but the night was not half so heavy as our hearts, nor so dark as our prospects. All at once a speck of light gleamed on the distant wave. It moved; it came nearer and nearer, and at ten o’clock at night the Monitor appeared.
“‘When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes!’
“I never more firmly believed in special Providence than at that hour. Even sceptics for the moment were converted, and said: ‘God has sent her!’ But how insignificant she looked! She was but a speck on the dark blue sea at night, almost a laughable object by day. The enemy call her ‘a cheese-box on a raft,’ and the comparison is a good one. Could she meet the Merrimac? The morrow must determine, for, under God, the Monitor is our only hope now.”
Lieutenant Worden, the Commander of the Monitor, on arriving at Fort Monroe was instructed to lie alongside the Minnesota, to guard her in case of a night attack. At eleven o’clock she set out, and her arrival was hailed with delight by the men on board the frigate, though some shook their heads at the strange unshapely toy which a private individual had constructed to save the Federal fleet. But few slept that night. The odds against the Monitor seemed too great. She mounted but two guns, while the Merrimac carried ten. Sunday morning broke sunny and beautiful, and the sea was peaceful and calm. Near Sewell’s Point, opposite Hampton Roads, three vessels were at anchor, one of them the Merrimac.
About nine o’clock glasses showed a stir amongst them, and instantly the Monitor awoke to life and action, closing her iron hatches and putting on the dead-light covers. The Monitor, like a great girdle-cake, only stood 2 feet out of the water; her smooth surface was broken only by the turret and pilot-house.
Then they saw the Merrimac coming, looking like a submerged house, with roof only out of the water. After her came the Jamestown and Yorktown, and a fleet of tug-boats crowded with ladies and gentlemen from Norfolk eager to see the fun.
The Merrimac, entirely unconscious of the new enemy she had to encounter, steamed slowly along and fired upon the Minnesota, which was still aground. The Minnesota replied with a broadside and the usual result; but the Monitor steamed out from behind and boldly advanced to meet her antagonist, and when at a distance of half a mile Lieutenant Worden from the pilot-house gave the order to fire. The ball, weighing 170 pounds, rattled against the mailed side of the Merrimac. She staggered under the force of the concussion, and at once seemed to realize that in this floating turret she had no mean antagonist. At the range of only a few yards she poured in a terrible broadside. To her disgust, the shots seemed to have glided off and done no harm. Then the two vessels closed and poured a hail of heavy metal upon each other. The Monitor being the quicker, would circle round the Merrimac, while the turret, turning with ease, always presented the guns to the foe.
Worden in his pilot-house could speak through tubes to Lieutenant Green, who commanded the gunners in the tower. Once Green trained his guns on the Merrimac’s water-line, and the shot penetrated.
“Splendid, sir! splendid!” roared Worden. “You have made the iron fly.”
But the spectators who lined the ramparts of Fort Monroe could not see what was happening for the clouds of smoke, and they stood, silent and wretched, almost afraid to look.