As it happened, the gunners on the Merrimac, when firing red-hot shot at the Congress, aimed high, and the shot were lodged in the upper part of the hull. The flames quickly spread over the bulwarks and up the rigging, but were slow in eating down toward the magazine. For hours the flames illuminated the whole region, while now and again a gun that had been left loaded was fired by the growing heat. It was a scene that attracted thousands of eyes ashore and afloat until, soon after midnight, the fire arrived at the magazine, and the exploding powder hurled the huge mass of blazing timbers high in air. A thunderous roar shook all the region round about, and then “the stillness of death” followed.

But while the men on the Merrimac watched the fruition of their day’s work, one of them, a pilot, saw “a strange-looking craft brought out in bold relief by the brilliant light of the burning ship, which he at once proclaimed to be the Ericsson.” The pilot was right. The Monitor had arrived after a fearsome passage, during which the water had poured in through the hawse-pipe where the anchor chain led, and even down the smoke-stack, until the fires were all but extinguished. The belts on the fans got wet, so that it was not possible to keep up the draft, and the engineers and firemen were all but suffocated. The water dashed through the lookout slats of the pilot-house with such force as to knock the pilot over the wheel. The water gained in the hold until there was imminent danger of sinking. Nevertheless, it was an offshore wind, and the tug that went with her got her inshore, where the water was quiet, and at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, March 8th, she passed in at Cape Henry and headed north for Hampton Roads. She was commanded by Capt. J. L. Worden, with Lieut. S. D. Greene as executive officer, and A. C. Stivers and Isaac Newton as chief and first assistant engineers. The roar of the guns of the Merrimac as she fired hot shot into the Congress twenty miles away, fell upon the ears of the Monitor’s crew, and the ship was at once cleared for action. After a little they “could see the fine old Congress burning brightly, and soon a pilot came on board to tell the direful news.” The Monitor was then driven at full speed to the Roanoke, where Flag Officer Marston directed her to go to the assistance of the Minnesota, then aground not far from the scene of the day’s conflict. In doing this Marston disobeyed orders he had received from Washington to the effect that the Monitor was to be sent there, presumably to protect the capital; and this is to be remembered because it shows that the authorities at Washington were as loath to trust in aggressive warfare in 1862 as they were in 1812 when they ordered Hull to keep the Constitution in Boston harbor.

Steaming over to where the Minnesota lay, the Monitor came to anchor, an officer reported on board the big frigate, “and then all on board [the Minnesota] felt that we had a friend that would stand by us in our hour of trial.” So wrote Captain Van Brunt of the Minnesota.

How far this confidence was justified was proved by the event of the next day; but when one contrasts the apparent power of the two ships as they lay that night, the one at Sewell’s Point and the other at Newport News, the chance of the Monitor’s accomplishing anything seems very remote. Consider her guns. They were eleven inches in bore, but ten-inch shot had been fired at the Merrimac for hours that day without effect. The Minnesota fired seventy-eight solid ten-inch shot and 169 solid nine-inch shot, with full service charges of powder, at the Merrimac during the two days’ fighting. Only a few of these were fired on Saturday, but the Congress and the Cumberland had fired shot a-plenty of that size at her, and none had hurt her massive walls. The eleven-inch shot of the Monitor was not so much heavier that her crew could be confident of piercing the armor where the ten-inch had failed utterly. The eleven-inch solid shot used weighed from 170 to 180 pounds, the ten-inch about forty pounds less. Moreover, the Monitor had but two guns to the ten of the Merrimac. The weight of the Merrimac’s broadside of five guns is not given in any of the authorities known to the writer, but her three Dahlgrens fired 270 pounds, her small rifle at least forty-five more, and, with one pivot counted in, the whole discharge was 465 pounds, or more than double that of the Monitor. The Monitor’s crew numbered fifty-eight, all told, while the Merrimac carried 320. Certainly if one may judge by the standards set up in English literature on the War of 1812, these differences in numbers of crews and weights of broadsides would make the result a foregone conclusion. Nor is that all to be said about the crews, for the men on the Merrimac had had their usual rest and food, while the crew of the Monitor had had scarcely a wink of sleep since leaving New York, and it had been impossible to make a fire in the galley and cook their food. They were served with food that night, but no one slept. “The dreary night dragged slowly on; the officers and crew were up and alert, to be ready for any emergency.” At daylight the Confederate ships were seen at anchor off Sewell’s Point, and at 7.30 o’clock they left their anchorage and headed across toward Newport News to begin anew their destruction of the Government ships.

