Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 7.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[69] instructive, and affords food for reflection. The lessons to be drawn are momentous.

On the eighth of March, 1862, there were lying at anchor in Hampton Roads the first-class steam frigates Roanoke and Minnesota, the sailing frigates Congress and St. Lawrence, the razee Cumberland, and several gunboats. In the presence of this formidable force, representing the highest offensive power of the wooden navy, boldly appeared the rebel iron-clad steamer Merrimac, and notwithstanding the broadsides poured into her by, and the heroic defence of, the Congress and the Cumberland, these two wooden vessels were easily destroyed, and the fate of the others was only reserved for the morrow. During the night, however, the Monitor, the first vessel of her class, arrived, and on the ninth of March, when the morning mists lifted and showed the Merrimac and her wooden consorts approaching to complete the work of destruction, our defence consisted, not in the great ships that were still afloat and their numerous heavy guns, but in a single small iron-clad vessel, armed with two guns. History has recorded the courage and skill of Commander John L. Worden, who, disappearing in the smoke of the advancing fleet, dispersed and put to flight their wooden steamers, turned at bay the Merrimac, grappled with that formidable monster, and drove her back into Norfolk, and kept her there until the evacuation of that place led the rebels to destroy their famous iron-clad rather than encounter and risk her capture by her puny antagonist.

The lessons of that contest taught us the inadequacy of wooden vessels and our existing ordnance to meet armored ships. For inland operations the Monitor turret was immediately adopted, and the fifteen-inch gun of Rodman, being the only gun of greater weight than the eleven-inch yet tested, was ordered to be placed in the turret of the vessels that were constructing. The result of this policy is developed in the action through which you have just passed. In fifteen minutes, and with five shots, you overpowered and captured a formidable steamer, but slightly inferior to the Merrimac, a vessel that the preceding year had battled, with not very serious injury to herself, against four frigates, a razee, and for a time with one Monitor armed with eleven-inch guns, thus demonstrating the offensive power of the new and improved Monitors, armed with guns of fifteen-inch calibre.

Your early connection with the Mississippi flotilla, and your participation in the projection and construction of the first iron-clads on the Western waters; your heroic conduct in the attack on Drury's Bluff; the high moral courage that led you to put to sea in the Weehawken upon the approach of a violent storm, in order to test the sea-going qualities of these new craft, at the time when a safe anchorage was close under your lee; the brave and daring manner in which you, with four associates, pressed the iron-clads under the concentrated fire of the batteries of Charleston harbor, and there tested and proved the endurance and resisting power of these vessels, and your crowning, successful achievement in the capture of the Fingal, alias Atlanta, are all proofs of a skill and courage and devotion to the country and the cause of the Union, regard. less of self, that cannot be permitted to pass unrewarded. To your heroic, daring, and persistent moral courage, beyond that of any other individual, is the country indebted for the development, under trying and varied circumstances on the ocean, under fire from enormous batteries on land, and in successful encounter with a formidable antagonist, of the capabilities and qualities of attack and resistance of the monitor class of vessels and their heavy armament. For these heroic and serviceable acts I have presented your name to the President, requesting him to recommend that Congress give you a vote of thanks, in order that you may be advanced to the grade of Commodore in the American Navy.

Very respectfully, etc.,

Now that the smoke of the late brilliant naval action in this vicinity has cleared away, and the Atlanta, flying the Stars and Stripes, is riding safely at anchor in this harbor, within hailing distance of the Wabash and other respectable United States sea-dogs, I am able, from a personal inspection of the craft, as well as from an account which I have gathered from eye-witnesses, to furnish your readers with an intelligible description of the capture of the Atlanta by the Weehawken. And, first, we may as well settle the nativity of said vessel, as much discussion has already arisen here as to whether she is, or was, the Fingal, the Georgia, or the Atlanta.

You will recollect, that upon the twelfth of November, 1861, the Fingal, an English, Clydebuilt steamer, ran our blockade, and carried a valuable cargo of arms and ammunition in to the rebels at Savannah. She had aboard of her also several batteries of the celebrated Armstrong guns, which the rebels immediately mounted in Fort Pulaski, and which fell into our hands when we captured that fort. In the following January, the rebels having loaded the Fingal with a cargo of one thousand bales of cotton, endeavored to re-run the blockade, but were detected by our cruisers, and driven back up the Savannah River. After this occurrence the idea seemed to occur to them that the Fingal might be converted into an iron-clad, and to this result they have industriously devoted themselves for the last fourteen months. After she was near completion her name was changed to the Georgia, and subsequently she received a new christening as the Atlanta, which name she has borne for over six months.

From a perusal of her log-book, which was captured, together with her other valuables, I