Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-11-14
THE MONITOR.
kzicsaon's Historic Ironclad and It's Trip
 to Hampton Roads.


 to Hampton Roads.
 The Monitor had been formally eom- missioned on Feb. 25, 1869. under com. mand of Lieutenant John L. Worden, g. $. N. Twelve officers and 45 enlist ed men comprised her personnel. Chief Engineer A. c. Sinners, the superins tendent of construction, went to sea in the vessel to observe her performance and give the officers the benefit of his knowledge. He was, as stated by Colo mel w. 0. Church in his Life of John Ericsson, J the only man on board who thoroughly understood the charaeteris- tics of the vessel. ,"
 The voyage to Hampton Roads was eventful, and almost ended the career of the Monitor, and with it the fate of ironelads for an indefinite time. Rough weather was encountered, and water broke over the smoke and blower trunks, nearly putting out the fires and stopping the pumps from lack of steam for four or five hours on one occasion. Loss by laundering was imminent at this time, because of the great quantity of water that got into the vessel under the base of the turret and through the hawse pipes. The blowers stopped because the belts got wet and the engine and fire rooms filled with noxious gas from the fires and had to be abandoned In try ing to remedy this trouble the chief en- gineer. Mir. Newton, and hts assistants were overcome by the gas and were car ried to the top of the tnrxes, where they revived, though they were thought dead when dragged out os the engine room. Trouble and danger also resulted from the wheel ropes jumping off the steer ing wheel and becoming jammed.
 After two days of toll and peril the Monitor escaped from tho dangers of the sea into the presence of new eno- my. Late i'll the afternoon of March she passed in at tho capes of Chesapeake, and from the sound of shotted guns knew that her time for action had come thus early in her career. The Merrimae was abroad that very afternoon, and wreck and destruction fouled her wake. A rude improvised ironclad herself, she marked a new era in naval warfare, and before her lay large fleet of supposedly formidable ships of war as helpless as flock of sheep assailed by wolf.
 Night fell before the Monitor came up to the seemingly doomed Union fleet in Hampton Roads. The Merrimac had glutted her thirst for blood for the day and was at anchor and at rest, but in her silence in presence of tho ships that she meant to attack in the morning she CEr fhnE hxyi the dominion of tho seas. Lighted by the burning wreck of the frigate Con- gress the Monitor moved up toward Newport News and anchored near the stranded Minnesota, upon which vessel, it was certain, the first blow of the morrow would fall
 From either a historical or a theat rical point of view the stage settings were now complete. With the night the curtain had fallen upon the last of long series of glorious deeds, performed under an order of seamanship or sea tactics that had already long passed it's meridian, but which for romance and ehivalry exoelled any that had preceded 1t, and, it must be admitted, excelled that which was now to rudely supplant it. A new type of sea warrior and new type of warship wore about to ap- pear upon the waters The engineers machine of John Ericsson was to face the fabric that represented the engineer ing ingenuity of the American south, and the result of the encounter would infiiot fright upon the romance of the sea and transform the masted navies of the world into useless relics in day F. NJ. Bennett U. s. N., in Cassier's Magazine.