CHAPTER XIII.

1862-WAR OF THE REBELLION-ON THE POTOMAC-BATTLE OF THE IRON-CLADS-LINCOLN AND MCCLELLAN-WILLIAMSBURG-INHARMONIOUS REBELS.

ON

NE of the most important events of the war occurred on the 8th and 9th of March, 1862, in Hampton Roads, near Fortress Monroe. At the time of the needless, foolish, or criminal destruction of Gosport Navy-yard, the Government authorities were constructing there the Merrimack, a powerful steam war-frigate. In a partially wrecked condition, this vessel fell into the hands of the rebels. They constructed on her hull a slanting roof of heavy timbers, and lined the whole with three layers of inch-and-a-half iron. Her ends were built like her sides. The armor extended several feet below the water, and her bow, constructed for cutting the water, had an iron ram or beak. There was considerable doubt and no little uneasiness felt in the North as to the character and utility of this untried vessel. The Administration was at this time with great energy pushing forward an entirely new idea in the form of war-vessels. It was a radical departure from all former methods of ship-building, while it did not embrace all the advantages aimed at in the American system. It furnished, however, the

smallest possible exposed surface, presented the best conditions for the concentration of projectile force, and its form was found to be best adapted to resisting or avoiding such force. But the main idea of the monitor was in its revolving turret. The first monitor, built in great haste as an offset to the Merrimack, only subserved her purpose, and illustrated the correctness of the general principle at stake. Her iron armor above the water was five inches thick, with a wood backing two feet and three inches thick. Below the water the iron mail was not so strong. Her turret had an inside diameter of twenty feet, was nine feet high, and was made of eight thicknesses of one-inch iron plate. It carried two eleven-inch guns only, and they were mounted side by side and revolved with the turret. The Merrimack carried ten guns, four eleven-inch guns on each side, and a hundred-pound rifled Armstrong gun in each end, and was on the general plan of the European broadside. frigates, with the addition of her iron mail and sloping sides. The Government built many other monitors during the war on the general plan of the first one, under the direction of John Ericsson, the inventor. Some of them had two turrets, carrying several fifteen-inch guns; their iron armor was almost doubled; ; their rapidity and safe sea-going qualities being rendered very satisfactory. Several of them, like the Puritan, the Dictator, the Kalamazoo, and the Miantonomoh were then believed to be the most powerful war-vessels in the world; and it may be added here that their construction, the mere experimental trial

of the first one on the 9th of March, went very far toward settling the question of non-intervention in England.

The

About noon on Saturday, March 8th, the Merrimack, accompanied by four armed steamers, came out of Elizabeth River, and shot boldly across Hampton Roads to assail the Federal fleet, consisting of the Cumberland, Congress, Minnesota, St. Lawrence, and several other war-vessels. She passed the Congress without apparently noticing her, and received her broadside without the slightest effect. She made straight for the Cumberland, and struck her with her iron beak, opening a vast hole in her side, at the same time pouring broadside after broadside into the fated vessel. It was the work of a few moments. Cumberland went down, carrying a hundred of her dead and wounded with her, her flag alone standing above the water. She then turned upon the Congress, and that vessel was soon blown up. The Minnesota was now hard aground in water supposed to be too shallow for the Merrimack, and after firing a few shot at her at a distance of a mile, and night coming on, the rebel monster returned, escorted as she had come, towards Norfolk. This had been a sad day to the national cause. With utter amazement the commanders of the powerful wooden vessels saw their fearful broadsides, which would have blown any other ship in the world out of the water, one after one slip harmlessly from the rebel's sloping sides. To all appearances, the whole American navy was at the mercy of this rebel monster. The cities of the northern sea-board

were as chaff before her. If there was no untried, unknown something to cope with the Merrimack, the success of the Rebellion was at once removed beyond a doubt. But see what another day brings forth ! At nine o'clock that night Ericsson's wonderful little monitor, under the command of Lieutenant John L. Wordon, reached Fortress Monroe, and tarrying there but a few moments, soon after midnight took its position by the side of the Minnesota, still aground where the Merrimack had left her. Early on Sunday morning, the 9th, under Catesby Jones, a new commander, the rebel craft again made her appearance to finish the work she had begun the day before. She went up the channel in which the Minnesota lay, and there discovered her new diminutive and contemptible foe. The little monitor was soon pouring into her solid shots, weighing one hundred and sixty-eight pounds. It was now the turn of the rebel commander to be amazed. The shot from his crashing broadsides slid harmlessly from the small revolving turret, and after repeated attempts he gave up the hope of running the monitor down. The armor of the Merrimack now began to give way. She was leaking and disabled. Her commander saw that she was overmatched. The conflict was ended. The Merrimack again made her way back to the navy-yard; and with her defeat went down another great hope of the Rebellion. Although she made her appearance again in the Roads, she rendered her builders no further service, and when the rebels abandoned Norfolk in May, she was blown to pieces. As for the little monitor,

although she had stood the trip from New York, she was foundered on her next attempt on the open sea off the coast of Cape Hatteras, on her way to Beaufort.

Except on the Potomac, affairs had progressed with general satisfaction to the national cause. And although it was now settled beyond a doubt that mere localities and ordinary political considerations, so far as the Government was concerned, could have little to do in ending the Rebellion, there arose a constant cry for the advance of McClellan's army for the capture of Richmond. Still, perhaps, at that late date the fall of Richmond was regarded as mainly important because of its being the seat of the rebel military power. Politically it was certainly of no importance, however erroneously many Northern people had fallen into the idea that it was. The Rebellion acquired no political importance, and its military strength was the only thing that could ever give it any. To crush this was now the grand object of the Government, and all available means justified by civilized (and I would almost say Christian) warfare should have been at once employed to that end.

But this lesson was not an easy one for the American people to learn. Even General McClellan, who had been bred a soldier, and had never cast a vote at the polls, seemed to be greatly disturbed by the political circumstances of the war. While General-in-Chief he was continually putting before Butler, Buell, and others the objects for which the war