# Decisive Battles Since Waterloo/Chapter 13

CHAPTER XIII.
BATTLE BETWEEN THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC—1862.
The battle that was fought in Hampton Roads on the 9th March, 1862, was the first encounter of iron-clad ships of war. It revolutionized the navies of the world and was the death-knell of the "wooden walls" that had ruled the ocean for centuries.
Down almost to 1860 all nations had relied upon wooden ships for their navies; a few iron ships had been constructed, but the models had not materially changed from those of half a century earlier. There was a tendency to reduce the number of decks, and it was evident that the great four-deckers of former times were to be set aside for ships more easy of manœuvring. The paddle had made way for the screw as a means of propulsion. With paddle engines a portion of the machinery was exposed to an enemy's shot, while with a screw steamer every thing was below the water level; besides, the screw left the whole broadside free for fighting or other purposes, which before was considerably enroached upon by the paddle-boxes. The general shape of the ship was the same as of old, and for cruising purposes most war ships made use of their sails far more than steam.
The idea of protecting the sides of vessels with armor of some kind is very old, dating almost as far back as the invention of gunpowder. Indeed some of the Roman galleys and other vessels before gunpowder was ​thought of had their sides protected with leather, cordage, wooden beams, heavy planking, or with plates of iron, brass, or other metals. Floating batteries with armored sides were used in the siege of Gibraltar in 1782, and other batteries were constructed at different epochs. The first steam vessel of war was built by Robert Fulton for the United States government; she was launched in October 1814 and completed in the following year. Her sides are said to have been protected by thin plates of iron, but they were doubtless not sufificiently thick to entitle her to be classed as an armored ship.
In 1826 an anonymous French writer proposed the construction of iron or iron-clad war-ships, their walls being sufficiently thick to resist the cannon-shot of those days. Some experiments were made in France in 1834 to ascertain the resisting power of iron against shot and shell, and for several years the proposals for building armored ships were much discussed both in France and England. In 1842 Robert L. Stevens of New Jersey proposed to the United States government to construct iron-clad steam batteries which should be capable of going to sea and able to resist artillery projectiles. It was decided to construct one battery upon Stevens' plan, but work was not commenced upon it until 1854. The battery was never completed, and in 1874 it was sold at auction.
The English government made several experiments with armor plating, but the conclusions were unfavorable to its adoption. To France belongs the credit of the first iron-plated steam frigate of the first class. In the Crimean war she constructed and used four small gun-boats with armor plating; in March, 1858, work was begun on La Gloire, a sea-going frigate carrying thirty-six guns, and protected amidships with plates of iron four and a half inches thick, with a backing of two feet of solid timber. La Gloire was the precursor of the iron-clad fleet of France, and virtually of the iron-clad fleets of all nations ​of the globe. Shortly after she was begun the French laid the keels of the Normandie and the Invincible on the same plans. England could not afford to lie idle under these circumstances; her naval authorities ordered the building of the Warrior and shortly afterwards of the Black Prince, Defence, and Queen.
In 1861 the seizure of the lower Mississippi by the Confederates rendered the construction of armored ships a necessity, and it was undertaken, not by the Navy, but by the War Department. The first of the iron-clad gun-boats were designed and built by James B. Eads, an engineer of St. Louis, and in a very short time he turned out the St. Louis, Carondelet, Cairo, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Benton. These boats were plated with iron 2 inches thick on a backing of 4 inches of wood placed at an angle of 45 degrees in order to glance off horizontal shot; they were not impenetrable to heavy guns, but were safe against field-batteries and smaller cannon, and did excellent service in the work for which they were intended. Several other boats of the same kind were built during the course of the war.
Early in 1861, Norfolk, Virginia, was abandoned by the national government and occupied by the Confederates. The retiring garrison set the navy-yard on fire in several places, and much valuable property was destroyed, including several ships. The steam frigate Merrimac was partially burned and then sunk; she was of 3,500 tons burthen, and carried forty guns. After her hull had lain for several weeks under the water, one of the Confederate naval officers proposed to raise her and convert her into an iron-clad gun-boat. The plan was approved by the Navy Department. The Merrimac was raised and cut
PLANS OF THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC.
