In the latter part of the year 1861 an English steamer, named the
Fingal, ran past the blockading vessels, and got safely into Savannah.
That part was very well done, but the getting to sea again was another
matter, for she was so closely watched that it was found impossible to
do so. All sorts of stratagems were resorted to, and several starts
made upon the darkest nights, but there was always found a Federal
gun-boat, or perhaps more than one, ready to receive her, all the more
that she was a valuable vessel, and would turn in plenty of prize-money
to her captors.
At last, in despair of any more use of her as a blockade-runner,
the Rebel authorities determined to convert her into an ironclad
ship-of-war. She was cut down, so as to leave her deck not more than
two feet above the water; and upon this deck was built a very heavy
casemate, inclining at an angle of about thirty degrees, and mounting
four heavy rifled guns. The battery-deck was built of great beams of
timber, a foot and a half thick. Her iron armor was four inches thick,
then considered quite formidable, and was secured to a backing of oak
and pine, eighteen inches thick. Her sides about and below the water
line were protected by heavy logs or timbers built upon her, so that
from being a slim and graceful blockade-runner, she attained a breadth
of forty-one feet, with a length of two hundred and four. The ports in
her casemate were closed by iron shutters, of the same thickness as her
armor. Her bow was formed into a ram, and also carried, at the end of a
spar, a percussion torpedo.
In fact, she was a very formidable craft, of the general style of those
built by the Confederates during the war. The Merrimac was nearly all
casemate, but the later built ones had as small a casemate as was
consistent with the working of the guns they were intended to carry.
Thicker armor than hers had not yet come into use, the English ironclad
ships just then built, in consequence of the success of the Monitor and
Merrimac, not being any more protected.
The first contest between a monitor and fifteen-inch guns, and an
ironclad with stationary casemate or turret and rifled guns, was now to
take place.
The Atlanta was commanded by an officer of energy and ability, named
Webb, formerly a Lieutenant in the United States Navy.
The Confederate authorities were certain that this latest production of
their naval architects was to overcome the redoubtable monitors, and
they fully believed that, while the Atlanta’s armor would resist their
heavy round shot, her heavy rifled guns, at close quarters, would tear
the monitor turret to pieces, while the ram and torpedo would finish
the work begun by the guns.
The vessel, being ready, came down from Savannah, passed through the
Wilmington, a mouth of the Savannah River, and so passed down into
Wassaw Sound, improperly named, in many books and maps, Warsaw.
Admiral Du Pont had taken measures to keep himself informed as regarded
this vessel’s state of preparation, and the monitors Weehawken and
Nahant had been sent to meet her and some other armored vessels
preparing at Savannah.
Both the Nahant and Weehawken were at anchor when the strange vessel
was seen. It was at daylight, and she was then about three miles from
the Nahant, and coming down very rapidly. The Weehawken was commanded
by that capable and sterling officer, John Rogers, and he at once
slipped his cable, and made rapidly off, seaward, as if in headlong
flight, but, in the meantime, making preparations for action.
At about half-past four, on this bright summer morning, the Weehawken
rounded to, and breasted the tide, approaching her enemy.
The Nahant had no pilot, and could only follow in the Weehawken’s wake,
through the channels of the Sound.
The Atlanta fired the first shot, at about a quarter to five, being
then distant about a mile and a half. This passed across the stern of
the Weehawken, and struck the water near the Nahant. The Atlanta seemed
to be lying across the channel, awaiting attack, and keeping up her
fire.
The Weehawken steadily came up the channel, and at a little after 5
a. m., having approached within about three hundred yards, opened her
fire. She fired five shots, which took her fifteen minutes, and at the
end of that time the Atlanta hauled down the Confederate colors, and
hoisted a white flag. Such a rapid threshing is seldom recorded in
naval history, and is the more remarkable when we remember that the
commander of the Atlanta was a cool and experienced officer, trained in
the United States Navy, and an excellent seaman.
Two passenger steamers, loaded down with ladies and non-combatants,
had followed the Atlanta down from Savannah, to witness the capture of
the Yankee monitors. These now made the best of their way back to that
city.
The Atlanta had a crew of twenty-one officers and one hundred and
twenty-four men. Landsmen often wonder why ships have so many officers
in proportion to men, but it is necessary.
The officers of the Confederate vessel stated her speed to be ten
knots, and they confidently expected to capture both the monitors,
after which, as it appeared from the instruments captured on board
of her, she expected to proceed to sea, and try conclusions with the
Charleston fleet. Her engines were first-rate, and her hull of a good
model, and there is no reason why she should not have gone up to
Charleston and broken the blockade there, except the one fact that she
turned out not to be equal to the monitors.
The action was so brief that the Nahant did not share in it, and
of the five shots fired by the Weehawken, four struck the Atlanta,
and caused her surrender. The first was a fifteen-inch shot, which,
though it struck the casemate of the Atlanta at a very acute angle,
smashed through both the iron armor and the wooden backing, strewed
the deck with splinters, prostrated some forty officers and men by the
concussion, and wounded several by the splinters and fragments of armor
driven in. We can imagine the consternation of a crew which had come
down confident of an easy victory. In fact, this one shot virtually
settled the battle. The Weehawken fired an eleven-inch shot next, but
this did little damage. The third shot was from the fifteen-inch gun,
and knocked off the top of the pilot-house, which projected slightly
above the casemate, wounded the pilots, and stunned the men at the
wheel. The fourth shot carried away one of the port-stoppers. Sixteen
of her crew were wounded.
The Atlanta was valued by the appraisers, for prize-money, at three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a sum, as Boynton remarks, easily
won in fifteen minutes, with only five shots, and without a loss of a
single man on the other side. More than this, it settled the value of
that class of vessels, as compared with monitors.
“As the fight of the Merrimac with the Cumberland, Congress and
Minnesota virtually set aside as worthless for war purposes the
vast wooden navies of Europe,” so it showed that great changes and
improvements were necessary in the broadside ironclads, if they were to
be opposed to monitors armed with guns of great power. The result was a
great increase in the thickness of armor, which went on, as the power
of the guns increased, until now it is a question whether armor may not
be abandoned, except for certain purposes.