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Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 9. (ed. Frank Moore), Foreign accounts of the fight. (search)
there not something ominous in such an encounter within our own seas? Such a contest, so brief, so hard fought, and so decisive, is even more terrible than the hand-to-hand tussle, and the mere game of fisticuffs that our old fleets used to indulge in with a thousand pop-guns on either side. True, there was damage done at last, but sometimes very little damage to speak of; and a big ship might receive many hundred shots only to have the glory of showing the shot-holes to the populace of Portsmouth. It is not so now. At the distance of a mile, never less than a quarter of a mile, a formidable ship, the terror of American commerce, well armed, well manned, well handled, is sent to the bottom in an hour. Exactly an hour elapsed from the first shot to the moment when it became obvious that the vessel was sinking, when, indeed, the rudder was broken, and the fires were put out. That is the pace at which our naval engagements will be fought for the future. In this instance the pace was