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for Charleston, South Carolina.
At noon December 30th, when at sea, about seventy miles off Cape Hatteras, they got into a heavy gale.
At 10 P. M., matters having become critical and it being impossible to keep the Monitor free of the water that came aboard with every sea, signals of distress were burned.
Gallant and untiring efforts of rescue were made by the Rhode Island, and one of her boats was on its third and last perilous trip to remove those still aboard the Monitor when the ill-fated vessel suddenly disappeared beneath the angry waters, carrying down with her four officers and twelve men, forty-nine having been saved.
This boat failed to reach the Monitor or regain the side of the Rhode Island, but drifted all night and the next day upon the waste of waters, until rescued by a passing vessel and taken into Philadelphia.
We live within a new environment.
The Merrimac and the Monitor are things of the past; but history shall note their deeds when the names of those who bore part in them shall be unremembered.
Virginius Newton, Late a Midshipman, C. S. Navy.
