Up to the last Ericsson was bothered by the government officials. Had he been left to himself the ship would not have had such a narrow escape from going to the bottom. They interfered with the turret-bearings, with the result that when the sea washed over the low deck, the water poured into the hold from all round the turret and put out the fires in the engine room, when the fumes drove the engineers out of their quarters and nearly poisoned everybody in the turret through which all the outgoing ventilation had to be made. However, the tugs got the vessel safely into smoother water, the furnace was set going again, and the pumps were restarted, and by the time Hampton Roads was reached the vessel was labouring along as best it could under its own steam and with the aid of a couple of tugs. The narrow escape the Monitor had from foundering on this voyage served to stimulate the chorus of disapproval, and there were not wanting many on the northern side as well as on that of the south to predict the failure of “Ericsson’s folly.”

Ericsson had confidence in his ship. He had never forgiven the British Admiralty for its rejection of the screw propeller, nor for ignoring his suggestions in regard to the Princeton, and one reason why he chose the name of the Monitor, as he told the writer and others more than once, was that it should be a perpetual reminder to the British Admiralty of the chance it had lost.

In the turret were two 11-inch Dahlgren smooth-bores which fired solid iron shots weighing 135 to 136 lb. each with charges of 15 lb. of powder, and were even more powerful than his own gun. Solid iron stoppers closed the ports when the guns were run in. The deck had five projections besides the turret. Right forward was a small square pilot-house measuring four feet, and constructed of bars of iron nine inches thick, and provided with a flat iron roof two inches thick. In the sides of the pilot-house were narrow slits as sight holes. The other projections were two small chimneys six feet high, removable before an engagement, and two intake ventilators.

Neither side on the morrow shirked the coming duel. From the outset the Monitor was the better prepared. Her guns fired solid shot; the Merrimac had only shell and grape, neither of which was calculated to do much harm to the Monitor’s turret, whereas the blow of the Monitor’s shot upon the sloping sides of the Merrimac’s battery was bound to be delivered with terrific force, even though the blows were slanting. For another thing, the southern vessel was built of wood and had already suffered severely in the hard contest at short range with the battleships the previous afternoon; her engines were shaky, and her steering gear worked worse than before; and the experiences of some of her crew, coupled with the wounding of her commander, had not been such as to leave their confidence unshaken. The Merrimac was now commanded by Commodore Tatnall, the hero of the episode in the Anglo-American attack some years before upon the Chinese forts at Peiho, when he justified the participation of the Americans by the famous remark that “blood is thicker than water.” Tatnall proved himself a worthy successor to Buchanan.

When the Merrimac sallied forth the next morning intending to complete the destruction of the northern warships, she found the Monitor waiting for her. Notwithstanding the inferiority of his ammunition, Tatnall never hesitated for a moment. The firing between the two ships was mostly at short range, and by the time the battle was over both vessels had had enough of it. Neither side admitted defeat, but neither side had succeeded in destroying the other. The Monitor was struck twenty-two times, and in return she fired forty-one shots. Precisely how many of these were effective on the southern ship is not known, but including the fight of the previous day, she was found afterwards to have no fewer than ninety-seven indentations on her armour. Her layers of plating were shattered, and the heavy wooden backing was splintered, but not one of the heavy shots of the Monitor succeeded in penetrating the Merrimac. The backing only splintered where the heavy shot had struck direct blows. Nine of the Confederate shells struck the turret, and the pilot-house was struck twice, and the other projections and the deck also showed marks of the enemy’s fire. The result of the battle was that the Monitor was able to resume hostilities and the Merrimac was so badly crippled that she could not do so.

The steering gear and anchor of the Monitor were protected by the overhanging deck, and were out of reach of the Merrimac’s fire. This arrangement was repeated with modifications in most of the northern monitors afterwards built, and greatly puzzled the Confederates until they discovered the method by which the vessels could be anchored or lift anchor without anyone appearing on deck.

It should be remembered that the Merrimac had to contend not only against the Monitor, but also against the gunboats of the northern fleet, which fired upon her whenever they had a chance.

The subsequent fate of these two typical ironclads is interesting. The Monitor was sent to sea in weather she could never hope to contend against, and went to the bottom. When the fortunes of war drove the Confederates away from the positions they had occupied at Hampton Roads, the Merrimac was scuttled by her commander to prevent her falling into the hands of the Federals. Both sides went on building ironclads of the types they had introduced. The Federals rapidly acquired a fleet of monitors, because they were convinced of the superiority of that type of vessel, and had almost unlimited resources. The South built a few more broadside ironclads because it had no option in the matter. It was a case of taking wooden steamers and plating them as best it could with rolled-out railway metals, boiler plates, and, in fact, anything metallic that could be bolted on.