On the midship section of the Merrimac her new designer placed a structure somewhat resembling the roof of a house. It was 175 feet long, and 7 feet clear in height, whilst its width was flush with the sides of the hull. This roof sloped at the sides and ends at an angle of 45 degrees; it was of pine and oak, 24 inches thick, and had a plating of iron on the outside 4 inches thick, in two layers of 2 inches each. The sides of the roof were straight, but the ends were rounded so as to give a wide sweep to the bow and stern guns. At the top there was a flat surface about 20 feet wide, covered with a grating, which admitted air and light to the interior of the enclosed space. The prow was fitted with a beak for ramming purposes; the engines were the engines of the old Merrimac; the smoke-stack or chimney rose in the centre of the armored space, and the pilot house was at the forward end and covered with 4 inches of iron at the same angle as the sides.
The armament of the Merrimac consisted in all of ten guns. There were two 7-inch rifles for the bow and stern pivots, two 6-inch rifles, and six smooth-bore broadside guns. The ship drew 22 feet of water, and was very slow and unwieldy. The maximum of her speed under her new conditions did not exceed five knots an hour, and with her great length it took fully half an hour to turn her around. There were many delays in fitting her out, owing partly to the great demand for war material of all kinds, and partly in consequence of the inexperience of everybody concerned. It was not until the 7th of March that the Merrimac was cast loose from the dock and started down Elizabeth River on what was supposed by many spectators to be only a trial trip. She was commanded by Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, and her executive and ​ordnance officer was Lieutenant Catesby Jones. She had a full staff of officers and a crew of 300 men.
Let us now look at the Monitor, which was so soon to be the antagonist of the Merrimac.
On the 3d August, 1861, the Congress of the United States enacted a law directing the Secretary of the Navy to appoint a board of three naval officers to investigate plans and specifications for iron-clad steamships or batteries, and in case of a favorable report by the board, the Secretary was authorized to cause one or more armored steam-batteries or steamships to be built. The sum of $1,500,000 was appropriated to pay the cost of the experiment. Many plans were offered, but only three were accepted by the naval board, the others being rejected for various reasons.
The first place on the list was given to the proposal of Captain John Ericsson, of New York, and on the approval of Congress a contract was made for the construction of a battery on this novel plan. The contract stipulated for the completion of the battery within 100 days from the signing of the contract (October 5, 1861), and the extraordinary provision was introduced, that the test of the battery, upon which its acceptance depended, should be its withstanding the fire of the enemy's batteries at the shortest ranges, the United States agreeing to fit out the vessel with men, guns, etc.
The following is a detailed description of this vessel; it will interest the nautical, naval, or historical student, and may be skipped by the indolent or unscientific reader. It was written at the time the vessel was delivered to the United States Government, Mareh 5, 1862.
The hull is formed by two distinct parts, a lower and upper, both of which are flat-bottomed; the lower one built of ⅜-inch iron, 124 feet long, 34 feet wide at the top, and 6½ feet deep. The sides incline at an angle of about 51 degrees with a vertical line, and terminate in sharp ends, the bow projecting and ​coming to a point at an angle of 80 degrees. The upper hull is 174 feet long, 41 feet 4 inches wide, with perpendicular sides 5 feet high. It juts over the lower hull on each side 3 feet 7 inches, and at each end 25 feet. The sides of this portion are built of white oak, 2½ feet thick, covered with 6 inches of iron plates on the outside, and a ½-inch plating of iron within; the object of the latter being to arrest splinters in case of a ball penetrating the sides. The top is covered with a bomb-proof flat deck unprotected by any railing or bulwark. This deck consists of oak beams, 10 inches square and 26 inches apart, covered with 8-inch plank, and this with 2 layers of iron, each an inch thick. The draught of water is 10 feet, leaving only 18 inches above the surface. The projecting ends of the upper hull serve as a cover for the propeller and rudder in the stern and the anchor in the bow. The former are entirely out of reach of shot; and the latter is carried in the upper hull, from which it is readily lowered, and into which it is hoisted again by men working below, without any exposure or sign of their movements on the outside. The lower hull is so situated beneath the upper, that it can only be reached by a ball after this has passed through at least 25 feet of water, and the inclination of the sides would then prevent its penetration; and the upper is impregnable in its 6 inches of iron, backed with 30 inches of white oak, and the inner lining of ½-inch iron.