“At the same time the Monitor got under way, and her officers and crew took their stations for battle,” Captain Worden going into the pilot-house with Quartermaster Peter Williams, who was to handle the wheel, and Pilot Howard to tell the route. These three filled the little coop, that rose just four feet above the deck. Lieutenant Greene went to the turret with “sixteen brawny men, eight to each gun.” Engineer Stivers also entered the turret to assist in handling the machinery turning it, and Acting Master L. N. Stodder was there as second in command. Newton had charge of the engines. The most important man in the ship that day was Greene, for it was his duty to aim and fire the guns.

Something like an hour passed, after the Merrimac left her anchorage, before she arrived in range of the government ships, but when yet a mile away she opened with her big bow rifle on the Minnesota. The Monitor had waited for her, and now, as the first shot was fired, headed straight at her. It astonished the hosts of spectators to see the tiny steamer taken directly alongside her huge antagonist. As she ranged up in place, her engine was stopped, and Worden, stooping over a speaking-tube that led to the turret, shouted the order:

“Commence firing!”

The crew in the turret triced up the shutter that covered the port, ran the gun out as far as it would go, and then Lieutenant Greene, taking deliberate aim at the broad but sloping wall, pulled the lock-string. The shot struck its target with a resounding crash, split and broke the iron plates in its path and bounded clear. The Merrimac replied with a broadside, and every shot struck the revolving turret, but all without exception bounded away harmless. “A look of confidence passed over the men’s faces in the turret,” and with good will they fell to the work of reloading the gun, while Greene ran out the other one and fired as before.

The most important naval battle in the history of the world was fairly on. “Never before was anything like it dreamed of by the greatest enthusiast in maritime war.”

With deliberation the crews on both sides worked their guns. The Monitor fired a gun in seven or eight minutes, and the Merrimac for a time made an average of a gun once in less than three minutes. But the Monitor, having a revolving turret, could easily direct her guns at the Merrimac, while the latter, huge and unwieldy and with narrow ports, had to trust to the fortunes of the battle for a chance to get a good aim at her tiny opponent.

Standing in the little pilot-house, Captain Worden peered through the chinks left for eye-holes between the iron logs of which it was built. He saw that the shot first fired against the broad wall of the Merrimac bounded away without doing material harm, so he lessened the range—laid the Monitor so close beside her that an active man might have leaped from ship to ship. Still the Monitor’s shot failed to penetrate, and he then went cruising to and fro, seeking a vulnerable point, but finding none, although a single well-directed shot would have sunk the Merrimac out of sight. Failing in this, Worden made a dash at the stern of the Merrimac, hoping to disable her rudder or screw. He missed the mark, it is said, by the narrow margin of two feet. Then the speaking-tube leading to the turret broke, and the purser and the surgeon were stationed to pass the orders of the captain. The interior of the turret became filled with smoke, and the walls and deck were covered with the grime of battle. A painted mark which had been laid to enable the turret’s crew to tell which side was starboard and which port, was obliterated. The turret’s crew were shut in and unable to learn, save with great difficulty, the bearing of the enemy. The machinery that turned the turret was not quite equal to the work; “it was hard to start and harder to stop when once agoing.” Greene was obliged to fire from a moving turret, and the intervals between shots were lengthened.

But over on the Merrimac matters were in quite as bad a condition. The “ship was working worse and worse. The smoke-stack was carried away, and the steam went down. Twice she grounded, while the Monitor, having but a little more than half her draft, played around her.” And even the shot from the big rifles made no impression on the turret of the Monitor. Lieutenant Jones, on going to one part of the gun-deck, found the men standing idle.

“‘Why are you not firing?’ he said to the lieutenant in charge.

“‘Why, our powder is very precious,’ replied the lieutenant, ‘and after two hours I find that I can do her about as much damage by snapping my thumb at her every two and a half minutes.’” So says Wood, already quoted.

At this, Jones determined to ram the Monitor, and for an hour manœuvred for a position before he was able to order, “Go ahead full speed!” Even then he failed because the watchful Worden gave the handy little Monitor a turn, and the Merrimac struck a glancing blow that did not hurt the Monitor, but it opened up her own bow, making an “alarming leak.” The leak was temporarily plugged, but it had its effect on the fortunes of the day, later on.

As the Merrimac sheered past the Monitor when trying to ram her, the Monitor fired while the ships’ sides were touching. The shot struck at right angles, and not only broke the armor-plates, but bulged in the wood backing from two to three inches. The concussion made the men in the immediate vicinity bleed at the nose and ears. It happened on the Monitor that a shot which struck the turret about that time disabled Mr. Stodder, but he was thoughtlessly leaning against the turret wall. These were the most effective shots fired on either side during about six hours of steady fighting. The crew of the Merrimac were ordered to board the Monitor at this time, but the ships drifted apart before it could be tried.

