The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-10-12

s5ss little end of the di-
s-SH vided Union. The
| ~ north could put
| E more armed men
afield, and more
& - and larger ships
| afioat with more and larger guns bullying
out at their portfolios than the south could
| scrape together for years. Hence neces-
| sity's traditional role was repeated and the
| first iron floating ram. the dreaded and
| destructive Merrimac. slid down from her
stays one fine spring morning, took sous
| ing if rather ungraceful plunge in the Vir-
| ginia waters, then righted herself with an
air that seemed to convey to the trim and
| model men-of-war Of the world, and of the
| United States in particular, the saucy,
| challenging salute: II am herel Haul
| down your cOlors!'
| The monster, for such she proved to be,
had nothing to brag of as asailing beauty.
She looked like the roof of a house afoat.
| Her construction was of the most primi-
tive kind, such as a people in desperate
straits could bring about But the idea
was everything, sloping ironclad sides
ironclad shields for pilot house, gun cham
bers, machinery aud crews quarters and a
submerged hull and ramming beak. That
|
practice-iron, iron everywhere.
| In order to economic in time and money
the protector of the Merrimac ram fished
the hull of tlp former United States screw
war frigate Merrimac from the bottom of
the Elizabeth river at Norfolk, where she
had been sunk, after firing and scuttling,
by Union expedition early in the war.
| The Transformation into a ram began by
| cutting the hull down to within three feet
| of her old light water line. Both ends for
| seventy feet were decked over level so that
the weight of superstrueture and arnaa-
ment would keep them below water. In
! the middle section-about one-haR the
| ghip-a sloping roof was laid of pitch pine
/ and oak twenty-four inches thick. This
extended from the watsa line at an angle
of IS dogs. to a point seven feet above the
| gun deck. At the vessels ends this shield
! was rounded SO as to give the bow and
stern guns wide sweep.
The upper ends of the shield planking
did not come together by about twenty
feet, and the opening between them was
covered with grating that served as
ventilator to the chambers below and also
MS promenade deck. Over the shield
planking was bolted four inches of rolled
iron in two layers, the under layer running
horizontally, the outer one up and down
the slope The bolts extended through the
twenty four inches of wood and were clinch-
ed on the inside
The propelling power Of the old hull was
the weakest part of her. The engines had
been condemned before the war. and the
fire and long soaking in the salt water as
she lay submerged, hadn't improved them
In fact the Confederates had condemned
the old thing for all practical purposes in
the navy, but considered her cheap plant
to let the "cranks" tinker with. The Con-
federacy had no foundries, no patterns, no
workmen and no tools nor machinery for
ironclad building, and everything had to
be improvised; workmen had to be trained,
and the projectors and hackers of the new
tangled notion were obliged to be patient
and cautious so as not to weary practical
people by demands for this and that I'M
heard of thing
The designer and constructor of the ram
was John L. Porter, an old United States
naval officer, who had carried the plan Of
an ironclad shield for war vessels in his
head for years before the Confederacy was
thought of. Another factor was Lieut..
John r. Brooke, who laid the plating and
also prepared the armament for the mon
ster battery, The guns numbered ten,
finch rife apiece for the bow and stern,
| 6-inch rifle and three 9-inch smooth
bpres for each broadside. The monster was
not to be unique in capacity for standing
| hard knocks alone. She was to give hard
knocks By device of Lieut.. Brooke's
steel bands three inches in thickness were
shrunk on around the breech of each can
non to prevent bursting under heavy
charges. Last, but not least, for that was
the main purpose of this new creation,
came the ram, a cast iron PROV projecting
four feet, and to be completely submerged
during action Relatively this was trifing
appurtenance, like the nose ON face, but
it weighed 1850 pounds. All the heavy
arn,or was simply to shield men, engines,
machinery and cannon, while the vessel
should be fighting her way up to an enemy
to give finishing thrust with that terri
Bile beak.
/ The news of the building of the Merri
mac was sounded abroad in the fall of 1861,
but she was not ready for launching until
March, 1862, and people up north, who de-
pended upon long range gossip to enlighten
them, concluded that she was myth, and
southern folks, who saw good iron, rare
gold and many solid days work going into
her and no output, set her down as a fizzle.
So when she steamed from Norfolk into
Hampton Roads on March she had fair
show to give the public on both sides of the
line sensation. @
Hampton Roads is waterway between
the lower end Of Chesapeake bay and the
mouth of James river. The Confederacy
occupied the southern shore with batteries,
the North the northern shores with forts
4 and batteries and war vessels at anchor.
When the Merrimac steamed into the
Roads five Union vessels lay just across
the main channel the 3O-gun sloop Cum
berland and the 5ogun frigate Congress at
Newport News, and six miles east, off
Fortress Monroe, the 4o-gun frigates Min