The prominent object upon the deck in the middle of the boat is the turret or castle, a cylinder of 20 feet diameter within, and 9 feet high, built of 8 thicknesses of 1-inch plates, bolted securely one over another with overlapping joints, and lined with an additional layer of iron an inch thick, thus making 9 inches in all. The weight of the turret is about 100 tons, and its support is a circular bed plate of composition metal firmly secured to the deck. Upon this it is supported except in time of action, when the weight is taken by a vertical central shaft of iron, with which it is made to revolve as desired, the motive power being a steam-engine specially designed for this service, as also for working the blowers for the fires, and for ventilation. On the top, the turret is covered with iron beams and perforated iron, shell-proof. This, while ​it affords protection, admits the circulation of air necessary in working the guns. Small sliding iron hatchways are also provided, to afford an entrance for the men through this portion.
The turret is constructed for two heavy guns, which constitute the whole armament of the battery. They are placed precisely parallel with each other, and both are directed out the same side of the turret. Those selected for the first trial were 11-inch Dahlgren smooth-bore guns, carrying 168 lb. round shot. Some wrought-iron shot were provided for the first encounter, but their use was forbidden for fear of their bursting the guns, by reason of their weight, being 15 lbs. greater than that of the shot used in proving the guns. The port-holes are circular openings, 3 feet above the deck, just large enough to admit the muzzle of the gun, and kept closed by a sliding shutter, managed on the inside, and removed only when the gun is run out to be fired. The gun-carriages are of wrought iron and run on slides very accurately constructed. The sighting of the guns was designed to be not over their line through the port-holes; but four holes were pierced through the turret at the height of the eye for telescopes, and just outside of the holes reflectors were fixed, which bent the ray of light coming in a direction parallel with the guns through the axis of the telescope. In action, however, the ordinary mode of sighting was adopted.
The turret is caused to revolve to the right or left, by the movement of a small wheel which controls the action of the steam, and is turned by the gunner or his assistants, and a scale is provided by which the elevation of the guns is also adjusted. When ready for firing, the shutter is triced up by the gunner, the piece is run out, fired, and instantly returns by the recoil, a friction clamp upon the sides of the ways arresting it at any desired point. On this side of the turret is an additional thickness of iron plating of sbout 3 inches.
The pilot or wheel-house, as originally constructed, was a square box formed of bars or beams of wrought iron, 9 inches by 12, interlocked at the corners, and covered with heavy plating. Elongated horizontal apertures at the sides afford the only look-out for the helmsman. These apertures may also be ​used as loopholes for musketry if desirable. In the place of chimneys bomb-proof gratings are set in the deck, and through these the smoke of the fires is driven out by the blowers; low temporary chimneys are however provided, which are removed in time of action. The deck is thus entirely free of all incumbrances, and the men who work the vessel and handle the guns are all entirely out of sight, beneath the invulnerable plating. All access into the interior is securely shut off, so that if the battery were boarded, the men could not be reached, and no harm could be done the vessel itself. Its sharp and powerful iron prow will enable it to sink with ease any wooden vessel it can reach, and its light draught allows of its running into shoal waters either for offensive operations or to retire, if necessary, to a distance from more powerful vessels of deeper draught. Her complement of men consists of 60 in all, of whom 11 are officers. The battery is evidently designed for harbor and river operations, and not for encountering heavy seas.
At the suggestion of Capt. Ericsson, her designer, the new ship was named the Monitor. Until the very hour of her departure from New York the workmen were busy upon her, and several things remained unfinished or incomplete when she sailed. The government was aware of the changes that had been made in the Merrimac, and there was great anxiety to have the Monitor at Hampton Roads at the earliest possible date. She left New York in the forenoon of March 6th in tow of the tug-boat Seth Low and using her own engine. She was commanded by Lieut. John L. Worden, and her executive officer was Lieut. S. D. Greene. During her entire career of less than a year Lieut. Greene remained the executive officer of the Monitor, though she had in the same period no less than five commanders. She had a full complement of other officers, and her crew was selected from the crews of the North Carolina and Sabine, then at the Brooklyn Navy-yard.
