Mineral Point weekly tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1859-1868, 1864-03-30
Edward Everett on our Army and Navy and the
Alabama.

Naval Committee of Congress on Saturday
made an eloquent speech concerning our Ia
', and its work. After abiding to the extra
ordinary growth of our naval force since the
beginning of the war, he said:
every ship-yard, public and private, has
been tested TO its utmost capacity; every
furnace in the country has been kept at white
heat night and day, and amount o. work
has been performed on the coast and rivers
and a series of results achieved without q
parallel, as believe, VIXEN the disadvantages
are considered under which the navy labored
at the commencement, in naval history Let
Norfolk, Hatteras, Roanoke Island, Port Roy.
al, Pensacola, the Rio Grande, Fort Henry and
Fort Donaldson, Island No Ten, Memphis
Nlcksburg, Port Hudson, the shattered frag-
ments of Sumter, Fort Jackson and Fort St
Phillip, the city of New Orleans: the Atlanta
demolished by five shots from the Weehapken
l,O45 vessels captured from the enemy up to
the lst of November, and from 70 10 so since
added; the closure of every port save one
and that guarded by twenty vessels on this
immense line of coast, bear witness to the
activity and efficiency of this arm of the ser
vice. l need not, of course disclaim any
thought OF underwriting what has been done
by our armies and their gallant commanders
who have borne their full share in many OF
these achievements, but | am sure that they
one and al, viii do justice to the efficient co
operation Of the navy.
And then that marvellous creation of the
genius and skin of Ericsson, the wonder of
the age, the turreted monitors. If there is
an incident in the history of the war which
more than any other deserves to be referred
to direct intelposition of an overriding
Providence, il Is the arrival of the heaven
directed little vessel at Fortress Monroe, at
ter her rough, uncomfortable voyage from
New York. on the evening of the Sth of
March, 1862, at the close of day u havoc |
had almost said of terror. The mind recoils
at the contemplation of the state of things
which would have existed had the ravages of
the Herrm3ac been renewed on the morning
of the 9Th. But the avenger was at hand ;
after an all but sleepless voyage from New
York of tifty-six hours, in a vessel whose con-
structIon-whOse strange enginery-whose
armament-whOse capacity for offensive or
defensive service were all untred, the gallant
Worden, at sunrise the next morning, bore
calmly down to the encounter with his gigan-
tic adversary, amidst the wrecks of his yes
terday's devastations, (the topmasts of the
sunken Cumberland peering mOurnfully above
the waters, the Congoess burned to the waters
edge, the Minnesota, marked out as the next
victim, helplessly aground) went round and
round him, TO use the graphic language of an
eye witness, "as cooper goes round cask,
and drove him crippled and discounted back
TO his harbor never more to leave it until he
went up seifdestroyed in fragments to the
sky. Great applause) When the noble
young commander of the Monitor dropped
upon the floor of his pilot house, stunned
lacerated, blackened, and bleeding, with
scarce a yestige of humanity in his manly
c0uHtenance, he had inaugurated a new era
Il Il, IL
monitors now in course of construction are
completed, we shall have, upon our coasts
and IN our harbors, defensive force which
Will relieve Us from all possibility Of foreign
aggression.
But this torpid, inefficient, fossil navy
don't catch the Alabama No, nor did tor
pid, inefficient, lazy Nelson, in command of
the fleet with which he fought the battle of
the Nile, catch Napoleon with a force in ships
OF war and transports Of more than four hun
dred vessels, shadowing tho sea for miles,
though he chased him rather thought he
chased him. round the Mediterranean, from
the l9th of May till the 1st of August, as the
cat chases her tail, Napoleon stopping, by
way of episode, TO capture Malta on the way,
and on the 22d of June actually crossing the
track Of Nelson a few hours before Neither
was me caught by the English, Russian and
Turkish ficets-the English still commanded
by Nclson,-when the following year he re-
turned by voyage of six or seven weeks from
Egypt to France, passing a week with his re-
lations at Ajaccio by the way. Neither was
he caught in 1915 on his passage from Elba,
though the English knew be was plotting his
escape and French cruises hailed him on
the way and hearing his corvette was from
Elba, enquired how the Emperor was, who
answered in person that he "was perfectly
we'll" The Mediterranean is but mill-pond
compared with the seas over which the Ala
bama roams, and whenever the pirate is hard
pressed he slips into a neutral port APP
plause- 1t of course must be by mere chance
if he is ever captured"