HIS TREATMENT BY THE “RETIRING BOARD”
It must not be supposed that Maury spent only halcyon days during
his long period of service at the Naval Observatory. When it is
remembered that his contacts with men were extremely numerous, and
that the opportunities for unpleasant controversy were almost without
number in view of the fact that he was such an ardent advocate of
whatever question he took up, whether it was scientific, economic, or
political, it is truly remarkable that there were so few who became
hostile to him. But strange as it may seem, those who as a class
were most unfriendly to Maury and least sympathetic toward his work
were a considerable number of his brother officers in the navy. As a
consequence, in the year 1855, a board of naval officers inflicted upon
him painful mental sufferings and placed him in a humiliating position,
at the very time when his name was being acclaimed by the scientists
and many of the rulers of foreign countries.
The occasion for the display of this enmity against Maury was the
passing of the Act of Congress of February 28, 1855, to “promote the
efficiency of the navy”. To carry out this law, the President assembled
a board of naval officers consisting of five captains, five commanders,
and five lieutenants, to “make a careful examination” of the personnel
of the navy and report those found “incapable of performing promptly
and efficiently all their duty both ashore and afloat”. Those so
reported were to be either dropped from the rolls of the navy or
placed upon what was to be called the “reserved list” and receive
either leave of absence pay or furlough pay, according to the degree
of their disability; they were, moreover, to be ineligible for further
promotion, and subject at all times to the Navy Department for duty.
The members of this board were Captains William B. Shubrick, Matthew
C. Perry, Charles S. McCauley, C. K. Stribling, and Abraham Bigelow;
Commanders G. J. Pendergrast, Franklin Buchanan, Samuel F. Du Pont, and
Andrew H. Foote; and Lieutenants John S. Missroon, Richard L. Page,
Sylvanus W. Godon, William L. Maury, and James S. Biddle. The board
met on the 20th of June, and continued its sessions daily, except for
Sundays and the 4th of July, until it finished its work on July 25,
and the following day it reported the results of its deliberations.
Its judgment was that seventy-one officers should be placed on the
“reserved on leave of absence pay” list, and eighty-one on the
“reserved on furlough pay” list; while forty-nine were recommended to
be “dropped from the navy”.
Official announcement of these results was not made until some weeks
later, and Maury did not receive notice from the Secretary of the Navy
until September 17, 1855 that his name had been placed on the “reserved
on leave of absence pay” list. The Secretary’s letter, however,
informed him that he was not detached from the Naval Observatory, but
was to continue on his present duty.
To this letter Maury at once replied, “This announcement has taken me
by surprise. I have been in the navy upwards of thirty years. During
this time I have aimed in every station to which I have been called to
serve my country truly and well, with what success the Department and
the public can judge better than I. Suffice it to say, that I am not
aware that any charges or accusations or even any complaint of duty
neglected or badly performed during this long period has ever reached
the Department against me. Nevertheless in the judgment of the Board
I should be and have been placed under official disgrace. This is a
severe blow and I feel it as a grievous wrong. May I not therefore be
permitted to know what is the accusation against me and who my accusers
were before the Board?” The Secretary answered that the Board in
accordance with the law simply gave names and ranks, and did not assign
reasons for its decisions.
Maury felt that he had been made to suffer a grievous wrong, and
began to appeal to his friends to help him to secure justice. He was
particularly incensed over the fact that the Board met in secret,
and that he could find out neither what his offense was nor who his
accusers were. Some of the members of this “monstrous inquisition”, he
declared, had publicly condemned all science in the navy, and none of
the Board except Perry had made any mark upon the service that would be
recognized as a reminder of their excellence when they were gone. He
could think of only two reasons for their action against him. In the
first place, there was a spirit of jealousy that he, a mere lieutenant,
had dared to establish a reputation somewhat honorable in spite of
them; and in the second place, they would attempt to offer as an excuse
for the slur they had cast upon him the fact that he was lame. As to
the latter reason, Maury wrote, “Mere bodily activity, in an officer of
my rank, is comparatively of little value, when taken in connection
with the mental activity. Officers are expected—at least, it is
generally so in the upper grades—to work rather with the head than the
hand, and, moreover, I am bodily as active as a majority of the Board,
and if broken legs disqualify, at least one member of the Board should
have borne me company, for his leg was broken twice over.... General
Scott is crippled in the arm, yet it does not appear to have unfitted
him for the army. Besides, this Board has left untouched other crippled
officers, both above and below me”.
The action of the Board produced a very mischievous and demoralizing
effect on the naval service, upon which it let loose the spirit of a
hyena. Officers began to investigate the antecedents of each other,
and all sorts of trouble-making scandal was unearthed. But fortunately
for Maury nothing could be found prejudicial against his character and
his record in the files of the Navy Department, and he exulted over
the fact that he had never tripped in his youth. He became disgusted
with all the accusations and insinuations that had been aroused, and
declared that they were heart-sickening to a man who loved to live at
peace with all the world.
