Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[226] at about a mile's distance. There was no reply; the vessel moved tranquilly on; hundreds of spectators at the wharves on both sides of the river watching her progress, and the crews of the enemy's frigates awaiting with derisive curiosity the singular iron roof bearing down upon them. As she passed the Congress at three hundred yards she received a harmless broadside. “The balls bounced upon her mailed sides like india rubber.” Returning the broadside, and in the midst of a heavy fire from the shore batteries, the Virginia made straight for the Cumberland, which had been swung across the channel, to bring her full broadside to bear upon the approaching enemy. It was a crisis wrapped in fire and smoke. Broadside after broadside of the Cumberland blazed out of her eleven nine-inch Dahlgrens. The Virginia kept straight on, without returning a shot or showing a single man. Minutes seemed hours. Then there was a dull, heavy blow, and the iron-armed prow of the Virginia had struck the Cumberland near the bow, and below the water line. The frigate was driven back upon her anchors with great force; a ragged hole had been opened into her in which a man might have passed; the sound of the rush of water into her told that she was doomed. Still her crew manned her guns, and were prepared to give an example of courage among the most memorable and brilliant of naval warfare. The Virginia had backed, and was now sweeping the decks of the Cumberland with broadside after broadside in merciless succession. But there was no sign of surrender on the part of the gallant enemy. As the ship canted over, just ready to sink, she still kept up her useless fire. Her last gun was fired just above the water, and as the brave gunner attempted to scramble out from the open port-hole, the water rushing swept him back, and he went down in the sinking vessel. The Cumberland went down in fifty-four foot water, her pennant still flying from the mast-head above the waves that had engulphed her. Some of the crew succeeded in swimming to land, others were saved by small boats from the shore; but more than one hundred men went down into the watery grave that closed over the gallant ship.

Having sunk her first antagonist, the Virginia next turned her attention to the Congress, which was left to fight the battle alone, as neither the Minnesota, which had grounded about one mile and a half from Newport News, the Roanoke, nor the St. Lawrence could approach near enough, from want of sufficient depth of water, to render material assistance. Having witnessed the fate of the Cumberland, the commander of the Congress had hoisted sail, and with the help of a tug-boat had run the frigate ashore in water too shoal to permit the Virginia to run her down. But the iron-clad, taking a position about two hundred yards from her, raked her fore and aft with shell, while the other small vessels of the Confederate squadron joined in the fire. Every shell burst inside the frigate. The effect was awful. Blood and brains spurted in the air,