The new South. [volume] (Port Royal, S.C.) 1862-1867, 1863-06-06
TIE MONITORS BEFORE CHARLESTON.

Huron HEAD. S. c., April 25.-My Dear
Our friend Cof - showed me one paragraph OF
your letter TO him, in which you referred, appa-
rently with surprise, to the fact, that the attal
on Charleston by the iron-clads shouli have been
discontinued, .'when so few casualties had occur
red.'' This is SO obvious a reflection on the first
hasty view of the affair, and yet radically unjust
whea We look cal ly at tn, facts, that, in Col
- absence che has gone to St. Augustine and
Fernandina) will venture to occupy your time
lew moments on the subject
In ordinary warfare the amount Of casualties
will give fair idea of the strength of the resistance
and the power and persistency of the attack
With wooden vessels, your rcmark-and know 1t
To be an all but universal one-would apply with
truth and it is because We have all become so ace
customed to measure battles on land or sea by the
amount of blood spilled, that we are aptto err in
jndeing an utterly uncommon and unprecedented
battle by the ordinary or common standard. Let
me now submit some points,
!. 1t is to be borne in mind that this ESQ far as
the navy was concerned was purely an experiment
as to the possibility oftak!ng the city by machine
ry. The Monitors might be called blood saving
machines, with this penalty attached to them that
whenever the loss OF life should begin it wouldin
volve the inevitable destruction of every man OH
board. The number of men in the whole iron-clad
squadron was less than regiment; and these few
hundred men, rushing against forty or fifty thou
sand were to have no other part in the fight than
10 supply the necessary powder for working the
machines If Charleston were to fell, it was by
machinery; and the moment the experiment was
tested to the point of proving that the machines
were inadequate to their work, it was wisdom to
withdraw them and would have been dangerous
fooIhardiness to have held them longer exposed.
2. The experiment was fully prosecuted up to
this point, with msgnifcence of gallantry before
which, as spectator, bowed in reverence. The
mar hines were untried, and the conflict was the
first practical test we have ever had of the power
Of the new kinds of ordnance and ordnance material
employed against them / refer to the Blakely
and Whitworth English guns, firing steel bolts and
sreel-polpted shot. The warfare was almost as
new to the Admiral and his Captain as 1t would
have been to yOu or myself-new kinds of projec-
tiles raining on him from above, vast torpedoes
known to be underneath his heels, and every chan
mel ofentrance blocked with triple rows oftorpedo
armed obstructions.
8 After less than an hours conflict. five out
of the eight Monitors were disabled, the X okak
sinking. Behind the forts, calmnly waiting their
opportunity lay three of the enemy's iron-clads,
in plain view vessels not able, in fair fight. to
live an hour before one Of our Monitors, but held
in readiness to cruise out and capture any Monitor
disabled by the artillery practice of the forts and
batteries This should not be lost sight of.
4. With two or three of Ou:- vessels Of this kind
disabled, captured, repaired and in the enemy
service what force would it require to maintain
the blockade of Charleston? Wooden vessels
our gun boats and steam-soops would be useless
aud our iron vessels could not live outside Of
charleston bar in rough weather. Nor, even if
they could, unless we had enough of them to cross
fire over every inch of the mouth of the harbor
permanently, could blockade be maintained
against the fast clipper steamers built as blockade
runners in English ship yards. In word the
en- my, with single s'Montor" of ours could
drive every wooden boat from the blockade and
would, practically have raised the blockade"
5. Could we afford to have Charleston a free
port-the greatest free port in the world, when
viewed as the only outlet and inlet for the COM
merce of eight millions of people, with arms and
all other requisites pouring into it unmo ested, and
cotton pouring out7 Would not such an event of
necessity-I mean moral and political necessity