story of Maury’s home life seems almost too nearly perfect to be true, but diligent search of all available records has failed to disclose anything which would detract from the portrayal of him as always the true, considerate, loving husband and father. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Mrs. Thomas Fell and Mrs. C. Alphonso Smith._ MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY AND RAPHAEL SEMMES From a photograph made in London during the War between the States.] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Mrs. Thomas Fell and Mrs. C. Alphonso Smith._ MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY AND THE REVEREND DOCTOR TREMLETT From a photograph made in Cambridge, England, in 1868, when Cambridge conferred the LL.D. on Maury.] CHAPTER XI HIS PART IN THE CIVIL WAR: IN VIRGINIA Maury resigned from the naval service and left the National Observatory on April 20, 1861. He declared that he worked as hard and as faithfully for Uncle Sam up to three o’clock of that day as he had ever done, and at that hour turned over all the public property and records of the office to Lieutenant Whiting, the officer who was next in authority. He left the Observatory with the deepest regret. “Its associations”, he wrote, “the treasures there, which, with your help and that of thousands of other friendly hands, had been collected from the sea, were precious to me and as I turned my back upon the place a tear furrowed my cheek, for I could not but recollect that such things were”. From Richmond, on April 26th, he wrote to Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, who had requested to know his reasons for his resignation, the following reply: “I am not aware of any law or rule that requires an officer tendering resignation to give reasons therefor. In this case, however, I have no objections to state them. They are these: our once glorious Union is gone; the state through which and for which I confessed allegiance to the Federal government has no longer any lot or part in it. Neither have I. I desire to go with my own people and with them to share the fortunes of our own state together. Such are the reasons for tendering my resignation, and I hope the President will consider them satisfactory”. Maury afterwards stated in detail the reasons for his resignation in his “A Vindication of Virginia and the South”, which was the last thing that he prepared for the press, in May, 1871. This statement, which must be read as a whole in order to get the full force of his arguments, is much too long to quote here; but it is sufficient to say that his action was prompted by the same feelings and motives that inspired Lee and the dozens of other officers in both army and navy who went with their respective states when secession was decided upon. Furthermore, as will be seen later, in Maury’s case the sacrifices involved were perhaps greater than those suffered by any other man who cast his lot with the South.