Meantime the Merrimac had been making occasional efforts to get at the vulnerable Minnesota. She had fired not a few shots at her from the off-side battery. One shot exploded the boiler of the tug Dragon alongside, and others made havoc on board the big ship. The Minnesota replied as well as her situation permitted, but without effect.

And then the end came when the commander of the Merrimac so far appreciated the condition of affairs as to order his gunners to concentrate their fire on the Monitor’s pilot-house. The result was paralyzing. A shell fired at a range of ten yards struck and burst against a lookout slot through which Captain Worden was gazing. Flaming grains of powder and shreds of iron were driven into his face and eyes. It knocked him across the pilot-house, and blinded and wholly disabled him.

The force of the explosion lifted a loose plate that lay on top of the pilot-house, and let in a flood of light. This “caused Worden, blind as he was, to believe that the pilot-house was seriously injured, if not destroyed; he therefore gave orders to put the helm to starboard and sheer off.” “The Monitor retired temporarily from the action in order to ascertain the extent of the injuries she had received.” Worden was helped down from the pilot-house, and Greene was sent for. He found Worden, “a ghastly sight, with his eyes closed and the blood apparently pouring from every pore in the upper part of his face.” Greene helped him to a sofa, where the doctor took charge of him. He believed himself dangerously hurt, but did not lose his fortitude. Greene then went to the pilot-house and took command.

During the time that was needed by this change of commanders the Monitor was heading toward Fortress Monroe. Captain Van Brunt “thought it probable she had exhausted her supply of ammunition, or sustained some injury.” Lieutenant Jones and his officers on the Merrimac very naturally supposed that the Monitor had given up the contest. Jones says:

“We for some time awaited the return of the Monitor to the Roads. After consultation it was decided that we should proceed to the navy-yard in order that the vessel should be brought down in the water and completed. The pilots said if we did not then leave that we could not pass the bar until noon of the next day. We therefore at 12 M. quit the Roads and stood for Norfolk. Had there been any sign of the Monitor’s willingness to renew the contest we would have remained to fight her.”

Lieutenant Greene, of the Monitor, says of this matter:

“Exactly how much time elapsed from the moment that Worden was wounded until I had reached the pilot-house and completed the examination of the injury at that point, and determined what course to pursue in the damaged condition of the vessel, it is impossible to state; but it could hardly have exceeded twenty minutes at the utmost. During this time the Merrimac, which was leaking badly, had started in the direction of the Elizabeth River; and, on taking my station in the pilot-house and turning the vessel’s head in the direction of the Merrimac, I saw that she was already in retreat. A few shots were fired at the retiring vessel, and she continued on to Norfolk. I returned with the Monitor to the side of the Minnesota, where preparations were being made to abandon the ship, which was still aground. Shortly afterward Worden was transferred to a tug, and that night he was carried to Washington.”

Undoubtedly fair is the statement made by Lieut. John Taylor Wood:

“Although there is no doubt that the Monitor first retired,—for Captain Van Brunt, commanding the Minnesota, so states in his official report,—the battle was a drawn one, so far as the two vessels engaged were concerned. But in its general results the advantage was with the Monitor.”

The italics are not in Lieutenant Wood’s statement, but are inserted here to emphasize the effect of what he says. Greene adds:

“It has never been denied that the object of the Merrimac on the 9th of March was to complete the destruction of the Union fleet in Hampton Roads, and that in this she was completely foiled and driven off by the Monitor; nor has it been denied that at the close of the engagement the Merrimac retreated to Norfolk, leaving the Monitor in possession of the field.”

The reader is likely to think that “retreat” is a strong word to use under the circumstances, especially as the ebb-tide and not the Monitor made the Merrimac leave. Nevertheless, there was also the leak in the Merrimac’s bow to be considered. That leak was “alarming,” according to Jones, and the Merrimac got it in battle by ramming the Monitor.

But while the controversy over the result of the battle is interesting, it is in no sense practical. It is certain that neither crew was whipped, whatever happened to the ships. The bravery on both sides must excite the pride of every American. But the one point of the battle that is of practical consideration is the gunnery.

