Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1107

Rh Maximilian and was subsequently sent on a mission to Europe. Later he resumed his scientific work, prepared his manual of geography, received from the university of Cambridge the degree of LL. D., and declined, at Napoleon's hands, the superintendency of the Imperial observatory at Paris, preferring to accept the chair of physics in the Virginia military institute. He died at Lexington, February 1, 1873. By his marriage to Anne, daughter of Dabney Herndon, he had five daughters and three sons. Col. Richard Launcelot Maury, a son of the foregoing, was born at Fredericksburg, Va., in 1840. He was reared at Washington, D. C., and was graduated at the university of Virginia, in several departments, in 1857 to 1860. He studied law at Washington and was admitted to the bar in 1860, but had hardly launched upon his professional career, when the war of the Confederacy was begun and he was impelled by loyalty to his native State to tender her his services. He became a private, on April 28, 1861, in the famous Company F, organized at Richmond, and originally assigned to the First Virginia regiment. Before this company left Richmond, Maury was promoted lieutenant and detached under orders from the secretary of the navy. In July he reported to Commodore Hollins, and participated in the capture of the steamer St. Nicholas, in the Potomac river, and the seizure of three other merchantmen as prizes in Chesapeake bay. After this adventurous and successful enterprise he was promoted major of Virginia volunteers and assigned to the Twenty-fourth Virginia regiment, subsequently a part of Pickett's division, with which he served gallantly from Second Manassas to Appomattox, receiving promotion to lieutenant-colonel and colonel. He took part in the defense of Yorktown, was one of the few surviving field officers, at Williamsburg; fought at Seven Pines; commanded his regiment in the attack on Casey's camp, and was badly wounded and honorably mentioned in the official reports; participated in the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville; in 1864 was in the campaign against New Bern, Plymouth and Fort Caswell, N. C., and, returning to Virginia upon Butler's advance at Bermuda Hundred, fought under Beauregard at Drewry's Bluff, where he was desperately wounded and disabled. Nevertheless, upon the evacuation of Richmond he rejoined the army on crutches and shared in the surrender at Appomattox. After this event he went to Mexico, and was honored by appointment as assistant commissioner of immigration by Emperor Maximilian. At the fall of the empire he proceeded to Nicaragua, where he became superintendent of the Javali silver and gold mine. In 1868 he returned to Virginia and embarked in the practice of law at Lexington, as a partner of the late Gov. John Letcher. Since 1873 he has resided at Richmond, and has been very successfully engaged in the legal profession.

Colonel Morton Marye is among the many prominent Virginians who, at the call of their State, took up arms in 1861. He entered the service as lieutenant-colonel of the Seventeenth Virginia regiment. The spring of 1862 found this regiment in the brigade of Gen. A. P. Hill of the grand army that was collected in the peninsula for the defense of Richmond. As Gen. Joe Johnston retired before the advance of McClellan, his rear guard was constantly engaged in skirmishing with the advance of the enemy. At