An interesting addition to this story, which belongs here, comes from Mrs. Lucy Cate Abercrombie of Forest Hill, and, while it is not part of the Doctor’s narrative, it helps to complete the history.
When Ericsson announced that the Monitor could be built, he was called to Washington for consultation and, among other questions, was asked where the plates necessary to armor the proposed vessel could be secured. He responded that he did not know, that such plates were only made in Glasgow, and that it was impossible to secure them from there, but that there was a man in Baltimore who had invented machinery for rolling large plates, and perhaps he could do the work.
MR. HORACE ABBOTT MAKES THE MONITOR A POSSIBILITY.
This was Mr. Horace Abbott, the grandfather of Mrs. Abercrombie, who had perfected a machine for rolling heavy plates, by the invention of the third roll, but he had put his last dollar into the invention and the stagnation of business due to the war was writing ruin for him in very large letters. Mr. Abbott was sent for and a contract was signed, and in forty-eight hours thereafter the first plate had been rolled, and this led to other government work. Thus the Monitor not only saved the fortunes of the Union, but also those of one of its inventive citizens.
Mr. Abbott’s invention revolutionized the methods employed in rolling heavy plates; it has never been materially changed and is in use to-day in every rolling mill in the country.
THE MONITOR GOES TO HAMPTON ROADS.
Word was sent to Lincoln that the Monitor was afloat and he, knowing that the Merrimac was almost ready, ordered it to proceed immediately to Hampton Roads. Ericsson, however, responded that this was impossible, that the vessel was intended only for harbor defense and would not last in a sea, as she was merely an iron deck set on a scow with an overhang at each end of twenty-five feet, and that the force of the waves under this overhang would lift the upper works from the hull. He had not followed Dr. Timby’s plans as to the hull, which would have saved the vessel in the storm off Hatteras referred to below. The only excuse for the twenty-five foot overhang that can be thought of now is that the short hull was sufficient to float the structure and cost less than a longer hull. The President, however, sent peremptory orders that the Monitor should go, and we all know the result.
TALE OF THE MERRIMAC’S ENGINEER.
Some years after the close of the war Dr. Weeks met the engineer of the Merrimac in Dakota, and as the conversation drifted to the days that had been, the engineer told how the Southerners were highly elated at the first success of the Merrimac, and felt that nothing could stop them, and when they came out of the James river on the morning that the Monitor arrived, the captain was annoyed to see what he supposed was a raft lying between him and his intended prey, the Minnesota, and not realizing what it was or that it could offer resistance, ordered full speed ahead, expecting to ram and destroy the obstruction.