The Monitor narrowly escaped foundering during her ​voyage from New York to Fortress Monroe. On the 7th March a light breeze sprang up and demonstrated the correctness of the theory that the Monitor was not adapted for sea-going voyages. A great deal of water entered at the base of the turret, and, to use the language of one of her officers, "she leaked like a sieve." The water came in through the holes of the blower-pipes, through the chimneys, and into the top of the turret and it even dashed into the peep-holes of the pilot house with such force as to knock the helmsman away from the wheel. The belts of the blower engines slipped in consequence of their wetting, and there was not sufficient draught for purposes of combustion. Two ofificers and several men of the crew were overcome by the noxious gases that formed in the engine room, and narrowly escaped suffocation. At one time the fires were nearly extinguished, the engine room was half filled with water, and only the cessation of the breeze saved the Monitor from going to the bottom of the Atlantic before she had an opportunity to fire a single shot at the enemy.
During the night of the 7th rough water was again encountered, and the same troubles arose. The darkness added to the danger, and to make matters worse the wheel ropes became jammed, and the hawser that connected the Monitor with the tow-boat was the only safety of the former. If it had given way she would have inevitably been lost. At 4 a.m. on Saturday, March 8th, the Monitor passed Cape Henry, and her crew heard the booming of the guns that betokened trouble in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, about twenty miles distant. Capt. Worden immediately ordered all preparations made for battle, and when the Monitor anchored in Hampton Roads at nine o'clock she was ready for earnest work.
It was about noon on the 8th of March when the Merrimac steamed down from Norfolk in the direction of the Union fleet, which was anchored near Fortress Monroe and ​at Newport News, seven miles above. At the former anchorage were the frigates Minnesota, Roanoke, and St. Lawrence; the first two being 40-gun steam frigates, and the St. Lawrence a sailing ship carrying 50 guns. Near Newport News the Congress, 50 guns, and the Cumberland, 30 guns, were anchored under the protection of the shore batteries. Fire was opened on the Merrimac from these vessels and the shore batteries, but the shot glanced off without doing any damage. The Merrimac did not reply until she was in short range, when, with a single discharge from her forward pivot gun, she disabled the after pivot gun of the Cumberland. Then she passed near the Congress and rammed the Cumberland, making a great hole in her side and admitting so much water that the ship sank in little more than half an hour, carrying down many of her crew. She continued to fight to the last, and some of her guns were fired at the Merrimac just as the water reached them. Her flag remained in its position after the hull reached the bottom, fifty-four feet below the surface of the water.
The Congress slipped her anchor and dropped her fore-topsail, but in attempting to get away she ran aground. She continued to fight for more than an hour after the sinking of the Cumberland, the Merrimac choosing her position about two hundred yards away and pouring in a destructive fire as fast as her guns could be worked. Finding the contest was hopeless, the commander of the Congress ran up the white flag and the firing ceased.
Commander Buchanan ordered the gun-boats Beaufort
scene of the battle between the monitor and the merrimac.
​while attempting to remove the wounded from the Congress; accordingly the Confederate gun-boats retired, and the crew of the Congress escaped to the shore by swimming or were taken off in small boats. The Congress was then fired by red-hot shot from the Merrimac and was soon in flames. Commander Buchanan was wounded, and the command of the Merrimac fell upon Lieutenant Jones. The Merrimac had twenty men killed and wounded in the action; her smoke-stack and steam-pipes were carried away, and so were railings, boat-davits, and stanchions. But her machinery was not damaged, none of her guns was dismounted, and there were no serious injuries to her armor.
Sunset was approaching, and it was not deemed wise to attack the Minnesota at that late hour of the day and with the then condition of the tide, especially as she was aground and they would be sure of their prey in the morning. Accordingly the Merrimac steamed away to Norfolk, repaired her damages as much as possible, and prepared for the work of the next day.
The intention was for the Merrimac to destroy the Minnesota and then attack the other ships near Fortress Monroe. She steamed in the direction of the Minnesota, and as she approached that vessel the Monitor came out from behind the Minnesota's great hull and offered battle. The "cheese-box on a raft" had such an insignificant appearance that it was thought she could be easily disposed of. But as soon as the battle began the Merrimac's commander found the novel craft a most formidable foe. The Monitor drew twelve feet of water and the Merrimac twenty-three; the former was able to choose her position, while the Merrimac dared not venture where there was a possibility of taking the ground. On two or three occasions she touched bottom, but hung there only a few moments at a time.
monitor and merrimac in action.
