With little enthusiasm, therefore, Maury made his preparations for departure to England. He was saddened by the necessity of parting from his family who had already begun to suffer from the fortunes of war. They had been driven from their refuge in Fredericksburg when that place was captured by Union troops on April 18, 1862, and on the following 1st of June his son Richard had his horse shot from under him in battle and was himself severely wounded. But obedient to the call of duty, he bade farewell to his family who were then making their home with relatives in Albemarle County and, with his youngest son, Matthew Fontaine, Jr., he set out for Charleston to take ship as soon as practicable for his new field of work. 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 protection 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 pleasure, but to reassure his wife he wrote, before leaving Charleston, “If we get caught, I expect soon to be exchanged. 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.