It was Sam Houston, of Rockbridge county, a Virginian, who wrested the great State of Texas from Mexico and afterwards ceded it to the United States, John Tyler, of Charles City county, a Virginian, signing the bills for its admission three days before his presidential term ended. By this acquisition the government added to its possessions territory sufficient, it is said, to furnish comfortable homes for the present population of the United States, which would then be less crowded than many of the States of Europe. THE MEXICAN WAR. It was Gen. Winfield Scott, of Dinwiddie county, a Virginian, and Gen. Zachary Taylor (Rough and Ready), of Orange county, also a Virginian, who subdued Mexico, by which there were added to the territory of the United States the great States of California, Arizona and New Mexico. And thus it will be seen, that all of the territory acquired by the United States Government, from the union of the colonies for the common defence to the purchase of Alaska, except the Gadsden purchase, was secured through Virginians, who were born and raised, and many of them at the time lived, in or near Fredericksburg. COMMODORE F. M. MAURY. It was Matthew Fontaine Maury, of Spotsylvania county, and later a resident of Fredericksburg, a Virginian, who marked out the tracks of speed and safety for mariners of every clime over the ocean's bosom, and showed the beds on the bottom of the seas, where the cable lines now safely lie, of whom all the officers of the maritime nations came to learn, on whom kings and emperors bestowed orders, medals and decorations, and of whom the great Humboldt said he had created a new science.[89] The following paper, on this great man's life, character and achievements, to whom the world is so greatly indebted, was prepared by Rev. J. S. Dill, D. D., then a resident of this place, and pastor of the Baptist church, for this volume: "On the 14th of January, 1806, only ten miles from the city of Fredericksburg, in the county of Spotsylvania, was born Matthew Fontaine Maury. He came of goodly stock, for there mingled in his nature, in equal parts, the sturdy religious life of the French Huguenots and the gallantry of the English Cavalier. On his mother's side he belonged to the Minor family, of Virginia, while his name testifies that his paternal ancestors were among those who, from the persecutions of France, stretched their arms to the New World. "When Maury was five years old, his parents emigrated to Tennessee and settled near the present town of Franklin. Thus, in the primeval forests of Tennessee, far away from the ocean's tuneful chant, there grew up the lad, who was to become 'The Pathfinder of the Seas.'