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THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE "MONITOR" AND "MERRIMAC"—EFFECT UPON NAVAL ARMAMENTS OF THE WORLD—IDEA OF REVOLVING TOWER NOT ORIGINAL WITH ERICSSON—DESTRUCTION OF THE "CUMBERLAND"—PUBLIC EXCITEMENT AT PROSPECT OF AN ATTACK ON WASHINGTON—THE "MONITOR" SAILS FROM NEW YORK HARBOR MARCH 6TH—GREAT NAVAL BATTLE IN HAMPTON ROADS.

While the great naval expedition was approaching New Orleans, the waters of Hampton Roads, from which it had sailed, were the scene of a battle that revolutionized the naval armaments of the world. When at the outbreak of the war the navy yard at Norfolk, Va., was abandoned, with an attempt at its destruction, the steam frigate Merrimac was set on fire at the wharf. Her upper works were burned, and her hull sunk. There had been long hesitation about removing any of the valuable property from this navy yard, because the action of Virginia was uncertain, and it was hoped that a mark of confidence in her people would tend to keep her in the Union. The day that Sumter was fired upon, peremptory orders had been issued for the removal of the Merrimac to Philadelphia, and steam was raised and every preparation made for her sailing. But the officer in command, for some unexplained reason, would not permit her to move, and two days later she was burned. Within two months the Confederates were at work upon her. They raised the hull, repaired the machinery, and covered it with a steep roof of wrought iron five inches thick, with a lining of oak seven inches thick. The sides were also plated with iron, and the bow was armed with an iron ram, something like a huge ploughshare. In the water she had the appearance of a house submerged to the eaves, with an immense gun looking out at each of ten dormer windows.

But all this could not be done in a day, especially where skilled workmen were scarce, and it was March, 1862, before she was ready for action. The command was given to Franklin Buchanan, who had resigned a commission in the United States navy. On the 8th of March, accompanied by two gunboats, she went out to raise the blockade of James and Elizabeth Rivers by destroying the wooden war vessels in Hampton Roads. Her first victim was the frigate Cumberland, which gave her a broadside that would have riddled a wooden vessel through and through. Some of the shot entered her open ports, killed or wounded nineteen men, and broke two of her guns; but all that struck the armor bounded off like peas. Rifled shot from the Merrimac raked the Cumberland, and then she ran into her so that her iron prow cut a great gash in the side. The Cumberland at once began to settle; but the crew stood by their guns, firing broadside after broadside without producing any impression on the iron monster, and received in return shells and solid shot that made sickening havoc. The commander, Lieutenant Morris, refused to surrender; and at the end of forty-five minutes, when the water was at the gun-deck, the crew leaped overboard and with the help of the boats got ashore, while the frigate heeled over and sank to the bottom. Her topmasts projected above the surface and her flag was flying. While this was going on, three Confederate steamers came down and attacked the Congress with such effect that her commander tried to run her ashore. Having finished the Cumberland, the Merrimac came up and opened a deliberate attack on the Congress, and finally set her on fire, when the crew escaped in their boats. She burned for several hours, and in the night blew up. Of the other National vessels in the Roads, one got aground in water too shallow for the Merrimac to approach her, and the others were not drawn into the fight.

The next morning the Merrimac came down again from Norfolk to finish up the fleet in Hampton Roads, and after that—to do various unheard-of things. The more sanguine expected her to go at once to Philadelphia, New York, and other seaboard cities of the North, and either bombard them or lay them under heavy contribution. The National Administration entertained a corresponding apprehension, and expected to see the Merrimac ascend the Potomac and attack Washington first. A part of these expectations were well founded, and the rest were such exaggerations as commonly arise from ignorance. The Merrimac could not have reached New York or Philadelphia, because she was not a sea-going vessel. With skilful management and good luck, she might have ascended the Potomac to Washington, but she would have had to run the gantlet of numerous dangers. There is a place in the Potomac called "the kettle-bottoms," where a great many conical mounds, composed of sand and oyster-shells, rise from the channel till their peaks are within a few feet of the surface; and their positions were so imperfectly known at this time that the National vessels frequently ran aground upon them. Several devices were in waiting to make trouble for the iron-clad champion at this point, perhaps the most dangerous of which was that prepared by Captain Love, commanding an armed tugboat. He procured a seine three-quarters of a mile long, took off its floats, and stretched it across the channel in such a way that the Merrimac could hardly have passed over it without fouling her propeller, which would have rendered her helpless.

But the dangerous enemy was destined to be disposed of in a more novel and dramatic way. In August, 1861, the Navy Department had advertised for plans for steam batteries, to be iron-clad and capable of fighting the Merrimac and other similar armored vessels that the Confederates were known to be constructing. The plan adopted was that presented by Capt. John Ericsson. Its essential features were an iron-clad hull, with an "overhang" to protect the machinery, all of which was below the waterline, surmounted by a round revolving tower or turret, in which were two heavy guns. The idea of a revolving tower was not Ericsson's; it had been put forth by several inventors, especially by Abraham Bloodgood in 1807. But this special adaptation of it, with the application of steam power, was his. The vessel was built in Brooklyn, and was launched January 30, 1862, one hundred days after the laying of the keel. She was named Monitor, for the obvious significance of the word. The extreme length of her upper hull was one hundred and seventy-two feet, with a breadth of forty-one feet, while her lower hull was one hundred and twenty-two feet long and thirty-four feet broad. Her depth was eleven feet, and when loaded she drew ten feet of water, her deck thus rising but a single foot above the surface. The turret was twenty feet in diameter and nine feet high. The only conspicuous object on the deck, besides the turret, was a pilot-house about five feet square and four feet high. This was built of solid wrought-iron beams, nine by twelve inches, laid one upon another and bolted together. At a point near the top a slight crack was left between the beams all round, through which the commander and the pilot could see what was going on outside and get their bearings. The guns threw solid shot eleven inches in diameter. The advantage of presenting so small a surface as a target for the enemy, having all the machinery beyond reach of any hostile shot, carrying two large guns, and being able to revolve the turret that contained them, so as to bring them to bear in any direction and keep the ports turned away from danger except at the moment of firing, is apparent.

