THE "MONITOR" AND THE "MERRIMAC"
A Fight Which Changed All Naval Warfare.
THE story I am now going to tell you takes us forward to the beginning of the great Civil War, that terrible conflict which went on during four long years between the people of the North and the South. Most of this war was on land, but there were some mighty battles at sea, and my story is of one of the greatest of these.
You should know that up to 1860 all ocean battles were fought by ships with wooden sides, through which a ball from a great gun would often cut as easily as a knife through a piece of cheese. Some vessels had been built with iron overcoats, but none of these had met in war. It was not till March, 1862, that the first battle between ships with iron sides took place.
The Constitution, you may remember, was called the Old Ironsides, but that was only a nickname, for she had wooden sides, and the first real Ironsides were the Monitor and the Merrimac.
Down in Virginia there is a great body of salt water known as Hampton Roads. The James River runs into it, and so does the Elizabeth River, a small stream which flows past the old City of Norfolk.
When the Civil War opened there was at Norfolk a fine United States navy yard, with ships and guns and docks that had cost a great deal of money. But soon after the war began the United States officers in charge there ran away in a fright, having first set on fire everything that would burn. Among the ships there was the old frigate Merrimac, which was being repaired. This was set on fire, and blazed away brightly until it sank to the bottom and the salt water put out the blaze. That was a very bad business, for there was enough left of the old Merrimac to make a great deal of trouble for the United States.
What did the Confederates do but lift the Merrimac out of the mud, and put her in the dry dock, and cut away the burnt part, and build over her a sloping roof of timbers two feet thick, until she looked something like Noah's ark. Then this was covered with iron plates four inches thick. In that way the first Confederate iron-clad ship was made.
The people at Washington knew all about this ship and were very much alarmed. No one could tell what dreadful damage it might do if it got out to sea, and came up Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River to the national capital. It might be much worse than when the British burnt Washington in 1814, for Washington was now a larger and finer city.
Something had to be done, and right away, too. It would not do to wait for a monster like the Merrimac. So Captain John Ericsson, a famous engineer of New York, was ordered to build an iron ship-of-war as fast as he could. And he started to do so after a queer notion of his own.