Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/351

 Rh Farmington. On the evacuation of Corinth, May 31, 1862, he was assigned to command the rear guard of the Army of the West. The next day he was assigned to the command of the First division of that army, with which he subsequently fought at Iuka, Corinth, Hatchie-Bridge and Vicksburg. Maury's division of the Army of the West went into action at Corinth 4,600 strong, on October 4, 1862. After three days of fighting, it was reduced to 1,200 men, who held Ord's corps in check, repulsing every attack from 9 A. M. to 3 P. M., and saved Van Dorn's army and trains.

In April, 1863, General Maury was ordered to take command of the Department of East Tennessee. While in this command he received a dispatch to this effect: "General Van Dorn was killed here to-day. Representing the wishes of his whole corps of cavalry, we desire to know if you will accept its command." This was signed by all the generals, including Governor Ross, of Texas, and General Frank Armstrong. This, the highest compliment ever paid General Maury, he found proper to decline.

Soon afterwards he was transferred to the Department of the Gulf, which he defended until the battle of Mobile closed the war between the States, on April 12th. The fighting began March 26, 1865, against Canby's army of three corps of infantry, a heavy force of artillery, and Farragut's fleet. General Maury conducted the defence with great skill, destroying twelve of Farragut's vessels. On the 12th of April, pursuant to his orders from General Lee, General Maury marched out the remnant of his little army, now reduced to a division of 4,500 men. As he marched out with the rear guard, a flag of truce was sent out to the fleet, to apprise the enemy that he might enter Mobile, without firing a shot into the town. On the 14th of May, he and his army were paroled.

General Maury's life after the war was that of many a soldier of the Confederacy.

The close of the war found him penniless. He has often remarked upon how little fitted he was by education and training to be a man of business. He was fond of borrowing General Dick Taylor's opinion of the education of officers of the United States army: "Take a boy of sixteen from his mother's apron-strings, shut him up under