This novel war-machine sailed from the harbor of New York on March 6, in command of Lieut. John L. Worden, destined for Hampton Roads. She was hardly out at sea when orders came changing her destination to Washington; but fortunately she could not be reached, although a swift tugboat was sent after her. She had a rough passage of three days, the perils of which were largely increased by the fact that her crew did not as yet understand all her peculiarities. They neglected to stop the hawse-hole where the anchor-chain passed out, and large quantities of water came in there, besides what poured down the low smoke-stacks when the waves broke over her.

Outriding all dangers, she arrived in Hampton Roads on Saturday evening, March 8, where the mournful condition of things did not diminish the dispiriting effect of the voyage upon her crew. The Cumberland was sunk, the Congress was burning, the Minnesota was aground, and everybody was dismayed. But Worden seems to have had no lack of confidence in his vessel and his crew. He took on a volunteer pilot, and promptly in the morning went out to his work. He first drove away the wooden vessels that were making for the helpless Minnesota, and then steered straight for the Merrimac, which was now coming down the channel.

The Confederates had known about the building of the Monitor (which they called the Ericsson), just as the authorities at Washington had known all about the Merrimac. When their men first saw her, they described her as "a cheese-box on a raft," and were surprised at her apparently diminutive size. Buchanan had been seriously wounded in the action of the previous day, and the Confederate iron-clad was now commanded by Lieutenant Jones.

Worden stationed himself in the pilot-house, with the pilot and a quartermaster to man the wheel, while his executive officer, Lieut. Samuel D. Greene, was in the turret, commanding the guns, which were worked by chief engineer Stimers and sixteen men. The total number of men in the Monitor was fifty-seven; the Merrimac had about three hundred.

BATTLE BETWEEN THE "MONITOR" AND "MERRIMAC," HAMPTON ROADS, VIRGINIA, MARCH 9, 1862.

THE FIGHT OF THE "MONITOR" AND "MERRIMAC," HAMPTON ROADS. FEDERAL FLEET IN THE FOREGROUND.

The Merrimac began firing as soon as the two iron-clads were within long range of each other, but Worden reserved his fire for short range. Then the battle was fairly open, the National vessel firing solid shot, about one in eight minutes, while the Confederates used shells exclusively and fired much more rapidly. The shells struck the turret and made numerous scars, but inflicted no serious damage, except occasionally when a man was leaning against the side at the moment of impact and was injured by the concussion. Worden had his eyes at the sight-hole when a shell struck it and exploded, temporarily blinding him, and injuring him so severely that he turned over the command to Lieutenant Greene and took no further part in the action. Each vessel attempted to ram the other, but always without success. Once when the Monitor made a dash at the Merrimac's stern, to disable her steering-gear, the two guns were discharged at once at a distance of only a few yards. The two ponderous shots, striking close together, crushed in the iron plates several inches, and produced a concussion that knocked over the entire crews of the after guns and caused many of them to bleed at the nose and ears. The officers of the Monitor had received peremptory orders to use but fifteen pounds of powder at a charge. Experts say that if they had used the normal charge of thirty pounds their shots would undoubtedly have penetrated the Merrimac and either sunk her or compelled her surrender. The Monitor had an advantage in the fact that she drew but half as much water as the Merrimac and could move with much greater celerity. The fight continued for about four hours, and the Confederate iron-clad then returned to Norfolk, and she never came down to fight again till the 11th of April, when no battle took place because both vessels had orders to remain on the defensive, each Government being afraid to risk the loss of its only iron-clad in those waters. The indentations on the Monitor showed that she had been struck twenty-two times, but she was not in any way disabled. Twenty of her shots struck the Merrimac, some of which smashed the outer layers of iron plates. It was claimed that the Merrimac would have sunk the Monitor by ramming, had she not lost her iron prow when she rammed the Cumberland the day before; but a description of the prow, which was only of cast iron and not very large, makes this at least doubtful.

Just what damage the Merrimac received in the fight is not known. But it was observed that she went into it with her bow up and her stern down, and went out with her bow down and her stern up; that on withdrawing she was at once surrounded by four tugs, into which her men immediately jumped; and she went into the dry-dock for repairs.

The significance of the battle was not so much in its immediate result as in its effect upon all naval armaments, and because of this it attracted world-wide attention. The London Times declared: "There is not now a ship in the English navy, apart from these two [the Warrior and the Ironside], that it would not be madness to trust to an engagement with that little Monitor." The United States Government ordered the building of more monitors, some with two turrets, and they did excellent service, notably in the battle of Mobile Bay.

In May, when Norfolk was captured, an attempt was made to take the Merrimac up the James River; but she got aground, and was finally abandoned and blown up. When the Confederates refitted her they rechristened her Virginia, but the original name sticks to her in history. In December of that year the Monitor attempted to go to Beaufort, N. C., towed by a steamer; but she foundered in a gale off Cape Hatteras and went to the bottom, carrying with her a dozen of the crew.

LOSS OF THE "MONITOR" IN A STORM OFF CAPE HATTERAS, DECEMBER 30, 1862.—GALLANT EFFORTS TO RESCUE THE CREW.