went out to his work. He first drove away the wooden vessels that were making for the helpless Minnesota, and then steered straight for the Merrimac, which was now coming down the channel.
The Confederates had known about the building of the Monitor (which they called the Ericsson), just as the authorities at Washington had known all about the Merrimac. When their men first saw her, they described her as "a cheese-box on a raft," and were surprised at her apparently diminutive size. Buchanan had been seriously wounded in the action of the previous day, and the Confederate iron-clad was now commanded by Lieutenant Jones.
Worden stationed himself in the pilot-house, with the pilot and a quartermaster to man the wheel, while his executive officer, Lieut. Samuel D. Greene, was in the turret, commanding the guns, which were worked by chief engineer Stimers and sixteen men. The total number of men in the Monitor was fifty-seven; the Merrimac had about three hundred.
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| BATTLE BETWEEN THE "MONITOR" AND "MERRIMAC," HAMPTON ROADS, VIRGINIA, MARCH 9, 1862. |
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| THE FIGHT OF THE "MONITOR" AND "MERRIMAC," HAMPTON ROADS. FEDERAL FLEET IN THE FOREGROUND. |
The Merrimac began firing as soon as the two iron-clads were within long range of each other, but Worden reserved his fire for short range. Then the battle was fairly open, the National vessel firing solid shot, about one in eight minutes, while the Confederates used shells exclusively and fired much more rapidly. The shells struck the turret and made numerous scars, but inflicted no serious damage, except occasionally when a man was leaning against the side at the moment of impact and was injured by the concussion. Worden had his eyes at the sight-hole when a shell struck it and exploded, temporarily blinding him, and injuring him so severely that he turned over the command to Lieutenant Greene and took no further part in the action. Each vessel attempted to ram the other, but always without success. Once when the Monitor made a dash at the Merrimac's stern, to disable her steering-gear, the two guns were discharged at once at a distance of only a few yards. The two ponderous shots, striking close together, crushed in the iron plates several inches, and produced a concussion that knocked over the entire crews of the after guns and caused many of them to bleed at the nose and ears. The officers of the Monitor had received peremptory orders to use but fifteen pounds of powder at a charge. Experts say that if they had used the normal charge of thirty pounds their shots would undoubtedly have penetrated the Merrimac and either sunk her or compelled her surrender. The Monitor had an advantage in the fact that she drew but half as much water as the Merrimac and could move with much greater celerity. The fight continued for about four hours, and the Confederate iron-clad then returned to Norfolk, and she never came down to fight again till the 11th of April, when no battle took place because both vessels had orders to remain on the defensive, each Government being afraid to risk the loss of its only iron-clad in those waters. The indentations on the Monitor showed that she had been struck twenty-two times, but she was not in any way disabled. Twenty of her shots struck the Merrimac, some of which smashed the outer layers of iron plates. It was claimed that the Merrimac would have sunk the Monitor by ramming, had she not lost her iron prow when she rammed the Cumberland the day before; but a description of the prow, which was only of cast iron and not very large, makes this at least doubtful.
Just what damage the Merrimac received in the fight is not known. But it was observed that she went into it with her bow up and her stern down, and went out with her bow down and her stern up; that on withdrawing she was at once surrounded by four tugs, into which her men immediately jumped; and she went into the dry-dock for repairs.
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The significance of the battle was not so much in its immediate result as in its effect upon all naval armaments, and because of this it attracted world-wide attention. The London Times declared: "There is not now a ship in the English navy, apart from these two [the Warrior and the Ironside], that it would not be madness to trust to an engagement with that little Monitor." The United States Government ordered the building of more monitors, some with two turrets, and they did excellent service, notably in the battle of Mobile Bay.
In May, when Norfolk was captured, an attempt was made to take the Merrimac up the James River; but she got aground, and was finally abandoned and blown up. When the Confederates refitted her they rechristened her Virginia, but the original name sticks to her in history. In December of that year the Monitor attempted to go to Beaufort, N. C., towed by a steamer; but she foundered in a gale off Cape Hatteras and went to the bottom, carrying with her a dozen of the crew.
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| LOSS OF THE "MONITOR" IN A STORM OFF CAPE HATTERAS, DECEMBER 30, 1862.—GALLANT EFFORTS TO RESCUE THE CREW. |
CHAPTER X.
THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.
NEW ORLEANS THE LARGEST SOUTHERN CITY—FORTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI—CAPT. DAVID G. FARRAGUT CHOSEN COMMANDER—GEN. BENJAMIN F. BUTLER IN COMMAND OF LAND FORCES—TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT OF THE FORTS—CUTTING THE CHAIN ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI—THE GREAT NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NIGHT—ALL THE FORTS AND THE CONFEDERATE FLEET CAPTURED BY FARRAGUT—SURRENDER OF NEW ORLEANS—GENERAL BUTLER'S CELEBRATED "WOMAN ORDER."
The Crescent City was by far the largest and richest in the Confederacy. In 1860 it had a population of nearly one hundred and seventy thousand, while Richmond, Mobile, and Charleston together had fewer than two-thirds as many. In 1860–61 it shipped twenty-five million dollars' worth of sugar and ninety-two million dollars' worth of cotton, its export trade in these articles being larger than that of any other city in the world. Moreover, its strategic value in that war was greater than that of any other point in the Southern States. The many mouths of the Mississippi, and the frequency of violent gales in the Gulf, rendered it difficult to blockade commerce between that great river and the ocean; but the possession of this lowest commercial point on the stream would shut it off effectively, and would go far toward securing possession all the way to Cairo. This would cut the Confederacy in two, and make it difficult to bring supplies from Texas and Arkansas to feed the armies in Tennessee and Virginia. Moreover, a great city is in itself a serious loss to one belligerent and a capital prize to the other.
As soon as it became evident that war was being waged against the United States in dead earnest, and that it was likely to be prolonged, these considerations presented themselves to the Government, and a plan was matured for capture of the largest city in the territory of the insurgents.
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