LINCOLN'S CHEESE-BOX ON A RAFT.
There is a chapter yet to be published upon iron-clad war-ships, as introduced practically in the Civil War. To the Southerners is due the innovation on a fair scale, though the experiments were not at all profitably demonstrative. Upon rumors that the enemy were building the novelties of iron-cased vessels, the Federal government responded by voting money--and throwing it away upon a fiasco. Meanwhile, the others had razeed a frigate, the Merrimac, and upon an angular roof laid railroad-iron to make her shot-proof. Stories of her likelihood to be a terror, especially as she was stated by spies to be seaworthy, inspired the Americanized Swedish naval engineer, Ericsson, to build a turret-ship. The Naval Construction Board unanimously rebuffed the innovator. Luckily, President Lincoln became interested as a flat-boat builder, in his youth. He took up the inventor and the design. He scoffed at the idea that the man had not planned thoroughly, saying, as to the weight of the armor sinking the hull:
"Out West, in boat-building, we figured out the carrying power to a nicety."
His championship earned the Monitor the name of Lincoln's "cheese-box on a raft."
The assistant secretary of the navy, knowing all the facts, observes:
"I withhold no credit from Captain John Ericsson, her inventor, but I know the country is principally indebted to President Lincoln for the construction of this vessel, and for the success of the trial to Captain Worden."--(Captain Fox, Ericsson's adviser, confirms this credit.)