lous bulk between the Merrimac and the Minnesota. Then ensued a battle the like of which had never been witnessed on the high seas. Close against each other the two ships exchanged their heaviest volleys, their iron rasping against iron. The battle between David and Goliath was enacted again between this mighty iron clad behemoth and the little "Yankee Cheesebox" floating upon its raft.

The Merrimac was not destroyed, but was so severely injured that she was compelled to withdraw to the shelter of the Norfolk navy yard, and there she lay, a useless and battered hulk, until the Confederates surrendered the yard, when she was destroyed.

The effect upon the country was marvelous. The news of the destruction of the Cumberland and the Congress, and of the certain doom of the Minnesota, had stricken the country with terror. It seemed as though every vessel in the Union Navy was doomed, and that Washington itself would soon be lying helpless under the guns of this invincible iron ship. The Monitor had been so hurriedly finished that the mechanics remained on board when she left New England for the Chesapeake. Her arrival was in the nick of time. She actually entered the harbor on the night before her battle by the light of the burning ship Congress. The country could hardly believe the glorious news which followed the Sunday battle. In a single day the whole aspect of the war upon the ocean was changed. No longer did Washington fear attack by water. No ship in the Confederate, or any other navy, could stand the shock of the Monitor's heavy guns. By the method of their mounting they could be quickly brought to bear upon any point of the compass; and the revolution of the turret permitted them to be loaded without exposing any open port to the fire of the enemy. The mourning of the nation over the loss of the Cumberland and Congress was changed in a single night to rejoicing.

If there was in Washington one man more happy than any other on the night when the Monitor had put the Merrimac out

of commission, it was Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy. He had believed in the Monitor when no one else, or few, thought her of much account. When the Merrimac had sunk the Cumberland and the Congress, the Cabinet feared she would steam straight up to Washington, and to New York. Welles assured them that she would not steam in both directions at once, and his calm, as he tells the story, did little to pacify them. They were inclined to hold him responsible for the disaster. He says:

The President himself ever after gave me the credit of being the most calm and self-possessed of any member of the Government. The President himself was so excited that he could not deliberate. . . . But the most frightened man on that gloomy day-the most so, I think, of any during the Rebellion-was the Secretary of War. He was at times almost frantic, and as he walked the room with his eyes fixed on me, I saw well the estimation in which he held me with unmoved and unexcited manner and conversation.... Stanton made some sneering inquiry about this new vessel, the Monitor, of which he admitted he knew little or nothing. I described her. . . . Stanton asked about her armament, and when I mentioned she had two guns, his mingled look of incredulity and contempt cannot be described. ... I was not appalled by his terror or bluster. I more correctly read and understood his character in that crisis than he mine.*

With great satisfaction Welles records that this victory gave him new standing in the Cabinet, and that even Stanton treated him with less roughness than he habitually extended toward his other colleagues.

We recall the effect of the Monitor's victory on our relations with England and France, because it is necessary to remember them in this connection. France has been America's traditional friend from the beginning of our history. Whether she has ever been our friend, except when she had something to gain by the friendship, need not here be discussed. Certainly her friendship in the Revolution proves no more than that she thought the best way to harm England was to help free England's colonies,

*Diary, i, pp. 63-4

but she did not officially offer that help until she herself, and for quite other reasons, was at war with England. England is our friend, and increasingly so. The ties that bind together the English speaking races must be strengthened in every legitimate way. For that matter, all ties that unite all nations in friendship need to be strengthened. But it deserves also to be remembered, that, while the Union had many warm friends in France and especially in England during the Civil War, the official basis of that friendship was immensely strengthened by the new respect for the American Navy which both nations learned after the defeat of the Merrimac. The Alabama was still sailing the high seas, firing British-made shot from British-made guns into unarmed American vessels; but the victory of the Monitor was a mailed hand stretched across the sea for the grasp of a new friendship.

Russia was the Union's best friend during the Civil War. In 1867 William H. Seward negotiated a treaty with Russia by the terms of which the United States acquired the Territory of Alaska. For it the United States paid the sum of $7,200,000, a sum that now seems very small. But it was then so large that it still remains a question how much of that sum was intended to pay for the territory and how much was to cover the expense of Russia's sending a fleet into New York harbor on a friendly visit, just at a time when the European nations that should have been our friends needed to be reminded that America, fighting for her national integrity and for human freedom, could find a friend, if not in England or France, then in despotic Russia. America still owes Russia something for friendship at a time when friends were fewer than America deserved.

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM

BY THE end of 1861, it had become evident, both in the North and the South, that the struggle would be severe and long. In most of the actual battles the Confederates had had the advantage. The cheerful confidence of the Northern Army that it could subdue the South in ninety days was entirely gone. But the South itself had had time for very serious thought. Although the Confederates had been recognized as a belligerent, their government had not been acknowledged by any European nation. They had failed to hold Maryland, Kentucky or Missouri. In the West they had lost ground, and in the East they were on the defensive.

The first fighting of 1862 was in the West. General Ulysses S. Grant, who had already done some inconspicuous but successful campaigning, began that year with an advance, and captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. In this he was materially aided by a fleet of gunboats under the command of Commodore A. H. Foote. This was the first important victory on the Union side. Very soon, General George H. Thomas won a victory at Mill Springs, which with the victories of Grant, compelled the evacuation by the Confederate Armies of Kentucky and a considerable part of Tennessee. On April 6, 1862, Grant was attacked at Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, on the Tennessee River, by General Albert Sidney Johnston. On the first day the Union Army was severely beaten, but on the second day the tide turned, and in the hour of victory reenforcements came under Buell, rendering

the Confederate defeat impossible to retrieve. Although the Union losses were larger than the Confederate, and Grant did not pursue the army, which he had repulsed, the Confederates were compelled to withdraw, leaving the river in the hands of the Union Army. Soon after, Corinth, an important railroad center near by, was abandoned by the Confederates. Just as Grant was driving back the Confederate forces at Shiloh on April seventh, Commodore Foote captured Island No. 10 on the Mississippi. The Confederate front was thus pushed a considerable distance farther south along the whole western border.

But while these victories in the West were cheering the heart of the North, there was nothing but discouragement in the East. McClellan had failed to capture Richmond; Pope had fought and lost the second battle of Bull Run on August 29 and 30, 1862. The Confederates, swollen with the pride of victory, prepared to move on Baltimore and Philadelphia. They crossed into Maryland, captured Harper's Ferry, and met McClellan's army at Antietam.

The majority of Lincoln's Cabinet were opposed to the reappointment of McClellan. Stanton and Chase, on August twentyninth, drew up a formal protest, which was signed by both of them and also by the attorney general and the secretary of the interior. The secretary of the navy agreed with them, but declined to sign the paper lest his doing so should embarrass Lincoln. The appointment, however, stood, and McClellan set himself to work in a manner that appeared to justify Lincoln's partly restored confidence. Fortunately, he found his army in not so deplorable a condition as appeared after the defeat of Pope. All told, he had a hundred thousand men, and he himself reported eighty-seven thousand under his command at the time of the battle of Antietam. Lee had forty thousand. At the outset McClellan felt sure that Lee's army was nearly twice as large as it actually was.

General Lee's invasion of Maryland was his own undertaking. He believed that his invasion of that state would bring to his