The Atlanta, formerly the English steamer Fingal, was cut down much as the Merrimac had been, and given a heavy wooden casemate plated with iron. The two monitors, Nahant and Weehawken, were waiting for her, and when she set out from Savannah to look for them, they followed. So also did some steamers carrying a large number of Southerners who went to see their ship defeat the monitors. The Atlanta fired one shot at the Weehawken and missed, and the monitor returned the compliment by steaming to within 800 yards and firing her heavy 15-inch gun. The projectile smashed the Atlanta’s armour and wooden backing, and the flying splinters wounded sixteen of the crew. She returned the fire two or three times without hitting once, but the Weehawken’s second shot smashed the pilot-house and the third started the casemate from the deck. The Atlanta surrendered in fifteen minutes after the firing of the first shot. Her subsequent employment was as a guardship in the northern fleet. The Nahant did not fire.

The Albemarle, another Confederate ram of the Merrimac type, had a short but exciting career. She carried only two 100-pounder rifled guns, pivoted to fire end-on or on the broadside. Her first exploit was to ram the northern gunboat Southfield, in the Albemarle Sound; her ram entered about 10 feet, and the Southfield began to sink so rapidly that, before she rolled off the Albemarle’s ram, she nearly took the latter down with her. The Albemarle afterwards fought a pitched battle with four northern paddle-wheel gunboats, and although she was rammed and damaged, she held her own. Her destruction may be said to have heralded the introduction of the torpedo boat, and for this reason is referred to in a subsequent chapter.

Another most notable example in these improvised ironclads was the ram Tennessee, which was designed and commanded by Commodore Tatnall. This vessel played a conspicuous part in the defence of Mobile against the Federal fleet under Admiral Farragut, in August, 1864. The Tennessee was admirably designed for the purpose intended, which was that of an ironclad, heavily armed, and able to ram; but unfortunately for her, she could not be got completely ready in time, nor was it possible to give her the armoured protection or the weighty artillery which had been contemplated at first; nevertheless, her commander fought her well, and that she came absolutely to grief was due to hasty construction and lack of material to put into her, rather than to any fault in the design of the ship itself. Her battle with the Union fleet shows with what grim determination the ship was fought.

“There was a brush with the ironclad ram,” says an American writer, “but it was not serious, and the fleet came to anchor three miles up the bay. Farragut was planning to attack the ram as soon as it should be dark enough to prevent the garrison seeing which was friend and which foe; but the ram anticipated him and steamed direct for the flagship (the Hartford) in the midst of the fleet. The Admiral at once gave orders for every ship to attack her, not only with shot but by ramming, and a desperate contest ensued. The ram had the advantage in that she was sure of striking an enemy with every blow, while the fleet had to avoid running and firing into one another. Their shot had no effect on the sloping iron sides of the monster, and when the wooden vessels rammed her they only splintered their own bows and only heeled her over. But the monitors, with their enormous guns, shot away her smoke-stack and steering apparatus, and jammed her shutters, while one 15-inch shell actually penetrated her armour.”[38]

This heavy cannonade proved too much for her. With her armour battered, her machinery damaged, her commander badly wounded, her steering gear disabled, she lay helpless at the mercy of her foes and surrendered.

Another type of ironclad which the Confederates employed was known as the David, because though small it was hoped it would deal as effectively with the big northern warships as its Hebrew namesake had dealt with Goliath of old. The parallel, however, ceases with the name. The first American David was tried at Charleston, in October, 1863. She was cigar-shaped, 54 feet long, and 6 feet in diameter, and carried a small steam engine to drive a small screw propeller. Her one weapon was a spar torpedo, and when she had exploded it she was expected to go to the bottom with such of her crew as did not happen to be able to save themselves.

Many brave deeds have been done in war by combatants and non-combatants alike, but the cool courage of the pilot or steersman of the first David will take some beating. Her initial attack was directed against the ironclad ship Ironsides, named in commemoration of the “Old Ironsides,” and whether failure or success attended the attempted destruction of the ship, those on the David knew they were engaged in a forlorn hope. Only the funnel and pilot-house of the little vessel were discernible above the sea level, and even they were not very conspicuous. The David was hailed, and replied with a volley of musketry, and an instant later a torpedo exploded against the sides of the warship. It lifted her and shook her, but inflicted no material damage worth speaking of, but the moral effect was considerable, as the Federals knew the Confederates had now devised a new means of attacking them. At the moment of the explosion the four or five men composing the crew of the David jumped overboard, as it was thought she would be swamped by the backwash of the explosion. She did not sink, however, and the pilot held on to her for his life, for he was the only man on board who could not swim. The engineer swam to her, and together they took her back to Charleston.