​not disable her antagonist. Each boat tried to ram the other, but neither was successful. When the Merrimac approached close to the Monitor with the intention of sinking her by ramming, the latter fired twice, and partially forced in the side of the Merrimac's shield, knocking down several of her crew; her executive officer said that another shot at the same point would have penetrated the side. The Monitor was hit repeatedly on the turret, but with no other effect than to make several indentations. Finding that no impression could be made in this way, the commander of the Merrimac ordered her fire to be concentrated on the Monitor's pilot house, and with very good effect. One shot partially destroyed the pilot house and disabled Captain Worden. He was blinded by the force of the blow, and blood poured from his face. He was thought at the time to be fatally injured, but he recovered in a few weeks and returned to duty. After Captain Worden was disabled, Lieutenant Greene took command and held it through the rest of the fight.
The position of the pilot house was found inconvenient, for the reason that the guns in the turret could not be fired directly ahead without the risk of hitting the pilot house and knocking it to pieces. Subsequently it was placed directly over the turret, and this was the position of the pilot house in all the later ships of the Monitor pattern. Lieutenant Greene, in an article in the Century magazine, said that it was very difificult to maintain communications with the pilot house, as the speaking-tube between it and the turret was broken early in the battle. Word was passed by the assistant paymaster and the captain's clerk, but as both were landsmen, the nautical phrases transmitted through them often became unintelligible before reaching their destination.
In the turret it was difficult to make out the position of the Merrimac; marks had been placed on the deck, before the action, to indicate the direction of bow and ​stern, and starboard and port, but these marks were obliterated after a little while, so that the bearings were unknown. At first there was considerable difificulty in manipulating the turret, as the machinery did not work smoothly, and when the marks alluded to were obliterated, the only way of working was to load the guns and then start the turret on its revolution until the Merrimac could be seen through the port-holes. Then the shot would be delivered, the gun run in, and the heavy shields over the ports dropped to prevent the entrance of an enemy's shot or shell.
The orders to Captain Worden were to defend the Minnesota and not to pursue the Merrimac, if such pursuit should leave the Minnesota exposed. Consequently, the Monitor refused to go far away from the latter ship, and she declined all efforts of the Merrimac to draw her in the direction of Sewall's Point, where the Confederate land batteries were ready to pour their iron storm upon her. The fight between the Monitor and the Merrimac lasted from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon, when, finding it impossible to destroy the Minnesota or reach the other Union ships near Fortress Monroe, the Merrimac retired. Though not disabled she was leaking badly, her machinery was difficult to manage, her ammunition run low, and her crew were quite worn out with two days of fighting. In obedience to her orders, the Monitor remained that night near the Minnesota, Captain Worden being sent on a tug to Washington for medical treatment. The next day was a day of rest, as the Merrimac did not appear.
The Confederates claimed that the battle was a drawn one so far as the two ships were concerned, as neither vessel had disabled or captured the other. The officers of the Monitor claimed that they had won a great victory, as they had beaten off the Merrimac and totally prevented her continuing the work of destruction which she began ​the day before. Undoubtedly the advantages of the day's fighting were with the Monitor, as she saved the fleet of wooden ships from destruction and utterly checked the course of Confederate victory.
During the next two months the Monitor lay in Hampton Roads carefully guarding the entrance of Chesapeake Bay, or rather preserving it against any raid of the Merrimac. Twice in these two months the Merrimac came out of Elizabeth River in the evident hope of provoking a battle, but she did not venture as far as the Monitor's anchorage.
The commander of the Monitor had positive orders not to venture into the shoal water above Hampton Roads where the Union fleet could not support her, and the Merrimac had equally positive orders from the Confederate Navy Department not to go beyond a certain point, through fear that she might be disabled by the fire of the forts where no aid could reach her.
Norfolk was evacuated early in May, 1862, and as the Merrimac drew too much water to ascend the James River, her commander ordered her destruction; the crew escaped to the shore and the vessel was burned and blown up. And so ended the Merrimac.
