Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-10-31
 THE MONITOR.
sxiceson's Historic Ironclad and Its Trip
 to Hampton Roads.

sxicesson's Historic Ironciad and Its Trip
 to Hampton Roads.
 Ihe Monitor had been formally oolli~ aissioned on Feb. 90, 1869. under com aaad of Lieutenant John L. Worden, U. $. N. Twelve officers and 45 enlist ed men comprised her personnel. Chief Engineer X. c. Sinners, the superin- sendent 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 nel ". C. Church in his Life of John Ericsson, , the only man on board who thoroughly understood the charaeteris- l;es of tho vessel ''
 The voyage to Hampton Roads was eventful, and almost ended the career of tho Monitor, and with it the fate of ironclads 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, Mr. Newton, and his assistants were overcome by tho gas and were car ried to the top of the turret, where they revived, though they were thought dead when dragged out of the engine room. Trouble and danger also resulted from tho wheel ropes jumping off the steer- ing wheel and becoming jammed.
 After two days of toll and peril the Monitor escaped from the dangers of the sea into the presence of a new ene- my. Late in the afternoon of March 8 she passed in at the capes of Chesapeake, and from the sound of shouted guns knew that her time for action had come thus early in her career. The Merrimao was abroad that very afternoon, and wreck and destruction fouled her wake. A rude improvised ironolad herself, she marked 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 Merrimao had glutted her thirst for blood for the day and was at anchor and at rest, but in her silence ill presence of the ships that she meant to attack in the morning she stood for all that men understand by the dominion of the seas. Lighted by the burning wreck of tho 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 historical or theat rical point of view the stage settings were now complete. With the night the curtain had fallen upon the last of a long series of glorious deeds, performed under an order of seamanship or sea tactics that had already long passed its meridian, but which for romance and ehivalry excelled any that had preceded it, and, it must be admitted, excelled that which was BOW to rudely supplant it. A new typo Of sea warrior and new type of warship were about to ap- pear upon tho waters. The engineers machine of John Ericsson was to face the fabric that represented the engineer ing ingenuity of the American south, and tho result of tho encounter would infict fright upon the romance of the sea and transform the masted navies oi the world into useless relics in day. - r. M. Bonnet, U. s. N.. in Cassier's Magazine.
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