Both sides claimed the victory in the Sunday's battle. The Confederates claimed to have driven off the "Monitor," and stated that Jones had waited for some time for her to renew the fight, before he turned back to Norfolk. The Federals argued that the object of the "Merrimac" was to destroy the "Minnesota," and the "Monitor" had prevented this, and was therefore the victor. The frigate was successfully floated next tide. Sometimes the fight is described as a drawn battle, but most writers on the subject accept the Federal contention, and give the honours of the day to the little turret-ship.
The battle of Hampton Roads was notable, however, not so much for its immediate results, as for its effect on naval opinion and policy. It finally closed the era of unarmoured ships; it led to a perhaps exaggerated importance being attached to the ram as a weapon of attack; and it led to a very general adoption of the armoured turret, and for a while to the building of low-freeboard turret-ships in various navies. It was not till long after that the story of the "Monitor's" perilous voyage from New York was told, and thus even in America it was not realized that the "Monitor" type was fit only for smooth waters, and was ill adapted for sea-going ships. On the Federal side there was a kind of enthusiasm for the "Monitor." Numbers of low-freeboard turret-ships of somewhat larger size, and with improved details, were built for the United States, and even the failure of Admiral Dupont's "Monitor" fleet in the attack on the Charleston batteries did not convince the Navy Department that the type was defective. Ericsson's building of the "Monitor" to meet the emergency of 1862 was a stroke of genius, but its success had for a long time a misleading effect on the development of naval construction in the United States.
The "Merrimac" was abandoned and burned by the Confederates a few weeks later when they evacuated Norfolk and the neighbourhood. At the end of the year the "Monitor" was ordered to Charleston. She started in tow of a powerful tug, but the fate she had so narrowly escaped on her first voyage overtook her. She was caught in a gale off Cape Hatteras on the evening of 31 December, 1862. The tow-ropes had to be cut, and shortly after midnight the "Monitor" sank ten miles off the Cape. Several of her officers and men went down with her. The rest were rescued by the tug, with great difficulty.
Had the wind blown a little harder during the "Monitor's" first voyage from New York, or had the tow-rope to which she hung parted, there is no doubt she would have gone down in the same way. In that case the course of history would have been different, for the "Merrimac" would have been undisputed master of the Atlantic coast, and have driven off or destroyed every ship of the blockading squadrons. The fates of nations sometimes depend on trifles. That of the American Union depended for some hours on the soundness of the hawser by which the "Monitor" hung on to the tug-boat "Seth Low" of New York.
CHAPTER XI
LISSA
1866
In the American Civil War there had been no battle between ironclad fleets. "Monitors" had engaged batteries. The "Merrimac" had had her duel with the first of the little turret-ships. But experts were still wondering what would happen when fleets of armoured ships, built in first-class dockyards, met in battle on the sea.
The war between Austria and Italy in 1866 gave the first answer. The experiment was not a completely satisfactory one, and some of its lessons were misread. Others were soon made obsolete by new developments in naval armaments.