On the Mississippi and the other American rivers both sides improvised as gunboats anything that had an engine in it and a platform upon which a gun could be carried. Small tug-boats were given turtle-back armour, too thin to be of use, whence some of them got the name of tin-clads in contradistinction to the ironclads; big side-wheel steamers were protected with anything that could be utilised for the purpose, from logs to bags of ashes, and ordinary river cargo steamers and barges were also found very adaptable. It may, indeed, be doubted if in any war there has been such an assemblage of opposing warships improvised from the most unpromising materials as in the American Civil War. The majority of them were not of great use as combatants, notwithstanding that their crews usually handled them with reckless bravery, and after the passage of the Mississippi mouth had been forced and the northern warships were able to ascend the river, the fighting value of these makeshifts became almost a negative quantity. In the absence of superior force, however, there was no telling what they might attempt, for their crews were as reckless as they were daring.

When the Civil War began, Edwin Stevens offered the Federal Government, at his own expense, a small vessel called the Naugatuck. This was a twin-screw vessel, which could be immersed two feet below her load-line and raised again in eight minutes by pumping out the water admitted into the tanks. The solitary gun was mounted on a revolving carriage, and the recoil taken by rubber disc springs. It was loaded, directed and fired from below the deck, the loading being accomplished by bringing the depressed gun opposite a hole in the deck, provided for the purpose.[39] She carried a Parrott gun, a 100-pounder, and was one of the fleet that attacked the Merrimac. Her twin screws enabled her to turn from end to end in seventy-five seconds. She did good service on the James River, until her gun burst; her crew, thanks to her protecting deck, escaping injury. This vessel is chiefly of interest because of the method of placing and loading the gun.

Ericsson’s inventive genius was responsible in 1861, before the war broke out, for a vessel of 3,033 tons, which he named the Dictator, but she was not launched until 1863, the builders being the Delamater Iron Works. She was an iron-framed vessel, and had a wooden skin 3½ feet thick. The iron protecting her sides was 11 inches thick, 5 inches of which were solid bars measuring 3 inches by 5 inches, and the other portion was built up in single 1-inch plates. Her ram, a heavy structure of oak and iron, projected 22 feet beyond the bow. On deck she carried a single turret with an inside diameter of 24 feet. The walls of the turret were protected by 15 inches of iron plates, each 1 inch in thickness, and weighed 500 tons. Her engine was of Ericsson’s vibrating lever type with two cylinders 100 inches in diameter, and indicating 5,000 h.p. The screw was 21 feet 6 inches in diameter, with a pitch of 34 feet, and was cast in one piece, its weight being 17⅖ tons. The Dictator’s armament was two smooth-bore 15-inch guns, known as Ericsson guns, which were of the same type as he introduced into America on behalf of Col. Stockton, and with a charge of 80 lb. of powder, threw a round shot weighing 460 lb. The ship was 320 feet long, 50 feet broad, and drew 22 feet of water.

In the subsequent monitors the conning tower was placed above the turret as in the case of the Passaic. Monitors were built later with two turrets, and a flying deck connected them. They were of much greater dimensions than the single turret ships, and carried twice the number of guns, and being considerably heavier and faster and more extensively armoured, were exceedingly capable fighting machines.

But the wooden warships were not destined to pass away without making a gallant struggle well worthy of the traditions of centuries. The last great battles in which they engaged were at New Orleans and Mobile, and well they acquitted themselves. Stranded, rammed, and almost set on fire, as they were time after time, they yet carried on an unequal contest until they achieved splendid victories at these places. Not even torpedoes, as mines were then called, daunted Admiral Farragut, who, at Mobile, when a ship that was leading hesitated and nearly threw the whole line into disorder, inquired, “What is the matter?”

“Torpedoes,” was the answer.

“Damn the torpedoes,” roared Farragut from his usual place in the rigging, to which he was accustomed to mount in order to see over the smoke. Whereupon his ship, the Hartford, assumed the lead.

