CHAPTER XII 

 His Part in the Civil War: In England 



Though Maury arrived in Charleston the latter part 

 of September, it was not until October 12, 1862 that he 

 departed with his twelve year old son "Brave" on board 

 the steamer Herald to run the Union blockade. An 

 attempt had been made some three days before and had 

 been unsuccessful, as the vessel had run into an enemy 

 sloop of war and was forced to put back within the pro- 

 tection of the forts. The second trial was successful, but 

 it almost ended in disaster. "We crossed the bar once", 

 Maury wrote, "and when we got in about two miles of 

 the enemy the pilots plumped the ship ashore, where she 

 lay all night. In the morning they opened on her but 

 she got off without damage". Maury certainly could 

 not have looked upon capture with any feelings of pleas- 

 ure, but to reassure his wife he wrote, before leaving 

 Charleston, "If we get caught, I expect soon to be ex- 

 changed. The Brave and I will have a bully time in 

 prison". 



Nothing further of an unusual nature happened on the 

 six hundred miles voyage to the Bermudas except that 

 Captain Louis M. Coxetter, who had never before been 

 very far from land, after groping about for the island had 

 to admit on the sixth day that he was lost. 



James Morris Morgan, who as a midshipman accom- 

 panied Maury to England, thus relates how the great 

 scientist extricated the captain from his difficulty: "He 

 (Coxetter) told Commodore Maury that something ter- 

 rible must have happened, as he had sailed his ship 



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