The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-04-01 00:00:00

OUR SHIPS OF WAR.

The late sea fight off Newport New., near
Fortress Monroe, between the Federal and
Confederate vessels, has naturally drawn atten-
tion to a subject of vital importance to this
country. For some years past the English
navy has been undergoing a process of recon-
struction. The old sailing vessels with which
the great naval battles of England were fought
have been gradually replaced by steamers of
various kinds. Some of them are completely
plated with iron, others are partly plated; but
the greater part are wooden vessels, many of
which were originally intended for sailing ships.
The battle off Newport News has given us an
opportunity of estimating the value of the differ-
ent classes of vessels of which our navy is
composed. Hitherto our iron-clad ships have
been an experiment, and our Government,
having no experience to guide them, have been
working in the dark. The American battle
supplies us with information that was much
needed, as it proves incontestibly the value
of woodensidea in an encounter with ironsides,
and what ironsides, when pitted against iron-
sides, have to contend against. The Confederate
iron-coated war-ship Merrimac left Norfolk on
Saturday, the Bth of March, attended by a couple
of steam gunboats in search of Federal war
vessels. The Merrimac carried only 10 guns.
She was originally a sailing vessel, but since her
capture by the Confederates, has been con-
verted into a steamer, covered entirely with a
slanting roof of iron, and has been armed with
a huge iron beak. Above the water line she
presents nothing but her iron roof and a smoke
stack riling a few feet above it. On arriving
at Newport News she came upon two Federal
vessels lying at anchor—the Cumberland, carry-
ing 24 heavy guns, and the Congress, a 60-gun

frigate, and when she came within fighting dis-
tance of them, both the Federal ships gave her
a hot welcome. They rained upon her an enor-
mous quantity of shot and shell from their nine
and ten inch guns, but the scaly monster moved
heedlessly onward, the iron storm having no
more effect upon her angular covering than a
pea from a popgun would have on an ordinary
ship. On approaching the Cumberland she
knocked the rigging about the ears of the sailors
with a few shots, and afterwards ran her iron
prow through the side of her antagonist, leaving
a jagged hole as large as a church door. The
men on board the Cumberland fought bravely,
but without producing any effect upon her, and
the Merrimac, after firing a few broadsides with
terrific effect, again pierced the side of the
Federal ship with her iron prow, and left her
to sink. All the wounded went down in her,
and besides that many were killed or drowned.
Having thus finished up one vessel, the Merrimac
turned her attention to the Congress, which
speedily ran up the white flag and surrendered.
A few hours afterwards she was blown up.
Several other Federal vessels went to assist the
Cumberland, but none of them seem to have
come to close quarters with the Merrimac save
the Oregon gunboat, which blew up through a
ball falling into her boiler, the Zouave which
I was seriously damaged, and the Minnesota, a
steamer carrying forty guns, which grounded
and was riddled with shot. In a few hours,
therefore, the Merrimac with only ten guns, de-
stroyed a small fleet of wooden vessels carrying
nearly 120 guns. This shows what iron can do
when opposed only to wood. But on the follow-
ing day the Merrimac found her match in the
Ericsson battery, Monitor. 'I his is a vessel of
peculiar construction. Externally it has a hull
rising only eighteen inches above the water, and
a sort of Martell° tower, twenty feet in diameter
and ten feet high. The propellor, anchor and
rudder are protected by an outer hull, plated with
six-inch iron sheeting. The two vessels met off
Newport News, and then was commenced the
first action that ever took place between iron-
plated ships. The battle lasted for several hours,
at first at long range and then gradually nearing
until they were within a few yards range,
and strange to say with but little
advantage on either side. The Merrimac
tried to run into her antagonist as she had run
into the Cumberland the day before, but the
iron plates were proof against an attack of that
kind. Finally, one side of the Merrimac got
pierced by a shot, and she was obliged to retire
from the scene of action. It does not, however,
appear that she was disabled, and we are told
that on board the Monitor not a man was injured.
Facts like these show that in future wars, fight-
ing en the sea must be carried on between iron-
clad vessels, and that the large wooden vessels
we now possess would be comparatively useless
with even smaller craft encased in armour. The
Monitor carries only two guns. but of the very
largest size, throwing shot of 180Iba weight.
Her coat was less than £60,000, and was actually
launched within three months of the day when
her keel was laid down; and now the Americans
are preparing to vote a sum of upwards of five
millions sterling for structures of the same class
—a sum which no British Ministers for a similar
object could in one year venture to demand.