Says Lieutenant Wood: “The Monitor was well handled, and saved the Minnesota and the remainder of the fleet at Fortress Monroe. But her gunnery was poor. Not a single shot struck us at the water-line, where the ship was utterly unprotected, and where one would have been fatal. Or had the fire been concentrated on any one spot, the shield would have been pierced; or had larger charges been used, the result would have been the same.” Here are statements of fact that ought never to be forgotten. The haymakers of the lost Wasp came back from the mists in which they disappeared to mock at the gunnery displayed in the Civil War, and especially in this battle, for they, in a battle at night, laid their guns by the sissing line of foam cast off by the Avon’s bow, and so struck the water-line and sank the ship in spite of the utmost efforts of three crews to save her.

In her battle with the Monitor the Merrimac was floating with her unarmed bow, seventy feet long, more than a foot out of water, instead of a-wash, as was originally intended. Had one shot from the Monitor struck the Merrimac at the water-line’s junction with the armor, she would have gone down. And yet Greene elevated instead of depressing his guns. The gunnery of the Merrimac was better than that of the Monitor, for it was concentrated at the last on a vulnerable point—the pilot-house—and so Worden was disabled (he was the only one badly hurt in this fight), and the Monitor, for the time, was driven away. The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac did not result in a glorious victory, but it was an unparalleled lesson in naval warfare.

As a part of the history of the two famous ironclads, and as a portrayal of the heart of the typical naval seaman of that day, the following letter, written to Captain Worden while he was under the surgeon’s care in Washington, must be given:

The stories of the Monitor and the Merrimac may soon be completed. The Merrimac was overhauled at Norfolk. Commodore Josiah Tattnall relieved Admiral Buchanan in command. On the 11th of April he took the Virginia (Merrimac) down to Hampton Roads, expecting to have a desperate encounter with the Monitor. “Greatly to our surprise, the Monitor refused to fight us. She closely hugged the shore under the guns of the fort, with her steam up. Hoping to provoke her to come out, the Jamestown was sent in, and captured several prizes, but the Monitor would not budge.” That is from a Confederate account, and it is truthful. The Monitor was under strict orders from Washington not to engage the Merrimac unless forced to do so. A great fleet, that included a number of vessels which were supposed to be able to sink the Merrimac by ramming, had gathered at Hampton Roads. Commodore Goldsborough was in command of the fleet. The prizes mentioned, two brigs and a schooner, were taken from Newport News and in plain sight of the fleet. Professor Soley’s history says very truly that this incident was “humiliating.” For about a month after that nothing was done, but “on the 8th of May a squadron, including the Monitor, bombarded our batteries at Sewell’s Point. We immediately left the yard for the Roads. As we drew near, the Monitor and her consorts ceased bombarding, and retreated under the guns of the forts, keeping beyond the range of our guns. Men-of-war from below the forts, and vessels expressly fitted for running us down, joined the other vessels between the forts. It looked as if the fleet was about to make a fierce onslaught upon us. But we were again to be disappointed. The Monitor and the other vessels did not venture to meet us, although we advanced until projectiles from the Rip Raps fell more than half a mile beyond us. Our object, however, was accomplished; we had put an end to the bombardment, and we returned to our buoy.”

As the reader observes, this is also a Confederate account. Commodore Goldsborough’s report says, on the contrary, that “the Merrimac was more cautious than ever”; and that the “Monitor was kept well in advance so that the Merrimac could have engaged her without difficulty had she been so disposed.” But the unprejudiced reader will say that a Farragut was needed at the head of the Union force.

The Merrimac remained unmolested until government operations ashore compelled the Confederates to evacuate Norfolk and the battery at Sewell’s Point. Tattnall wished to retreat with the Merrimac up the James River, but his pilots said it could not be done, and accordingly, on the night of May 10, 1862, he ran her ashore “in the bight of Craney Island,” not far from where he had, as a midshipman in his teens, led the sortie from the little fort built there to keep the British from Norfolk—led the sortie that drove the boastful Pechell’s men helter-skelter back to their ships. On Craney Island he fired the Merrimac and retreated ashore, leaving her to blow up on the morning of the 11th at 5 o’clock.

The Monitor lasted a few months longer. She was ordered to Beaufort, North Carolina, in tow of the Rhode Island, and sailed from Hampton Roads on the afternoon of December 29, 1862. The Passaic, in tow of the State of Georgia, went along. On the morning of January 2d a long swell set in with a wind that grew to a gale, and just before midnight she foundered, although not until all but sixteen of her crew were saved.

If the reader would know the effect of this fight on the navies of the world, let him compare the best ships afloat in 1860—the old-style ships with lofty masts and swelling canvas—with the latest designs of battle-ships. For the old frigates all disappeared, one may say, when the Cumberland went, and the turreted floating fort has followed in the wake of the Monitor.