Miguel Grau Seminary , hero of the navy. He was born in San Miguel de Piura on July 27, 1834. Son of Colombian Juan Manuel Grau y Berrío and Josefa Luisa Seminario y del Castillo. His childhood was spent between the city of Piura, then small and village, and the port of Paita, where he began his career at sea at the early age of nine, when he embarked on the Granada brig Tescua , under the command of Captain Manuel Herrera. After being saved from a shipwreck in the waters of the island of La Gorgona, he took a seat on the schooner Florita of the same captain. For more than ten years he traveled through seas, islands and ports as far away as Macao, San Francisco, Hong Kong, the Marquesas and Sandwich Islands, Shanghai, Singapore, London, Bordeaux, Baltimore, Boston, New York and Rio de Janeiro.
In August 1853 he presented himself to the navy, entering as a midshipman on March 14, 1854 at the age of 20 ; two years later he reached the rank of lieutenant. He gained experience on the Rímac, Vigilante and Ucayali ships . According to his own confession, his desire to participate in a naval combat, more than political reasons, made him take part in 1856, aboard the Apurímac frigate, in the Arica uprising, led by Lizandro Montero in favor of the conservative Vivanco and against of President Castilla and the liberal Constitution. After the rebellion was defeated, Grau was separated from the Navy and served for two years as commander of the English merchant ship María Cristina, traveling through the seas of China and India, until returning to Lima in 1860. amnesty rejoined the Navy on September 12, 1863, being assigned to the steam Lerzaundi under the command of Aurelio García y García, together with whom he was commissioned to Europe for the acquisition of warships, already holding the rank of first lieutenant. In 1865 he returned to Peru and was appointed commander of the corvette Unión , participating in 1866 in the Abtao battle , during the war with Spain.
Upon the appointment of the American sailor John Tucker to command an expedition of the Peruvian squadron to the Philippines, Grau and a group of Navy officers expressed their protest by submitting their resignation, being confined to the island of San Lorenzo. Once free, he returned in 1867 to the merchant marine and that same year he married Dolores Cabero y Núñez, with whom he had 10 children. On February 27, 1868, at the call of Diez Canseco , he left his outstanding position in the merchant marine and accepted his appointment as commander of the Huáscar , ship in which he remained until his immolation in the waters of Angamos, with the exception of the time in which he was deputy for Paita and when he held an administrative position in the navy. he participated in the legislatures of 1876 and 1878 in representation of the Civil Party ; in exercise of the deputation he proposed laws for promotions in the navy according to merit, and the reorganization of the Ministry of War and Navy. In 1877 he served as commanding general of the Navy . They were years of serious political setbacks and when the Huáscar was captured by the caudillo Piérola, Grau voted for the suspension of constitutional guarantees. He traveled to Chile to repatriate the remains of his father and immediately informed the Peruvian government about the naval supremacy of the southern country. In days prior to Chile's declaration of war on Peru, he once again took charge of the Huáscar , despite knowing the advantages of the Chilean forces by sea and land, assuming its role of defense of the Peruvian sea. On May 21, 1879, in the first combat of Iquique , his generosity overwhelmed the admiration of his enemies, by rescuing the survivors of the Esmeralda , sunk at the third spur of the Huáscar; on the 26th of the same month, in the first combat in Antofagasta , after destroying the harbor defenses, he withdrew without shelling the defenseless population. On October 8, 1879, when the Huáscar he was returning from one of his raids, he found himself in Punta Angamos with the enemy squad; Realizing that there was no possible escape and maintaining his composure, he gave the combat order. Ten minutes later an enemy grenade pierced the command tower and Grau's body was blown to pieces. His remains, initially buried in Santiago de Chile, were repatriated on July 15, 1890 and transferred to the Crypt of the Heroes on September 8, 1908. On October 26, 1946 he was posthumously promoted to the rank of admiral . As a former deputy, he retains a permanent seat in Congress.