The career of Matthew Fontaine Maury, the “Pathfinder of the Seas,” has left a broad, enduring wake in the waters of naval and oceanographic history, and the significance of his achievements is well known to naval and maritime observers for more than a century. Perhaps not so well known, however, is a facet of Maury’s character which was revealed in an exchange of correspondence with Grand Duke Constantine of Russia.
More than one hundred years ago at the start of our great national conflict (variously known as the Civil War, The War of Northern Aggression, and the War of the Rebellion) Maury resigned his post as Hydrographer of the U. S. Navy and his Navy commission in order to join the Confederate States Navy. This was a course of action which many proud Virginians chose at the outbreak of hostilities. Maury was commissioned a commander in the Confederate States Navy in April 1861 and assigned to harbor defense work.
In the fall of 1862, Maury was sent to England to secure ships for the Confederacy. His world-wide reputation made him an effective spokesman for the Southern cause. However, throughout his association with the Confederate States Navy, he was less than happy with his assignments and believed that his talents were not being put to full use. There were other opportunities available to him, but he felt that it was his duty to stay with the Confederacy as long as the war continued.
One of the opportunities available to him was the chance to go to Russia, eschew the civil conflict, and continue his scientific research and writing. Although many of Maury’s biographers have reprinted the Grand Duke’s letter inviting Maury to come to Russia, they have quoted only brief excerpts from Maury’s reply declining the offer. Having recently come across the full texts of both letters, as reprinted in a contemporary issue of a Spartanburg, S.C., newspaper, they are herewith transcribed for the edification of readers of this journal.
St. Petersburg, July 21, 1861.
My Dear Capt. Maury:
The news of your having left a service which is so much indebted to your great and successful labors, has made a very painful impression on me and my companions-in-arms. Your indefatigable researches have unveiled the great laws which rule the winds and currents of the ocean, and have placed your name amongst those which will be ever mentioned with feelings of gratitude and respect, not only by professional men, but by all those who pride themselves in the great and noble attainments of the human race. That your name is well known in Russia I need scarcely add, and, though “barbarians,” as we are still sometimes called, we have been taught to honor in your person disinterested and eminent services to science and mankind.
Sincerely deploring the inactivity into which the present political whirlpool in your country has plunged you, I deem myself called upon to invite you to take up your residence in this country, where you may in peace continue your favorite and useful occupations.
Your position here will be a perfectly independent one. You will be bound by no conditions or engagements, and you will always be at liberty to steer home across the ocean, in the event of your not preferring to cast anchor in our remote corner of the Baltic.
As regards your material welfare, I beg to assure you that everything will be done by me to make your new home comfortable and agreeable, whilst at the same time necessary means will be offered you to enable you to continue your scientific pursuits in the way you have been accustomed to.
I shall now he awaiting your reply, hoping to have the pleasure of soon seeing here so distinguished an officer, whose personal acquaintance it has always been my desire to make, and whom Russia will be proud to welcome on her soil.
Believe me, my dear Captain Maury,
Your sincere well-wisher,
(signed) Constantine,
Grand Admiral of Russia.
Richmond, Va., October 29, 1861.
To H.I.H., the Grand Duke Constantine
Grand Admiral of Russia, St. Petersburg.
Admiral:
Your letter reached me only a few days ago. It fills me with emotions.
In it I am offered the hospitalities of a great and powerful Empire, with the Grand Admiral of its fleets for patron and friend. Inducements are held out such as none but the most magnanimous of Princes could offer, and such as nothing but a stern sense of duty may withstand.
A home in the bosom of my family on the banks of the Neva, where, in the midst of books, and surrounded by friends, I am, without care for the morrow, to have the most princely means and facilities for prosecuting those studies and continuing those philosophical labors in which I take most delight. All the advantages that I enjoyed in Washington, are, with a larger discretion, to be offered me in Russia.
Surely a more flattering invitation could not be uttered! Certainly it could not reach a more grateful heart. I have slept upon it. It is becoming that I should be candid, and, in a few words, frankly state the circumstances by which I find myself surrounded.
The State of Virginia gave me birth within her borders; among many friends, the nearest of kin, and troops of excellent neighbors, my children are planting their vine and fig tree; [in] her green bosom are the graves of my fathers; the political whirlpool from which your kind forethought sought to rescue me has already drawn her into a fierce and bloody war.
In 1788, when this State accepted the Federal Constitution and entered the American Union, she did so with the formal declaration that she reserved to herself the right to withdraw from it for cause and resume those powers and attributes of sovereignty which she had never ceded away, but only “delegated” for certain definite and specified purposes.
When the President elect commenced to set at naught the very objects of the Constitution, and without authority of law, proceeded to issue his proclamation of 15th of April last, Virginia, in the exercise of that reserved right, decided that the time had come when her safety, her dignity and honor required her to resume those “delegated” powers and withdraw from the Union. She did so. She then straightway called upon her sons in the Federal service to retire therefrom and come to her relief.
This call found me in the midst of those quiet researches at the Observatory in Washington, which I am now, with so much delicacy of thought and goodness of heart, invited to resume in Russia. Having been brought up in the school of State Rights, where we had for masters the greatest statesmen of America, among them Mr. Madison, the wisest of them all, I could not, and did not hesitate. I recognized this call, considered it mandatory, and formally renouncing all allegiance to the broken Union, hastened over to the South side of the Potomac; there to renew to fatherland those vows of fealty, service and devotion which the State of Virginia had permitted me to pledge to the Federal Union, so long only as by serving it, I might serve her.
Thus my sword has been tendered in her cause, and the tender has been accepted. Her soil is invaded, the enemy is actually at her gates, and here I am contending. as the fathers of the Republic did, for the right of self-government and those very principles for the maintenance of which Washington fought when this, his native State was a Colony of Great Britain.
The path of duty and honor is therefore plain. By following it with the devotion and loyalty of a true sailor, I shall, I am persuaded, have the glorious and proud recompense that is contained in the “well-done” of the Grand Admiral of Russia and his noble “companions in arms.”
When the invader is expelled, and as soon thereafter as the State will grant me leave, I promise myself the pleasure of a trip across the Atlantic, and shall hasten to Russia, that I may there in person, on the banks of the Neva, have the honor and the pleasure of expressing to her Grand Admiral the sentiment of respect and esteem with which his oft repeated acts of kindness and the generous encouragements that he has afforded me in the pursuits of science has inspired his
Obedient servant,
(signed) M.F. Maury,
Commander, C.S. Navy