Monitor and Merrimac.
At the moment when the
Confederates evacuated
Manassas a strange naval battle occurred in
Hampton Roads.
The Confederates had raised the sunken
Merrimac in the Gosport navy-yard and converted it into an iron-clad ram, which they called the
Virginia, commanded by
Captain Buchanan, late of the United States navy.
She had gone down to
Hampton Roads and destroyed (March 8, 1862) the wooden
sailing frigates
Congress and
Cumberland, at the mouth of the
James River, and it was expected she would annihilate other ships there the next morning.
Anxiously the army and navy officers of that vicinity passed the night of the 8th, for there appeared no competent human agency near to avert the threatened disaster.
Meanwhile another vessel of novel form and aspect had been constructed at
Greenpoint, L. I., under the direction of the eminent engineer,
Capt. John Ericsson (q. v.). It was a dwarf in appearance by the side of the
Merrimac.
It presented to the eye, when afloat, a simple platform,
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sharp at both ends, and bearing in its centre a round
Martello tower 20 feet in diameter and 10 feet in height, made, as
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Interior of the monitor's turret. |
was the rest of the vessel, of heavy iron.
It presented a bomb-proof fort, in which were mounted two 11-inch
Dahlgren guns.
The hull of this vessel was only 8 1/2 feet in depth, with a flat bottom, and was 124 feet in length, and 34 feet the greatest width at top. On this hull rested another, 5 feet in height, that extended over the lower one 3 feet 7 inches all around, excepting at the ends, where it projected 25 feet, by which protection was afforded
the anchor, propeller, and rudder.
The whole was built of 3-inch iron, and was very buoyant.
Its exposed parts were guarded by a wall of white oak, 30 inches in thickness, on which was laid iron armor 6 inches in thickness.
A shot to strike the lower hull would have to pass through 25 feet of water, and then strike an inclined plane of iron at an angle of about 10°. The deck was well armed also.
Such was the strange craft that entered
Hampton Roads from the sea, under the command of
Lieut. John L. Worden (q. v.), unheralded and unknown, at a little past midnight, March 9, on its trial trip.
It had been named
Monitor.
It had been towed to the
Roads by steamers, outriding a tremendous gale.
Worden reported to the
flag-officer of the fleet in the
Roads, and was ordered to aid the
Minnesota in the expected encounter with the
Merrimac in the morning.
It was a bright Sabbath morning.
Before sunrise the dreaded
Merrimac and her company came down from
Norfolk.
The stern guns of the
Minnesota opened upon the formidable ironclad, when the little
Monitor, which the
Confederates called in derision a “cheesebox,” ran out and placed herself by the side of the huge monster.
She was like a pigmy by the side of a giant.
Suddenly her mysterious citadel began to revolve, and from it her guns hurled ponderous
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shot in quick succession.
the
Merrimac answered by heavy broadsides, and so they struggled for some time without injuring each other.
Then the
Monitor withdrew a little to seek a vulnerable part of her antagonist, while the
Merrimac pounded her awfully, sometimes sending upon her masses of iron weighing 200 pounds at a velocity of 200 feet per second.
These struck her deck and tower without harming them, and conical bolts that struck the latter glanced off as pebbles would fly from solid granite.
the
Merrimac drew off and attacked the
Minnesota.
Seeing the latter in great peril, the
Monitor ran between
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The New Ironsides and monitor. |
them.
A most severe duel ensued, and as a result the
Merrimac was so much disabled that she fled up to
Norfolk, and did not again invite her little antagonist to combat.
Worden was severely injured by concussion in the tower of the
Monitor, and for a few days his life was in peril.
This class of vessels was multiplied in the
National navy, and did good service.
A comparison of the appearance of the two vessels may be made in looking at the engraving of the
New Ironsides and
Monitor.
the
New Ironsides was a powerful vessel built in
Philadelphia.
It had a wooden hull covered with iron plates four inches in thickness.
Her aggregate weight of guns was 284,000 lbs., two of them 200-pounder Parrott guns.
She had two horizontal
steam-engines, and was furnished with sails.
At her bow was a formidable wrought-iron ram or beak.
She was accidentally set on fire and destroyed at her moorings at League Island, below
Philadelphia, Dec. 15, 1866.
