BATTLE OF THE IRONCLADS. 171 tack, the Monitor runs down past the Minnesota, to lay herself close alongside the Virginia, between that formidable vessel and the Minnesota. It is the contest of David and Goliath over again. The Virginia is accompanied by the Yorktown and Jamestown. The two latter are crowded with troops, come to board and capture the Minnesota. It is a gala day in Norfolk. Everybody is in high glee over the expected victory and prizes. Will the expectation be fulfilled? A shot from the Monitor arrests the advance of the Yorktown, but the Virginia continues to approach. She is within a hundred yards of the daring little antagonist. At this distance the engagement begins. It lasts several hours. It is a furious cannonade. It is hot and close. The vessels fight within from fifty to two hundred yards of each other. The Monitor carries but two guns, against the Virginia's eight. The revolving turret enables the Monitor to be ready for the "occasion sudden." It is blow for blow. This tends to equalize the conditions of the duel. The Virginia finds the Monitor impenetrable to shot and shell. She therefore attempts to run her down. She fails in this. The Monitor avoids the blows of her enemy. She still deals point-blank shots at short range against her ponderous antagonist. At length the Virginia stabs the Monitor in the side. She thrusts in vain. No damage results. The Monitor spins round like a top. She soon obtains her bearing again, and sends one of her formidable missiles into her huge opponent. By this time the officers of the Monitor have acquired complete confidence in her impregnability. They no longer fire at random or hastily. The Monitor works round the Virginia, repeatedly probing her sides. She seeks for weak points, and reserves her fire with coolness, until she has the right spot. Now she steadies for a telling blow. She takes the exact range. Crash crash! crash! three shots are dealt in this deliberate way. Ho! ho! the Virginia will take no prize to-day! She is overmatched. She now resorts to retreat. She is swifter than the Monitor. She will try the Minnesota again. She turns to renew the attack on that vessel. The Monitor will not permit this. She comes up and takes position between the two ships. She again makes the Virginia feel her prowess. Where are the consorts of the latter? They may go back with their boarders. It is now high noon. The four hours' conflict is over. The Virginia is seriously damaged. Like a wounded giant, she moves off for Sewell's Point, at full speed. The Monitor follows for some distance, but she is outstripped in the race. She abandons the pursuit and returns to the Minnesota. Viva! viva! little Monitor! The story of this conflict is the romance of the war, where mechanism and genius gave so much invincibility to the Northern cause. The Confederates were under the impression that the thrust of the Virginia's ram had inflicted serious damage upon the Monitor; but this was not the case. She sustained no injury; while, on the other hand, one Confederate authority states that the Virginia lost her iron beak in her plunge at the Monitor. The Virginia lost her ram and sprung a leak. The same writer boasts that the Monitor ran off in a crippled condition. The Committee on Naval Affairs, of which the writer has recently been chairman, reported upon this remarkable fight, in order to adjust a claim for prizes. The examination resulted in an able paper from Judge Ballantine, of Tennessee, which sustains one view; and the opposite view is presented in the paper of Mr. John R. Thomas, of Illinois, which asserts that the Monitor had not sensibly disabled the Virginia. Both reports are reconcilable with the facts; for, although the Virginia was disabled in some regards and required some repair, she was not altogether disabled. There can be no question as to the ability and gallantry with which the two armed vessels were fought. But it will always remain an open question as to the extent of damage done the Virginia. The Monitor came out unscathed. The merit of having invented or planned the armor of the formidable Confederate iron-clad is due to Lieut. John M. Brooke, of the Confederate States Navy. The meed of high praise need not be withheld from an improvised and wonderful achievement in naval architecture which could have destroyed a fleet of ordinary wooden vessels, because it was immediately surpassed, as a factor in naval warfare, by the marvelous invention of the Monitor. Both inventions are American. America may well be proud of them. An American boy named Timby invented the revolving turret twenty years before. This was in 1841, when he was only nineteen years old. He caught the idea in crossing the ferry from New-York to Jersey City. In passing Castle William, it occurred to him that a similar structure of iron, on a revolving base, could bring all its guns to bear on any part of the channel. He filed a caveat for his invention in the Patent Office on Jan. 18, 1843. The same year he exhibited a model before President Tyler and his Cabinet. Mr. Jefferson Davis was one of the gentlemen who thought well of the invention. Mr. Timby went to France with his model. He exhibited it to the Emperor Napoleon III. But it remained for the genius of Ericsson to apply the revolving turret in actual warfare. How well he executed the design, the battle just described tells;-that battle of the Triton and the minnow in Hampton Roads, in 1862, in which the minnow won. It would seem, from this miraculous result, that the great northern cities of the sea-board escaped bombardment through the genius of Ericsson and the intrepidity of the gallant Worden and his crew. History records no event so providential in its bearing upon the destiny of this hemisphere. It demonstrated the worthlessness of wooden navies. The governments of Europe began at once to devise plans, in projectiles and armor, and to remodel their ships of war upon the new American patterns. CHAPTER IX. THE PROGRESS OF THE WAR 1862. VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN MISSOURI RELIEVED HIS SPLENDID SERVICES AND -- CONQUESTS ON SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA COASTS D URING the year 1862, the conquests on the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia were considerably advanced. The most important of these, however, was the recapture of Fort Pulaski. It was one of the two principal fortifications which defended the approaches to Savannah from the sea, by the river. This achievement