HIS PART IN THE CIVIL WAR 183 



confidence in you and therefore intrust the whole secret 

 to your keeping and discretion. Having thus placed 

 myself in your hands, let us make this agreement binding 

 also upon our heirs and assigns, and to this end I propose 

 that the necessary steps be at once taken. Yours truly, 

 M. F. Maury, Confederate Navy. To Nath. J. Holmes, 

 Esq." 



Maury had at this time fully decided to return to the 

 Confederate States in the spring, and was then arranging 

 his affairs in England with that end in view. He hoped 

 to arrive there early enough to make use of his electric 

 mines in the land warfare of the spring campaign. He 

 had recently undergone a surgical operation, and his 

 friends in England were very much opposed to his going 

 home, some of them being of the opinion that by the time 

 he arrived Richmond would have been abandoned and 

 he would have no home to go to. But he conceived it 

 to be his duty to return, as he might be of greater service 

 there than he was abroad. 



Before the date he had set for sailing, May 2, Lee had 

 surrendered at Appomattox and Lincoln had been 

 assassinated; still Maury did not change his plans, but 

 sailed on the Royal Mail Steamer Atrato with a quantity 

 of insulated wire, copper tanks, magnetic exploders, etc. 

 for Havana with the hope of being able to keep open 

 Galveston or some other port on the coast of Texas. 



He had worried a great deal about the members of his 

 family who were in the Confederate service. "My 

 dreams", he wrote in January, 1863, "are nightly of 

 death and mutilation of children and friends". Just 

 four days after this date his son John, who was at Vicks- 

 burg on the staff of General Dabney H. Maury, disap- 



