Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/240

226 has practically confessed defeat, and laid down her arms. In that act mine were grounded also.

I am here without command, and bound on matters of private concern abroad. Nevertheless, and as I consider further resistance worse than useless, I deem it proper formally so to confess, and to pledge you, on my word of honour, that, should I find myself within the jurisdiction of the United States before the formal inauguration of peace, to consider myself a prisoner of war, bound by the terms and conditions which have been, or may be, granted to General Lee and his officers.

Be pleased to send your answer through my son. Colonel R. L. Maury, a prisoner of war on parole in Richmond, Virginia. In the meantime, and until I hear to the contrary, I shall act as though my surrender had been formally accepted on the above-named conditions.

In May 1865, his son Matthew ("Brave") reached Virginia, and found the Maury family assembled at the University. There were his sister Betty, with two little girls; Diana, with one little girl and a husband just returned from nine months' weary imprisonment at Fort Delaware; Sue (Colonel Richard Maury's wife), with a wounded husband and one little boy; his three little sisters, Molly, Eliza, and Lucy; his mother and her sister, Mary Herndon; his aunt Eliza, and her niece, Sally Fontaine Maury (Maury's ward), with her husband and three children.

On the 1st of May, 1865, his brother-in-law. Dr. Brodie Herndon, had written a letter to Maury from Richmond, which was not received until long afterwards. He said:—

In view of the state of the public mind in the North at present, I think it would be decidedly unsafe for you to return to this country. Your absence abroad in a semi-diplomatic