the development and
improvement of this plan of defense which held the enemy's ships
throughout the South at bay, and caused the loss of fifty-eight of the
ships, and the Secretary of the United States Navy to report to Congress
in 1865 that the Confederates had destroyed with their torpedoes more
vessels than were lost from all other causes combined. Their use was
soon extended from James River to the other Southern waters by eleven
young naval officers, active and alert, who planted, directed and
exploded torpedoes wherever there occurred favorable opportunity, and
with a daring and coolness never surpassed; officers whose ability was
abundantly shown by the remarkable inertness of the United States Navy
after they had left that service in response to the call of their States
to come and help protect their invasion.

Hardly had Captain Maury arrived in Richmond than his active mind was
directed to the problem of protecting the Southern coasts. The South had
not a single vessel of war, and but scanty means of making, equipping or
manning one; the North had all the old navy fully armed and equipped,
with unlimited means for making more.

Penetrated as the country is by innumerable navigable waters, and save
at the entrance of a few of her largest rivers, altogether unfortified,
he urged that the only available defense was to mine the channel ways
with torpedoes, floating and fixed, which should be exploded by contact
or by electricity, when the enemy attempted to pass. At that time there
was nothing save a few shore batteries to prevent any ship whose captain
was bold enough to run past their fires from ascending James River to
Richmond, or from reaching any other maritime town in the South.
Fortunately there were but few bold enough for the attempt.

In the beginning there was much prejudice against this mode of warfare,
which, notwithstanding, has since, under Captain Maury's instruction,
become the chief reliance of most maritime nations. It was considered
uncivilized warfare thus to attack and destroy an unsuspecting enemy, and
the United States, and many of her naval officers were specially loud in
their denunciations of those who resorted to it. There was official
apathy too, and opposition of friends, but regardless of such, he
proceeded to experiment and demonstrate, and with such success that in
time the nations of Europe became his pupils, and there