Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/344

336 General Maury was a perfect type of the old-time Virginia army officer brave, high-spirited, adventurous, rollicking, always ready for fighting, ready for sport in any form, ready for any undertaking that offered adventure, or, if honor and duty required, ready to sacrifice life for either. Virginia gentleman and Virginia soldier, he was a splendid type of each.

General Maury was born in Fredericksburg, May 21, 1822. He was descended from the old-time Virginia families of Maury, Fontaine, Brooke and Minor, scions of which have illumined pages of the history of the State and nation by their achievements in war and in peace. He was a son of Captain John Minor Maury, United States Navy, and a nephew of the great Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury, the geographer of the seas, and probably more esteemed and honored in other countries than any American scientist who ever lived. General Maury's father died of yellow fever in the West Indies in 1828. Commodore Maury became the guardian of his dead brother's two sons—William Lewis and Dabney—and to the day of his death General Maury spoke of his uncle as having been to him all that a father could have been. William Lewis Maury died at the age of twenty.

General Maury grew up at Fredericksburg, where he received his preparatory education, and when quite young entered the University of Virginia. He graduated in the A. B. course, and also took the junior course in law. He prosecuted his law studies at Fredericksburg under the celebrated Judge Lomax, but he finally determined that the law was not to his liking, and applied for, and received, an appointment to West Point.

In the corps of cadets at the Military Academy during General Maury's four years there were many men destined to become among the greatest in American— annals George B. McClellan, Thomas J. Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, A. P. Hill, Winfield Scott Hancock, Bee, Franklin, and dozens of others. The stories General Maury loved to tell of incidents connected with the school-life of these great captains were of the most interesting nature, and his description of their early character attractive in view of the after greatness of the boys who were then students of the art of which they became past masters .