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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 were hosts of
followers and fellow-workers at home, and the Confederate Congress
appropriated six millions of dollars for torpedoes.

His initial experiments to explode minute charges of powder under water,
were made with an ordinary tub in his chamber at the house of his
cousin, Robert H. Maury, a few doors from the Museum in Richmond, Va.
The tanks for actual use were made at the Tredegar Works, and at the
works of Talbott and Son on Cary Street; the batteries were loaned by
the Richmond Medical College, which also freely tendered the use of its
laboratory. In the early summer of 1861 the Secretary of the Navy, the
Governor of Virginia, the chairman of the Committee of Naval Affairs,
and other prominent officials were asked by him to witness a trial and
an explosion of torpedoes in James River at Rocketts.

The torpedoes were composed of two small kegs of rifle powder, weighted to
sink a few feet below the surface. They were fitted with hair triggers
and friction primers, and thirty feet of lanyard attached to the
triggers connected the keys. When in use they were to be set afloat in
the channel way as near as possible to a vessel and to drift down with
the current until the connecting lanyard fouled the anchor chain, or the
bow of the vessel and the kegs swung around against her side when the
tightened lanyard would fire the trigger and cause the torpedo to
explode. So the Patrick Henry's gig was borrowed, with a couple of
sailors to pull, and the torpedo having been embarked, with the trigger
at half-cock, Captain Maury and the writer got on board and were rowed
out to the buoy just opposite where the James River Steamboat Company's
wharf now is, where the invited spectators stood to witness the
explosion. The triggers were then set, the kegs carefully lowered into
the water, taking great care not to strain the lanyard, all was cast
off, the boat pulled clear, and we waited to see the torpedo float down
until the buoy was reached, the lanyard foul strain and explode the
torpedo. But there was delay, the lanyard fouled the buoy all right, the
kegs floated past and strained the lanyard, but there was no explosion.
Impatient we backed water to the buoy and the writer leaned over the stern
and caught the lanyard to give the necessary pull, but in the very act
the explosion took place, a column of water went up twenty feet or more,
and descending, gave us a good wetting and filled the surrounding water
with stunned and dead fish. The officials on the wharf applauded and
were convinced, and that the experiments might continue Governor Letcher
loaned power, and shortly after the Naval Bureau of Coast, Harbour, and
River Defense was organized with ample funds for the work, and the very
best of intelligent and devoted young officers as assistants and an
office was opened in Richmond at the corner of Ninth and Bank Streets,
where Rueger's now is.

In a few months he had mined James River with fixed torpedoes to be
exploded by electricity should the enemy attempt to pass, and a means
thus indicated to protect the city. During the summer and fall attacks
were made upon the Federal squadron at Fortress Monroe, under the
personal command of Captain Maury from Norfolk. The first of these was
early in July, 1861, from Seawell's Point, at the mouth of the James
River, and was directed against two of the fleet there--the "Minnesota"
and the "Roanoke." Friday and Saturday night he sent an officer in a
boat to reconnoitre, but there was a steam picket on watch, Sunday as he
was spying them through a glass, noting their relative positions, he saw
the church flag on two of them, a white flag bearing a cross displayed,
flying just a little above the ship ensign. When he thought that those
men were worshipping God in sincerity and truth, and, no doubt, thinking
themselves in the line of their duty, he could but feel for them when he
remembered how soon he might be the means of sending many of them into
eternity. That night the attacking party in five boats set off about ten
o'clock. Captain Maury was in the first boat with the pilot and four
oars. Each of the others manned by an officer and four men carried a
magazine with thirty fathoms of rope attached. These magazines were oak
casks of powder with a fuse in each. Two joined by the rope were
stretching across the ebbtide and when directly ahead of the ships were
let go, and floating down the rope caught across the cable, the torpedo
would drift and the ship strain the trigger, ignite the fuse and
explode. "The night was still, calm, clear, lovely." Thatcher's comet
was flaming in the sky. We steered by it, pulling in the plane of its
splendid train. All the noise and turmoil of the enemy's camp and fleet
was hushed. They had no guard boats of any kind, and as with muffled
oars we neared them