The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-30


 placed at the breeeh, in the barrel half way between breech and muzzle and at the muzzle. the gun is set upright, filled with water. and the charge exploded. The explosion tears open the gun-barrel as firecracker a tin can. The pieces are then gathered up and cast into the fur mace. As old iron a monitor is worth from ss00O to s1O,0OO
 Between side armor and coal bunkers great blocks of live oak. as sound today as when they were placed in position. are found. These with the deck planking are sold off to any one who will buy them. O. better that her shattered hulk
 Should sink beneath the wave
 Her thunders shook the mighty deep.
 And there should be her grave.
 Nail to her mast her holy flag,
 Set every threadbare sail,
 And give her to the god of storms.
 The Lightning and the gale.
 In these days of strict navigation laws it wouldn't be the best thing to give the useless old monitors back to Neptune. particularly to Neptune of the Delaware. But because the old monitors now at League Island if destroyed will leave no successors, because with their disappear ance will disappear the "cheese-box- -on- a-raft" style of war vessel, because all played tragic parts in a great war, the suggestion has been made that at least one of them should be preserved for his- tory and the younger generation
 Each of the turrets has tale to tell Cannon ball fluctuations on the exterior suggest the story. But there are alive today not a few gray-haired men who still with quavering voice can tell the story of the interior, the choking confine- ment in great, hot, sulphur-filled iron tomb, the awful concussion of confined air when shot pounded outside, the riot of bloodshed and of death ins awful form and then the trill of victory, tie silence after the battle, the fresh air of the sea.
 And so it has been suggested that a turret-even all five piled one above the other-might be made into a not unin- teresting monument of a great war and a glorious victory. If the government should see fit not to allow any of the monitors to remain at League Island, one might be secured by the city and placed in permanent memorial in the lake now being dug out in League Island park.
 History tells the story of all the five old monitors about to be sold. But the particular service of one is little known.
 When on April 25. 1865, Lieutenant Doherty and a detachment of soldiers surrounded the barn on Garretts farm where Booth, the assassin, had sought a hiding place. and Private Boston Corbett, aiming through crack, shot the mur- derer dead, the body was sewed up in Dohertys horse blanket, conveyed to Belle Plain and by steamer John S. Ide to Washington. At o'clock on the morn- ing of April 28 Booths body was lifted onto the deck of the Montauk. It was solemnly laid on a carpenters bench back of the turret. The autopsy was held next day The body was then taken to the Washington penitentiary and buried beneath the cement floor, subsequently, being disinterred and given it's final rest ing place in a cemetery in Baltimore.
 Harold, the accomplice of Booth; Span gler, Azerodt and OLaughlin were all at one time or other abord the Montauk chained from their waist down with iron enough to sink them should they attempt to escape by jumping overheard. Here too, Azerodt was hooded after he at- tempted to commit suicide. Payne was placed in the Canonicus and Mrs Surratt was imprisoned on a small sehooner-rig. ged steamer which lay near by