Here on the deck of the “Monitor” sit some of the men who held up the hands of Lieutenant Worden in the great fight with the “Virginia.” In the picture, taken in July, 1862, only four months afterward, one of the nine famous dents on the turret are visible. It required courage not only to fight in the “Monitor” for the first time but to embark on her at all, for she was a strange and untried invention at which many high authorities shook their heads. But during the battle, amid all the difficulties of breakdowns by the new untried machinery, Lieutenant S. Dana Greene coolly directed his men, who kept up a fire of remarkable accuracy. Twenty of the forty-one 11-inch shot fired from the “Monitor” took effect, more or less, on the iron plates of the “Virginia.” The “Monitor” was struck nine times on her turret, twice on the pilot-house, thrice on the deck, and eight times on the side. While Greene was fighting nobly in the turret, Worden with the helmsman in the pilot-house was bravely maneuvering his vessel and seeking to ram his huge antagonist. Twice he almost succeeded and both times Greene’s guns were used on the “Virginia” at point-blank range with telling effect. Toward the close of the action Worden was blinded by a shell striking near one of the peep-holes in the pilot-house and the command devolved upon Greene. Worden, even in his agony of pain while the doctor was attending his injuries, asked constantly about the progress of the battle; and when told that the “Minnesota” was safe, he said, “Then I can die happy.”
ADMIRAL J. L. WORDEN
DAVID GLASGOW FARRAGUT THE MAN WHO DARED AT NEW ORLEANS AND MOBILE BAY
“ANY MAN WHO IS PREPARED FOR DEFEAT WOULD BE HALF DEFEATED BEFORE HE COMMENCED”
THE COMMANDER OF THE FEDERAL FLEET AT NEW ORLEANS
“Who is this Farragut?” So the younger generation of Americans must have wondered, at the news of late January, 1862. Farragut was to have a flag in the Gulf and was expected to capture New Orleans. Thus far in the War, he had done nothing but sit on an obscure retiring board in the Navy Department at Washington. But Commander David D. Porter knew him, for it was with Porter’s own father in the famous old “Essex” that Farragut as a mere boy had proved worthy to command a fighting ship. And now it was Porter who had recommended him for a task considered gravely dangerous by all, foolhardy by not a few. This was no less than to pass the forts below New Orleans, defeat a powerful and determined Confederate flotilla, capture the city, and then sweep up the Mississippi and split the Confederacy in two. To this Farragut rigidly held himself and the brave men under him, when, in the dark hour before dawn of April 24, 1862, they faced the terrible bombardment of the forts and fought their way through the flames of fire rafts desperately maneuvered by the opposing gunboats. Next day New Orleans was Farragut’s. Leaving it to the co-operating army under General B. F. Butler, Farragut pushed on up the river, passed and repassed the fortifications at Vicksburg, but the army needed to drive home the wedge thus firmly entered by the navy was not yet ready. It was another year before the sturdy blows of Farragut were effectually supplemented ashore.
