CHARTER OF WINDS AND WAVES

and former U.S. Navy officer Matthew Maury, sextant in hand, lay on the deck of a blockade runner departing Charleston, South Carolina, for England. After resigning his commission to join the Confederacy, Maury had sparred with its leaders over defending the Confederate coastline. Finding him a thorn in their sides, they had dispatched him to England, ostensibly to shop for ships. The blockade runner’s captain had lost his way, and Maury offered to chart a course by the stars. Maury, 55, had not been to sea for more than two decades but in no time, he was announcing a new course that would have the vessel to Bermuda by 2 a.m. That hour came and went, but within