The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
capturing the latter as a prize, and had no wish to destroy her. He, therefore, stood off about a mile distant, and with the Yorktown and Jamestown, threw shot and shell at the frigate, doing it considerable damage, and killing six men. One shell entered near her waist, passed through the chief engineer’s room, knocking two rooms into one, and wounded several men; a shot passed through the main-mast. At nightfall the Merrimac, satisfied with her afternoon’s work of death and destruction, steamed in under Sewall’s Point. “The day,” said the Baltimore American, “thus closed most dismally for our side, and with the most gloomy apprehensions of what would occur the next day. The Minnesota was at the mercy of the Merrimac, and there appeared no reason why the iron monster might not clear the Roads of our fleet, destroy all the stores and warehouses on the beach, drive our troops into the fortress, and command Hampton Roads against any number of wooden vessels the Government might send there. Saturday was a terribly dismal night at Fortress Monroe.”
But about nine o’clock that evening Ericsson’s battery, the Monitor,20 arrived in Hampton Roads, and hope revived in the breasts of the despondent Northerners. She was not a very formidable-looking craft, for, lying low on the water, with a plain structure amidships, a small pilot-house forward, and a diminutive funnel aft, she might have been taken for a raft. It was only on board that her real strength might be discovered. She carried armour about five inches thick over a large part of her, and had practically two hulls, the lower of which had sides inclining at an angle of 51° from the vertical line. It was considered that no shot could hurt this lower hull, on account of the angle at which it must strike it. The revolving turret, an iron cylinder, nine feet high, and twenty feet in diameter, eight or nine inches thick everywhere, and about the portholes eleven inches, was moved round by steam-power. When the two heavy Dahlgren guns were run in for loading, a kind of pendulum port fell over the holes in the turret. The propeller, rudder, and even anchor, were all hidden.
This was a war of surprises and sudden changes. It is doubtful if the Southerners knew what to make of the strange-looking battery which steamed towards them next morning, or whether they despised it. The Merrimac and the Monitor kept on approaching each other, the former waiting until she would choose her distance, and the latter apparently not knowing what to make of her queer-looking antagonist. The first shot from the Monitor was fired when about one hundred yards distant from the Merrimac, and this distance was subsequently reduced to fifty yards; and at no time during the furious cannonading that ensued were the vessels more than two hundred yards apart. The scene was in plain view from Fortress Monroe, and in the main facts all the spectators agree. At first the fight was very furious, and the guns of the Monitor were fired rapidly. The latter carried only two guns, to its opponent’s eight, and received two or three shots for every one she gave. Finding that she was much more formidable than she looked, the Merrimac attempted to run her down; but her superior speed and quicker handling enabled her to dodge and turn rapidly. “Once the Merrimac struck her near midships, but only to prove that the battery could not be run down nor shot down. She spun round like a top; and as she got her bearing again, sent one of her formidable missiles into her huge opponent.
“The officers of the Monitor at this time had gained such confidence in the impregnability of their battery that they no longer fired at random nor hastily. The fight then assumed its most interesting aspect. The Monitor went round the Merrimac repeatedly, probing her sides, seeking for weak points, and reserving her fire with coolness, until she had the right spot and the right range, and made her experiments accordingly. In this way the Merrimac received three shots. … Neither of these three shots rebounded at all, but appeared to cut their way clear through iron and wood into the ship.”21 Soon after receiving the third shot, the Merrimac made off at full speed, and the contest was not renewed. Thus ended this particular episode of the American war.
ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE “MERRIMAC” AND “MONITOR.”
Lieutenant Worden was in the pilot-house of the Monitor when the Merrimac directed a whole broadside at her, and was, besides being thrown down and stunned by the concussion, temporarily blinded by the minute fragments of shells and powder driven through the eye-holes—only an inch each in diameter—made through the iron to enable them to keep a look-out. He was carried away, but, on recovering consciousness, his first thoughts reverted to the action. “Have I saved the Minnesota?” said he, eagerly. “Yes; and whipped the Merrimac!” was the answer. “Then,” replied he, “I don’t care what becomes of me.” The concussion in the turret is described as something terrible; and several of the men, though not otherwise hurt, were rendered insensible for the time. Each side claimed that they had seriously damaged the other, but there seems to have been no foundation for these assertions in facts.
But although this, the original Monitor, was efficient, if not omnipotent, in the calm waters at the mouth of the James River, she was, as might be expected with her flat, barge-like bottom, a bad sea-boat, and was afterwards lost. Her ports had to be closed and caulked, being only five feet above the water, and she was therefore unable to work her guns at sea. Her constructor had neglected Sir Walter Raleigh’s advice to Prince Henry touching the model of a ship, “that her ports be so laid, as that she may carry out her guns all weathers.” She plunged heavily—completely submerging her pilot-house at times, the sea washing over and into her turret. The heavy shocks and jars of the armour, as it came down upon the waves, made her leaky, and she went to the bottom in spite of pumps capable of throwing 2,000 gallons a minute, which were in good order and working incessantly.
THE PERUVIAN IRONCLAD HUASCAR ATTACKED BY TWO CHILIAN IRONCLADS.
Since the conclusion of the American war, the ironclad question has assumed serious aspects, and many facts could be cited to show that they have not by any means always confirmed the first impressions of their strength and invulnerability. Two recent cases will be fresh in the memories of our readers. The first is the recent engagement off Peru between the Peruvian ironclad turret-ship Huascar and the British unarmoured men-of-war Shah and Amethyst. With the political aspect of the affair we have nothing, of course, to do, in our present work. It was really a question between the guns quite as much as between the vessels. The Huascar is only a moderately-strong armoured vessel, her plates being the same thickness as those of the earliest English ironclad, the Warrior, and her armament is two 300-pounders in her turret, and three shell-guns. On the other hand, the Shah, the principal one of the two British vessels, is only a large iron vessel sheathed in wood, and not armoured at all; but she carries, besides smaller guns, a formidable armament in the shape of two 12-ton and sixteen 6½-ton guns. An eyewitness of the engagement states22 that, after three hours’ firing, at a distance of from 400 to 3,000 yards, the only damage inflicted by the opposing vessels was a hole in the Huascar’s side, made by a shell, the bursting of which killed one man. “One 9-in. shot (from a 12-ton gun) also penetrated three inches into the turret without effecting any material damage. There were nearly 100 dents of various depths in the plates, but none of sufficient depth to materially injure them. The upper works—boats, and everything destructible by shell—were, of course, destroyed. Her colours were also shot down.” According to theory, the Shah’s two larger guns should have penetrated the Huascar’s sides when fired at upwards of 3,000 yards’ distance. The facts are very different, doubtless because the shots struck the armour obliquely, at any angles but right ones. The Huascar was admirably handled and manœuvred, but her gunnery was so indifferent that none of the shots even struck the Shah, except to cut away a couple of ropes, and the latter kept up so hot a fire of shells that the crew of the former were completely demoralised, and the officers had to train and fire the guns. She eventually escaped to Iquique, under cover of a pitchy-dark night. The same correspondent admits, however, that the Shah, although a magnificent vessel, is not fitted for the South American station, since Peru has three ironclads, Chili two, and Brazil and the River Plate Republics several, against which no ordinary English man-of-war could cope, were the former properly handled.