"All hands on deck. Board and capture her!"
The smoke-smeared crew swarmed to the portholes and were just in the act of springing on the decks of the Monitor, when she backed quickly and dropped down stream.
After six hours of thunder in each other's faces the Monitor drew away into the shoal waters guarding the Minnesota.
The Merrimac could not follow her in the shallows and at two o'clock turned her prow again toward Sewell's Point.
The battle was a drawn conflict. But the plucky little Monitor had won a tremendous moral victory. She had rescued the navy in the nick of time. The Government at Washington once more breathed.
From the heights of rejoicing the South sank again to the bitterness of failure. For twenty-four hours her flag had been mistress of the seas. Jefferson Davis saw the hope of peace fade into the certainty of a struggle for the possession of Richmond.
The way had been cleared. McClellan's two hundred thousand men were rushing on their transports for the Virginia peninsula.