Dewey and Other Naval Commanders

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

BLOCKADE RUNNER—THE "MONITOR"—CAPTAIN ERICSSON.

Regular news of the building of the Merrimac (called the Virginia by the Confederates) was telegraphed to Washington by friends of the Government. The authorities felt some uneasiness, but were far from suspecting the terrible power for destructiveness possessed by the monster. Captain Ericsson, the famous Swedish inventor, was constructing on Long Island an ironclad about one-fourth the size of the Merrimac, and he was urged to all possible speed in its completion. He kept his men busy night and day and had it finished a day or two before the completion of the Merrimac.

The Merrimac carried ten guns, which fired shells and had a crew of 300 men, under the command of Commodore Franklin Buchanan, a former officer of the United States navy. Late in the forenoon of March 8, 1862, a column of black smoke rising over the Norfolk Navy Yard gave notice that the Merrimac had started out at last on her mission of destruction and death. As the enormous craft forged into sight it was seen that she was accompanied by three gunboats ready to give what help they could.

Five Union vessels were awaiting her in Hampton Roads. They were the steam frigates Minnesota and Roanoke and the sailing frigates Congress, Cumberland and St. Lawrence, all of which immediately cleared for action. Turning her frightful front toward the Cumberland, the Merrimac swept down upon her in grim and awful majesty. The Cumberland let fly with her terrific broadsides, which were powerful enough to sink the largest ship afloat, but the tons of metal hurled with inconceivable force skipped off the greased sides of the iron roof and scooted away for hundreds of yards through the startled air.

The prodigious broadsides were launched again and again, but produced no more effect than so many paper wads from a popgun. The iron prow of the Merrimac crashed through the wooden walls of the Cumberland as if they were cardboard, and, while her crew were still heroically working their guns, the Cumberland went down, with the red flag, meaning "no surrender," flying from her peak. Lieutenant Morris succeeded in saving himself, but 121 were lost out of the crew of 376.

Having destroyed the Cumberland, the Merrimac now made for the Congress, which had been vainly pelting her with her broadsides. The Congress was aground and so completely at the mercy of the Merrimac, which raked her fore and aft, that every man would have been killed had not the sign of surrender been displayed. As it was, her commander and 100 of the crew were slain by the irresistible fire of the tremendous ironclad.

By this time the fearful spring afternoon was drawing to a close and the Merrimac labored heavily back to Sewall's Point, intending to return on the morrow and continue her work of destruction.

The news of what the Merrimac had done was telegraphed throughout the South and North. In the former it caused wild rejoicing and raised hope that before the resistless might of the new ironclad the North would be compelled to make terms and save her leading seacoast cities from annihilation by acknowledging the Southern Confederacy. The national authorities were thrown into consternation. At a special meeting of the President's Cabinet Secretary of War Stanton expressed his belief that the Merrimac would appear in front of Washington and compel the authorities to choose between surrender and destruction, and that the principal seaports would be laid under contribution.

But at that very time the hastily completed Monitor was speeding southward under the command of Lieutenant Worden, who had risen from a sick bed to assume the duty which no one else was willing to undertake. Her crew numbered 16 officers and 42 men, with Lieutenant S. Dana Green as executive officer. Her voyage to Hampton Roads was difficult and of the most trying nature to the officers and crew, who were nearly smothered by gas. The boat would have foundered had not the weather been unusually favorable, but she reached Hampton Roads on the night of March 8 and took a position beside the Minnesota, ready and eager for the terrific fray of the morrow. The Monitor carried two 11-inch Dahlgren guns and fired solid shot.