The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-11

and. defying the fire of Fort Monroe,
could have steamed up to Baltimore, Phil
adelphia, Washington City, New York,
and shelIed them to destruction.
Next morning the Merrimac appeared
and began to batter the Minnesota. The
little Monitor was ell that saved the great
frigate from the fate of the Cumberland,
for the Minnesota's tremendous broadside
fired at close range produced no effect on
the Merrimac. The Merrimac, finding the
Monitor impenetrable to her shot, tried to
run down her little enemy, but only in
iured her hull in the attempt and received
shot that broke the shutter to one of her
port holes, wounded her captain,
(Buchanan) and six men and started a
leak which compelled her to retreat to
Norfolk for repairs. She never faced the
Monitor again, and when Norfolk navy
yard was evacuated by the Confederates
she was blown up, as she drew too much
water to escape up the James river to the
shelter of Fort Darling
Just at the close of the engagement a
shell from the Merrimac struck the pilot
house of the Monitor and exploded. driv-
ing particles of iron and cement into the
eyes of Lieutenant Worden, utterly de-
stroying the sight of one eye and iniuring
the other so badly that he was in the
hospital several months before he re-
covered sufficiently to resume command.
His place in the pilot-house was taken by
49, ~ Cd rka fiFa
of the guns with equal skill and gallantry.
Worden did good service afterwards in
command of the Montauk before Charles
ton, but he has never possessed good
health since that day of the famous naval
fight in Hampton Roads, and is today on
the retired list with the rank of rear ad-
miral.
If the Confede-ates had been free to
build twenty such powerful ironclads in
1861 as the Merrimac, the Tennessee, the
Arkansas, the Albemarle and the Atlanta,
instead of being able to build about one
year, the blockade of their ports by our
wooden ships would have been broken.
As late as August, 1864, the single Con-
federate ironclad Tennessee, under COM
mand Of the Merrimac's old captain, Bu-
chanan, fought the whole Of Farragut's
feet, including two monitors, for an hour
or more and inflicted fearful destruction
by her fire before she surrendered. In
May, 1854 the Confederate ram Albemarle
pounded our wooden feet off the mouth
of the Roanoke river into fragments, and
had the Confederates been able to finish a
dozen Merrimacs instead of one in March,
1862, we would have been at their mercy
on the sea coast and on the Mississippi
New Orleans would not have been taken,
nor Mobile; the blockade could not have
been maintained an hour.
The Confederates began to build IRON
clads in June, 1861, while our first IRON
clad was not begun until about December
1, 1861, and was when completed day too
late to save the Cumberland and Congress.
The Confederates were the quickest in ap-
prehension, the promptest in action in the
matter of reformed, or rather revolution
lied, naval warfare. Had they possessed
our shipyards, skilled mechanics, iron
foundries, men and money, every import
ant river and harbor on the coast would
have been filled with an ironclad fleet that
could have brushed away our blockaders
as though they had been a feet of feeble,
unarmed fishing boats. They anticipated
US in action by at least six months; under
equal circumstances this lead would have
made our blockade worthless in three
months after Sumter.
1t is a mistake to underrate the South.
ern mind. 1t has not genius for philoso-
ply, nor finance, nor very likely for the
highest humane craftsmanship. but it is
emphatically bright and energetic for prac-
teal ends. War is intensely practical
business. Inferior to US in resources, the
Southern man was very brave, intelli-
gent and energetic soldier, and in the
prompt apprehension of the new and then
| unknown factor of armored ships in naval
warfare the South was day ahead of us
as the rotting timbers of the Cumberland
and Congress attest. When We consider
that slavery was not stimulating to energy
or inventive skill, the practical ability and
! mechanical talent of the South was won.
ueIluL uuFlnS our civil war, working as
she did with great natural and artificial
| disadvantages.
| This first fight of ironclads revolution.
| lied the navies of the world. The English
| newspapers in commenting on the fight
said that before it took place England had
149 tirst-class warships, hut after the fight
she had only two. The others with
| wooden walls were as worthless as 6
! paper boat against the Monitor.
Today. thirty years distant from the
battle of Hampton Roads, we are building
ironclad battle-ships of 800 to 10, 900 ton:
displacement. as the most recent modern
representatives Of the revolution in nava
! warfare made by the little Monitor.