It was necessary, however, for him to see the matter through. So he
again wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, complaining that he had
been given no hearing, that all action had been taken in secret, no
minutes or records of any kind having been kept, and that the charge
of incompetency was too vague; and therefore he asked for specific
charges and for a fair and open trial according to law. The Secretary
replied that the members of the Board had dispersed to their duties;
but that he would reassemble them if the President so directed, adding
that Maury had a “spotless character and eminent service”. Another
interchange of letters took place, in which Maury said he could not
see the action of the Board otherwise than as official disgrace to
him; while the Secretary wrote that the President was of the opinion
that the Board acted in accordance with the law and that there was no
authority under it to command them to report the reasons for their
recommendations.
Maury then decided to write a letter to each member of the Board and
ask the following questions: “1st. What was the process of examination
adopted by the Board for ascertaining whether an officer was efficient
or not? 2nd. What was the standing of efficiency for the grade of
lieutenant? 3rd. What difference, if any, did the Board make between
duty ashore and duty afloat? 4th. Wherein was I found incapable of
performing the duties of my office, rank, or grade? 5th. Did the Board
inspect the Observatory, or make other examination as to the manner in
which it is conducted? 6th. What was the character of the evidence upon
which the Board pronounced its findings against me?”
All replies to these letters were unsatisfactorily evasive, but in
general they agreed in considering that Maury had not been placed in
official disgrace. Perry wrote, “In justice to those who have been
affected by the action of the Board, I cannot but hope that steps may
soon be taken by the proper authorities to develop the causes and
explain the circumstances which have brought about this painful change
in our common service”. But the junior member, Biddle, wrote most
fully, and gave the impression that he thought that the accident to
Maury’s leg had unfitted him for sea service and that on this ground he
had voted for his retirement. He added that each officer should perform
his part of the most unpleasant duty in the navy, service afloat,
and he implied that he believed Maury had been unwilling to go to sea
because of “love of scientific distinction”.
Meanwhile the press of the country had taken up Maury’s cause, and
a few examples from the newspapers will show how high the feeling
ran. The _Scientific American_ wrote, “To use the language of the
Philadelphia _Inquirer_, we regard the action of the Board ‘as an
insult upon the virtue and general intelligence of the country’....
(Maury’s) eminent services have been acknowledged by almost every
government in Europe. Prussia and Sweden have struck gold medals to his
honor. The Russian Ambassador has publicly thanked him by the direction
of his government. England has not been sparing of her tribute of
admiration in Parliament, and has adopted his plans in her own navy,
while the great French Industrial Exhibition awards to his charts her
highest premiums. His own country, on the contrary, declares him a clog
and an incumbrance on its navy, and unworthy of promotion. We trust
Congress will set this matter right. Better dispense with the services
of the entire Board of ‘ten minutes inquisitors’ than of this eminent
man. We understand that it had been proposed in Philadelphia, in case
Lieutenant Maury retired from the Observatory, to present him with a
testimonial of $50,000, as an acknowledgment of his services, and as
a mark of the disapprobation of the action of the Board. We doubt not
that this sum might easily be raised in our great commercial cities.
Yes, twice that if necessary”.
The New York _Herald_ held the Board up for ridicule, in the following
fashion: “I understand there is now in press, and will shortly appear,
a history of the lives and eminent services of the late Retiring
Board, entitled ‘Lights and Shadows of the Fifteen’. It will embrace
all the shades in the lives of those fifteen Spartans, from their
entrance into the service up to their ‘Thermopylae defeat’ of 201
brothers in arms, by which gallant action they ‘promoted themselves’.
It will be the commencement of a new epoch in the naval history of the
country, and will be rich, racy, and spicy”.
Further quotations from the New York _Journal of Commerce_, the
_National Intelligencer_, and other newspapers might be given, in which
the contention was made that, without respect to party, the sentiment
was practically unanimous that Maury should be restored to his place
on the active list with all the “honor and reparation due to injured
merit”, and that this should be done without further delay. But two
more years were to pass before justice was done. Even after both the
President and the Secretary of the Navy had come to realize that Maury
had been unjustly treated, there was considerable further delay while
Congress formulated a plan for undoing the action of the Board in cases
where mistakes had been made. Petitions had been presented by Senators
for about one hundred of the officers affected, and these occasioned
endless debates in the halls of Congress during the year 1856. Senator
Bell of Tennessee presented the petition on Maury’s behalf before the
Senate on January 21, 1856, and made several long speeches in its
defense.
