Dabney Herndon Maury was an American military. He was recognized for meritorious conduct during the Mexican American War. When the Civil War began, he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate Army as a Colonel.
Background
Dabney Herndon Maury was born on May 21, 1822, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, United States. He was the son of Captain John Minor Maury of the United States Navy, and Eliza (Maury) Maury. His parents were first cousins, descendants of Jean de la Fontaine, Huguenot, said to have been burned at the stake by French Catholics, whose great grand-daughter married in Dublin Matthew Maury, also of Huguenot descent, and came with him to America in 1718. From this stock sprang all the Virginia Maury's, including Dabney, his paternal uncle, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and his great-grandfather, James Maury, whom Patrick Henry opposed in the "Parson's Cause."
Education
Maury received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in 1842 and studied law there and at Fredericksburg. Disliking the law, he obtained an appointment to the United States Military Academy, where he was graduated in 1846.
As the second lieutenant of the Mounted Rifles, later the 3rd Cavalry, Dabney Maury went to Mexico, was mentioned in general orders for gallantry at the siege of Vera Cruz, and was brevetted first lieutenant for bravery at Cerro Gordo. From 1847 to 1850 he was an assistant professor of geography, history, and ethics and from 1850 to 1852 assistant instructor of infantry tactics at West Point.
From 1852 to 1858, he served as a lieutenant on frontier duty in Texas, and from 1858 to 1860, he was superintendent of the cavalry school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 1859, he published "Skirmish Drill for Mounted Troops," and the following year he was breveted captain and named adjutant general of New Mexico.
When the Civil War began, he resigned from the federal army. He served as adjutant general in the Confederate Army and, early in 1862, was appointed chief of staff to General Earl Van Dorn, with whom he fought in the battles of Elkhorn Tavern and Pea Ridge. He was promoted to brigadier general on March 12, 1862, and to major general on November 12, 1862, after serving as a division commander at the battle of Corinth.
In July 1863 Maurywas made commander of the district of the Gulf with headquarters at Mobile. In this capacity he served for the rest of the war, losing the harbor defenses to Farragut in August 1864 and in the following year, with about 9,200 effectives, defending the city against Farragut's fleet and Canby's army of 45, 000 from March 27 to April 12, when after the heavy loss he retired to Meridian, Mississippi. The end of the war found him penniless and unfitted by training and temperament for a business career.
When old and impoverished, he declined to be a supervisor of drawings for the Louisiana Lottery at a yearly salary of $30, 000, and once he gave up his business in order to serve as a volunteer nurse in a New Orleans yellow-fever epidemic. In 1868 he organized the Southern Historical Society, opening its records to the United States war records office in return for free access by former Confederates to records of the latter. He was chairman of the executive committee of the Society until 1886 and contributed a number of articles to its Papers. He was also the author of "A Young People's History of Virginia and Virginians" and the entertaining "Recollections of A Virginian" (1894). In 1873 he assisted in organizing the Westmoreland Club of Richmond.
During the critical year of 1876, he started the movement for the improvement of the United States volunteer troops and served as a member of the executive committee of the National Guard Association until 1890. From 1885 to 1889 he was the United States minister to Colombia.
Achievements
Dabney Herndon Maury is known as Civil War Confederate Army Major General. He performed admirably at the battles of Pea Ridge and was promoted Brigadier General in early 1862. He led the division in actions at Corinth, Vicksburg, and was promoted Major General in November 1862. Appointed commander of the District of the Gulf in 1863, he supervised the construction of Mobile's defenses but was forced to order the city's evacuation 1865. After the war, he served as United States Minister to Colombia, 1885 to 1889.
He is also the author of books about military training.
Van Dorn had highly praised Dabney's courage and patriotism, and his readiness "either with his sword or his pen." He was remembered as a small, spare man, socially, and, at least in his younger days, even convivially inclined, but with a sense of duty and honor worthy of the best of the traditional Virginia gentleman officers.
Connections
In 1852, Dabney married Nannie Rose Mason. They had one son and two daughters.
