Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-12-07
THE RESCUE OF THE MONI-
TORS SURVIVORS.

TOR . SURVIVE OhS.
From paper on the Loss of the
Monitor, accompanying Capt. Erics-
sons account of his vessels in the
December Century, we quote the
following ssAfter a fearful and dam
gerous passage over the frantic seas,
we reached the Rhode Island, which
still had the tow line caught in the
wheel and had drifted two miles to
leeward. We came alongside under
the lee bows, where the first boat,
that had left the Monitor nearly an
hour before, had just discharged its
men; but we found that getting on
board the Rhode Island was harder
task than getting from the Monitor.
We were carried by the sea from
stern to stern, for to have made fast
would have been fatal; the boat
was bounding against the ships
sides; sometimes it was below the
wheel, and then, on the summit of
huge wave, far above the decks
then the two boats would crash to-
gether; and once while Surgeon
Weeks was holding on to the rail,
he lost his fingers by a collision
which swamped the other boat.
Lines were thrown us from the deck
of the Rhode Island, which were of
no assistance, for not one of us
could climb a small rope; and be-
sides, the men who threw them
would Immediately let go their holds
in their excitement, to throw an
other-whicl | found to be the case
when 1 kept hauling in rope instead
of climbing.
1t must be understood that two
vessels lying side by side, when
there is any motion to the sea, move
alternately; or in other words, one
is constantly passing the other up
or down. At one time, when our
boat was near the bows of the steam
er, we would rise upon the sea until
we could touch her rail; then in an
instant, by very rapid descent, we
|
were thus rising and falling upon the
sea, | caught rope, and> rising
with the boat managed to reach
within a foot or two of the rail, when
a man. if there had been one, could
easily have hauled me on board. But
they had all followed after the boat,
which at that instant was washed
astern, and l hung dangling in the
air over the bow of the Rhode Island,
with Ensign Norman Atwater hang
ing to the cat-head, three or four
feet from me, like myself, with both
hands clinching rope and shouting
for some one to save him. Our
hands grew painful and all the time
weaker, until / saw his strength give
way. He slipped foot, caught
again, and with his last prayer, 20,
God! saw him fall and sink, to
rise no more. The ship rolled, and
rose upon the sea, sometime with
her keel out of water, so that | was
hanging thirty feet above the sea,
and with the fate in view that had
befallen our much-beloved compan-
ion, which no one had witnessed but
myself, I-still chung to the rope
with aching hands, calling in vain
for help. But could not be heard,
for the wind shrieked far above my
, voice. My heart here, for the only
time in my life, gave up hope, and
home and friends were most tender
ly thought of. While | was in this
state, within a few seconds of giving
up, the sea rolled forward, bringing
with it the boat, and when ! would
have fallen into the sea, 1t was
there, ! can only recollect hearing
an old sailor say as | fell into the
bottom of the boat. Where in -
did you come from 2"