With her engines in good working order, it was confidently expected by the Confederates that this novel and formidable craft would be able to capture or destroy the Union fleet, in Hampton Roads, raise the blockade at the Capes of Virginia, and proceed to Washington, when the Capitol would be at the mercy of her powerful battery. This battery consisted of ten heavy rifled guns.
In those days nothing was known about ironclads, and as week after week passed, and the monster, so often spoken of by the Norfolk papers, which was to clear out Hampton Roads, and to brush away the “insolent frigates” which were blockading the James River at Newport News did not appear, people began to regard her as a bugbear. At any rate, the Union frigates were very sure that, if they could once get her under their broadsides, they would soon send her to the bottom.
About the 1st of March, 1862, a Norfolk newspaper contained a violent attack upon the Confederate authorities for their bad management in regard to the Merrimac, or “Virginia,” as they had re-christened her. The paper declared that her plating was a failure, that her machinery was defective, and that she very nearly sank when brought out of dock. This was all a ruse, for she was then making trials of machinery, and had her officers and crew on board and under drill.
The Navy Department was better informed than those in the immediate vicinity, and hurried up the means it had created to meet the ironclad.
In Hampton Roads, at that time, were the Minnesota, a fine steam-frigate, the Roanoke, of the same size, but crippled in machinery, and several other vessels of much less power, together with numerous transports, coal-ships, and others.
A few miles above, at Newport News, lay the Congress, a sailing frigate of 50 guns, and the Cumberland, a heavy sloop of 24 guns. These were the “insolent frigates” which, during many preceding months, had entirely prevented the Confederates from using the water communication between Richmond and Norfolk. The danger in leaving these vessels, without steam, in such a position, was fully recognized, and they were to be replaced by others about the middle of March.
On shore, at Newport News, was a camp of about four thousand men; and the Congress and Cumberland lay just off this camp, in the fair way of the channel, and about a quarter of a mile apart; the Cumberland being the furthest up the James river.
On Saturday, the 8th of March, the Merrimac at last appeared, accompanied by two or three tugs armed with rifled guns, and joined, eventually, by two armed merchant steamers from up the James. The Merrimac moved with great deliberation, and was seen from the vessels at Newport News, coming down the channel from Norfolk, towards Sewell’s point, at about half-past twelve. She could not then be seen from Hampton Roads, but when she did at last show herself clear of the point, there was great commotion there. But she turned up, at a right angle, and came up the channel toward Newport News. It is said by some that she came by a channel not generally known, or, at least, not commonly used.
The tide had just turned ebb, and the time selected was the best for the iron-clad, and the worst for the vessels at Newport News, for their sterns were down stream, and they could not be sprung round.
The Merrimac approached these ships with ominous silence and deliberation. The officers were gathered on the poops of the vessels, hazarding all sorts of conjectures in regard to the strange craft, and, when it was plain she was coming to attack them, or to force the passage, the drum beat to quarters. By about two o’clock the strange monster was close enough to make out her ports and plating, and the Congress fired at her from a stern gun. The projectile, a 32-pound shot, bounced off the casemate as a pebble would.