On the Atlantic coast the South endeavoured to maintain its unequal contest by means of blockade runners and privateers. Foremost among these were the Shenandoah, which has the distinction of being the only ship to carry the Confederate flag round the world; the Sumter, a small commerce destroyer, commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes, who afterwards had the Alabama; and the last-named herself. The Sumter was described by Captain Semmes as a “stone which had been rejected of the builders,” and he says that he endeavoured to work it into the building which the Confederates were then rearing. “The vessel was reported to him as a small propeller steamer of 500 tons burden, sea-going, with a low-pressure engine, sound, and capable of being so strengthened as to be enabled to carry an ordinary battery of four or five guns. Her speed was reported to be between nine and ten knots, but unfortunately, said the Board, she carried but five days’ fuel, and has no accommodation for the crew of a ship of war. She was, accordingly, condemned. When I finished reading the report, I turned to the Secretary and said, ‘Give me that ship; I think I can make her answer the purpose.’ My request was at once acceded to; the Secretary telegraphed to the Board to receive the ship, and the clerks of the Department were set at work to hunt up the necessary officers to accompany me, and make out the proper orders. And this is the way in which the Confederate States’ steamer Sumter, which was to have the honour of being the first ship of war to throw the new Confederate flag to the breeze, was commissioned.”

He got her into shape somehow, and she began her adventurous career by running the blockade in a most daring fashion at Pass a l’Outre, in spite of the presence of the Brooklyn, which was faster and more heavily armed. She beat the northern ship simply because she could sail nearer to the wind. After six months’ experience of this ship, he says that “in her best days the Sumter had been very inefficient, being always anchored, as it were, in the deep sea, by her propeller whenever she was out of coal. A fast ship propelled entirely by sail power would have been better.” She captured seventeen ships, consistently dodged five or six northern ships, and at last had to be laid up at Gibraltar. She afterwards sailed as the Gibraltar under the English flag as a merchant vessel, and made one successful voyage as a blockade runner to Charleston, South Carolina, and went to the bottom of the North Sea soon afterwards.

The Sumter’s battery consisted of an 8-inch shell gun pivoted amidships and four 32-pounders of 13 cwt. each for broadside firing. The slide and circle for the pivot gun were constructed of railway iron. She captured seven prizes in two days, and escorted six of them into the harbour of Cienfuegos at once.

The Alabama was built at Birkenhead under a contract with the Confederate States, and was paid for out of the Confederate treasury. “The Alabama had been built in perfect good faith by the Lairds. When she was contracted for, no question had been raised as to the right of a neutral to build and sell to a belligerent such a ship.”[40] Be that as it may, the settlement of the Alabama claims proved an expensive item for Great Britain. She was responsible for the destruction of no fewer than sixty-seven American ships, and such was the terror she inspired that the armed frigate Kearsarge was sent to hunt her down and exterminate her. Soon after embarking on her privateering, the Alabama fought and sank the Hatteras in the only engagement she was concerned in until she met her fate at the guns of the Kearsarge. There was not much to choose between the ships in size, but in all other respects the advantage lay with the northern ship, which had further strengthened her sides with a concealed belt of chain cables.

“As for the ships,” writes Captain Semmes in “Service Afloat,” “though the enemy was superior to me, both in size, staunchness of construction, and armament, they were of force so nearly equal, that I cannot be charged with rashness in having offered battle. The Kearsarge mounted seven guns—two 11-inch Dahlgrens, four 32-pounders, and a rifled 28-pounder. The Alabama mounted eight—one 8-inch, one rifled 100-pounder, and six 32-pounders. Though the Alabama carried one gun more than her antagonist, it is seen that the battery of the latter enabled her to throw more metal at a broadside, there being a difference of three inches in the bore of the shell-guns of the two ships. Still the disparity was not so great but that I might hope to beat my enemy in a fair fight. But he did not show me a fair fight, for, as it afterwards turned out, his ship was iron-clad. It was the same thing as if two men were to go out to fight a duel and one of them, unknown to the other, were to put a shirt of mail under his outer garment.... By Captain Winslow’s own account, the Kearsarge was struck twenty-eight times; but his ship being armoured, of course, my shot and shell, except in so far as fragments of the latter may have damaged his spars and rigging, fell harmless into the sea. The Alabama was not mortally wounded until after the Kearsarge had been firing at her an hour and ten minutes. In the meantime, in spite of the armour of the Kearsarge, I had mortally wounded that ship in the first thirty minutes of the engagement. I say ‘mortally wounded her,’ because the wound would have proved fatal but for the defect of my ammunition. I lodged a rifled percussion shell near her sternpost—where there were no chains—which failed to explode because of the defect of the cap. If the cap had performed its duty and exploded the shell, I should have been called upon to save Captain Winslow’s crew from drowning, instead of him being called upon to save mine. On so slight an incident—the defect of a percussion cap—did the battle hinge. The enemy was proud of this shell. It was the only trophy they had ever got from the Alabama. We fought her until she would no longer swim, and then we gave her to the waves.”

The Shenandoah was the name given by the Confederates to the Glasgow-built auxiliary steamer Sea-Horse, which was the only ship to carry the southern flag from Dixie’s Land to the Cape, thence to Australia, and up to the North Pacific. She found her chief prey among the American whalers.