Senator Mallory of Florida, who had sponsored the bill for promoting
efficiency in the navy, was naturally a strong defender of the action
of the Board, and when Maury’s petition was presented he said, among
other things, “If the Board has erred in any case whatever, there
was no error in the case of Lieutenant Maury”, for he declared that
his physical disability was sufficient cause and he had repeatedly
shunned sea service. There seems to have been no personal animus in
Mallory’s stand, which appears to have been merely the defense of a
party measure; indeed, only one year before, when it was proposed in
the Senate to make a remuneration of $25,000 to Maury for the service
to the country of his wind and current charts, Mallory as chairman
of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs made a long and favorable
report, in which he reviewed in detail Maury’s work and quoted words
of praise from the reports of Secretaries of the Navy Graham, Kennedy,
and Dobbin. His report concluded with these words: “This officer has
been for years in the public service, has a family to provide for, and
is entirely dependent upon his annual pay; and for these reasons your
Committee think that a sum of money, insignificant indeed in comparison
to his services, yet sufficient to remove his anxieties and to cheer
his hopes for the future of those dependent upon him, might be justly
bestowed. Your Committee recommend that a sum of 25,000 dollars be thus
appropriated, and report a bill accordingly”. Such a sudden turn from
eloquent support of Maury to opposition to his interests was indeed
remarkable, for it was a long jump from the advocacy of a measure
awarding him $25,000 to one which reduced his salary from $3,500 to
$1,200 a year. Mallory was supported in his defense of the action
of the Board, as it affected Maury, mainly by Senators Clayton of
Delaware, Benjamin of Louisiana, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.
Eventually, however, the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs reported
a bill to amend the act entitled “An Act to Promote the Efficiency
of the Navy”, which was finally passed on January 16, 1857. This
provided that an officer whose status in the navy had been affected by
the action of the Retiring Board could by written request secure an
investigation, by regular court of inquiry, into his “physical, mental,
professional, and moral fitness” for the naval service, and that the
finding of this court might be submitted to the President, who was to
take action accordingly.
The bill originally contained two additional sections, providing for
the establishment of the rank of admiral and the organization of
a scientific corps in the navy; but they were finally struck out.
This scientific corps was to take charge of the Naval Observatory,
the nautical almanac, the hydrographical work, and such other
scientific matters as the Secretary of the Navy should prescribe;
and its personnel was to consist of one captain, two commanders, ten
lieutenants, and seven masters. Mallory favored the establishment of
such a plan, and, about-facing again, said on the floor of the Senate,
“The Committee had an earnest desire that that distinguished officer
(Maury) should be at the head of the corps”. Though Maury had written
at first rather enthusiastically of the scientific corps, he eventually
came to the conclusion that it would not have been wise to establish
it, and wrote that he was not sorry it had been struck out of the bill.
Under the main provisions of the amended act, Maury’s case was taken up
by a court of inquiry, before whom it was proved by a surgeon that his
leg was actually stronger than that of Missroon, one of the members of
the Board; that he had not tried to evade sea service but had applied
for such service during the Mexican War and had been refused; that
other officers retained on the active list had a larger proportion of
shore duty than he; and that he had been kept at the Naval Observatory
by the various Secretaries of the Navy because of his special fitness
for the work. This latter statement was proved by personal letters, of
which the following from William A. Graham will serve as an example:
“In answer to your inquiry, why you were not ordered to sea during my
connection with the Navy Department, I have to state that I considered
your services at the National Observatory of far more importance and
value to the country and the navy than any that could be rendered by an
officer of your grade at sea in time of peace. Indeed, I doubt whether
the triumphs of navigation and of the knowledge of the sea achieved
under your superintendence of the Observatory will not contribute as
much to an effective Naval Service and to the national fame as the
brilliant trophies of our arms”.
Resolutions in favor of Maury’s restoration to the active service
list were passed by the state legislatures of Tennessee, Louisiana,
Alabama, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and New York. Of those passed
by the last-mentioned state, he wrote, “These resolutions uttered
by a great state in the manner of a free people have a charm that
is lacking in these honors which, in the shape of medals, orders of
knighthood, crosses, and decorations, have been conferred by the hands
of strangers”.
Finally, in view of the findings of the court of inquiry and the
sympathy for Maury which had been aroused throughout the whole country,
the President not only restored him to the active service list but
also promoted him to the rank of commander. The announcement of this
promotion was as follows: “Sir: The President of the United States,
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, has appointed you
a Commander in the Navy from the 14th of September, 1855, on the
Active List. I have the pleasure to enclose herewith your commission,
dated the 27th instant (January, 1858), the receipt of which you will
acknowledge to the Department. I am respectfully, I. Toucey”. Thus was
Maury at last completely vindicated.