The Monitor afterwards had a brief engagement with the fortifications at Drewry's Bluffs. She was unable to silence the guns or destroy the earthworks, but on her part she suffered no damage. In December, 1862, she was thoroughly repaired and ordered to Beaufort, North Carolina, in tow of the steamer Rhode Island. On the night of December 30th she went down at sea in a gale; forty-nine officers and men were saved by the boats of the steamer, but four officers and twelve men were drowned. Lieut. Greene said it was impossible to keep her clear of water, and the officers thought that the two hulls had become separated by the bumping of the heavy sea.
Though the Monitor was the design of Capt. Ericsson, ​her important feature, the turret, was the invention of another head than his. In 1841 Theodore R. Timby made a model of an iron turret, and two years later he filed a caveat in the U. S. Patent Office "for a revolving metallic tower, and for a revolving tower for a floating battery to be propelled by steam." In the same year (1843) he made and exhibited an iron model which combined all the essential principles of his invention, and a short time later another which he sent to the Emperor of China at the hands of the American minister, Mr. Cushing. A committee of Congress made a report to the Secretary of War in 1848, recommending the adoption of the Timby system. Nothing was done in the matter until the outbreak of the civil war, when Timby brought out a new model and secured a patent for "a revolving tower for offensive and defensive warfare, whether used on land or water." His original plan was for a revolving turret 40 feet in diameter, to be pierced for six guns and to make a complete revolution in one minute, the guns to be fired as they came in range of the object to be reached. In accordance with this plan a shot would be delivered every ten seconds. The constructors of the Monitor recognized the validity of Mr. Timby's claim and paid him liberally for the right to use his invention.
In England in 1855 Captain Cowper Coles invented and patented a cupola or turret which was afterwards applied to the war steamer Royal Sovereign, a wooden vessel originally built as a three-decker. Owing to the fact that the Royal Sovereign was not purposely built for use as a turret ship, the new principle was tried under disadvantages; in 1864 she was put out of commission and ordered to be placed among the reserved ships, although many officers contended that she was then the most powerful ship in the British navy. In 1866 Lord Derby's government ordered the construction of four iron-clad turret ships of 4,000 tons burthen each and corresponding steam power. The ​Monarch, the first of the British iron-clad turret-ships, was launched in 1868, and the Captain shortly after the Monarch. By some naval experts the Captain was thought to be top-heavy, and this opinion was verified by her capsizing and foundering off Finisterre on the 7th September, 1870. Four hundred and seventy-two lives were lost, including that of Captain Coles, her designer. She was overturned in a heavy squall and went down in three minutes; her overturning was caused by her very low freeboard and the great weight of her masts, hurricane, deck, and turret. In 1866 the Monadnock, one of the American monitors, made the voyage from New York to San Francisco, by way of the Straits of Magellan, and in the same year another of these vessels, the Miantonomoh, crossed the Atlantic and went to Cronstadt, returning safely to the United States. It was thus demonstrated that turret ships were capable of making long sea voyages; since that time many sea-going iron-clads have been constructed by most of the European nations, and their success is fully established.
Probably no naval conflict in the history of the world ever attracted as much attention as did the battle in Hampton Roads, between the Monitor and the Merrimac. It revolutionized the navies of the world, and showed that the wooden ships, which had long held control of the ocean, were of no further use for fighting purposes. Commenting upon the news of that event, the London Times said: "Whereas we had available for immediate purposes one hundred and forty-nine first-class war ships, we have now two, these two being the Warrior and her sister Ironside. There is not now a ship in the English navy, apart from these two, that it would not be madness to trust to an engagement with that little Monitor." England and all other maritime powers immediately proceeded to reconstruct their navies, and the old-fashiond three and four-decker line-of-battle ships were condemned as useless. Not only in ships, but in their armament, there was rapid ​progress, and so great has been the advance in marine artillery that the Monitors of 1862, and the subsequent years of the American war, would be unable to resist the shot from the guns of 1880-'87. The most recent war steamers of England, France, Russia, and Italy are claimed to be as great an improvement upon the American Monitors as were those vessels upon their wooden predecessors.