reflected great honor upon the enterprise and courage of the military and naval forces. Fort Pulaski is on a small island at the mouth of the Savannah River. Outside is Tybee Island. On this island, Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, commanding the Union forces, erected works with siege guns bearing on the fort. Capt. John Rogers, who was in command of the gunboats, contributed largely to the success of the operations. The bombardment of Pulaski took place on the 10th of April. It lasted eighteen hours, when the commander, Col. Charles H. Olmstead, of the First Georgia volunteers, surrendered. The capture of that fort put a stop to blockade-running at Savannah. An expedition was fitted out against the coast of Florida. The result was the capture of Fernandina, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and St. Mary's on the east coast, and Cedar Keys on the west. The command of the whole eastern coast of the state was secured. Darien and Brunswick, in Georgia, were also taken possession of without resistance. The spring of 1862 was signalized by several important Union victories in the Western States. In Missouri, General Curtis and Gen. Jefferson C. Davis drove back the Confederate forces under General Price, and took possession of Springfield. These operations took place on the 12th and 13th of February, and on the 18th General Price retreated across the Arkansas line. He was closely pursued by General Curtis, a skillful West Point soldier of rare endowments. On the 19th, Price formed a junction with the forces under Gen. Ben. McCulloch. With this re-enforcement he turned about to face the enemy at Sugar Creek, but soon gave way. On the 26th, Price and McCulloch were driven from a strong position at Cross Hollows. There they left their sick and wounded, after burning their barracks. Fayetteville, in Arkansas, was taken, with a large number of prisoners and military stores. Again the Confederates turned upon their pursuers, but they met with a great defeat at Pea Ridge, in northwestern Arkansas. They were commanded by General Van Dorn, aided by Generals Price, McCulloch, and McIntosh. The Confederates concede that the force under Van Dorn amounted to 20,000 men, while they hold that the Union force under General Curtis was 25,000. On the other hand, the Unionists claim that Curtis commanded only 10,500 men, and that the force of the enemy was twice as great. The battle was fought on the 7th and 8th of March. It was one of the first signs of the value of a trained military commander and engineer. It resulted in the rout of the Confederates. They lost 1,000 in prisoners, and many killed and wounded. The Union loss was 212 killed, 926 wounded, and 124 missing. The Confederates retreated behind the Boston Mountain, and were not pursued. The effect of this victory seems to have been to push the seat of war west of the Mississippi, and from the soil of Missouri to that of Arkansas. The general officers under Curtis were Sigel, Jefferson C. Davis, and Asboth. Colonel Osterhaus was in command of a division and rendered important service. The Union forces under Gen. George H. Thomas gained a signal victory on the 19th of January, over the Confederates under Gen. George B. Crittenden, at Webb's Cross Roads, near Mill Springs, in southeastern Kentucky. Among the Confederate killed was General Zollikoffer. He was GENERAL GRANT'S FIRST GREAT EXPLOIT. 175 second in command. He had been a member of the Thirty-fifth Congress. The forces which achieved this victory were sent out by General Buell, commanding the Ohio Department. They consisted of the Ninth Ohio, Colonel McCook; the Second Minnesota, Colonel Van Cleve; the Fourth Kentucky, Colonel Fry; the Tenth Indiana, Colonel Munson; the Fourteenth Ohio, Colonel Steadman; and the Tenth Kentucky, Colonel Haskin; with two batteries under Captains Stanhart and Wetmore. Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, near its mouth, was captured by Commodore A. H. Foote, on the 6th of February. The garrison consisted of four or five thousand men. They abandoned the fort soon after the fire from the gunboats commenced, and before the strong land force under General Grant could get up to it through the mud and high water which impeded its progress. They thus escaped, -except eighty-three men, including General Tilghman,—but left behind a large amount of cannon, small arms, and stores. Only two Unionists were killed and nine wounded; while the Confederates lost but five killed and ten wounded. Commodore Foote and his men received the thanks of Congress for this exploit, which opened the Tennessee River to the forces of the Union. A fleet of gunboats, under Commander Phelps, immediately advanced up the river as far as the Muscle Shoals, in north Alabama. They destroyed the railroad bridges, and captured or destroyed several steamers and other Confederate property. The capture of Fort Donelson by the Union forces under General Grant took place on the 16th of February. It required hard fighting. It involved the loss of 1,200 men in killed and wounded on each side. Gen. John B. Floyd, the commander-in-chief of the Confederates, together with General Pillow, his second in command, departed, on the night of the 15th, taking with him some two or three thousand men. He turned over the command of the fort, with the bulk of his army, to Gen. S. B. Buckner; and from Murfreesborough, 200 miles away, he describes this desertion of his command, in his official report, as a heroic exploit. He states, that it was unanimously agreed in a council of war that to renew the conflict, after the slaughter of the day, would be vain. He thought, and announced, that a desperate onset upon the enemy's right, where the morning attack had been made, might result in the extrication of a considerable proportion of the command; but it was likewise agreed that it would result in the destruction of all who did not succeed in effecting their escape. It is not for the writer of these annals to make comparisons as to generals or battles. He proposes only to state results, not to criticise or impugn the conduct of battles. But the writer has yet to see any defense of General Floyd's action on this occasion. The fall of Fort Donelson was one of the notable causes which helped to discourage the Confederacy. General Floyd's conduct on this occasion, has always seemed strange. While not unwilling to sacrifice the army under his command, and having, as he said, "the right individually to determine” that he |