THE COMING OF STEAM AND ARMOURED NAVIES
THE FIGHT IN HAMPTON ROADS
MARCH, 1862
Trafalgar was the greatest fight of the sailing-ships. There were later
engagements which were fought under sail, but no battle of such decisive
import. It was a fitting close to a heroic era in the history of naval war,
a period of not much more than four centuries, in thousands of years.
Before it, came the long ages in which the fighting-ship depended more upon
the oar than the sail, or on the oar exclusively. After it, came our
present epoch of machine-propelled warships, bringing with it wide-sweeping
changes in construction, armament, and naval tactics.
Inventive pioneers were busy with projects for the coming revolution in
naval war while Nelson was still living. The Irish-American engineer,
Fulton, had tried to persuade Napoleon to adopt steam propulsion, and had
astonished the Parisians by showing them his little steamer making its way
up the Seine with clumsy paddles churning up the waters and much sooty
smoke pouring from its tall, thin funnel. The Emperor thought it was a
scientific toy. Old admirals--most conservative of men--declared that a
gunboat with a few long "sweeps" or oars would be a handier fighting-ship
in a calm, and if there was any wind a spread of sail was better than all
the American's tea-kettle devices. Fulton went back to America to run
passenger steamers on the Hudson, and tell unbelieving commodores and
captains that the future of the sea power lay with the "tea-kettle ships."
In the days of the long peace that followed Waterloo, and the great
industrial development that came with it, the steam-engine and the
paddle-steamer made their way into the commercial fleets of the world,
slowly and timidly at first, for it was a long time before a steamship
could be provided with enough efficient engine power to enable her to show
the way to a smart clipper-built sailing-ship, and the early marine engines
were fearfully uneconomical. Steam had obtained a recognized position in
small ships for short voyages, ferry-boats, river steamers, and coasting
craft, but on the open ocean the sailing-ship still held its own. An
eminent scientist proved to demonstration that no steamship would ever be
able to cross the Atlantic under steam alone. He showed that to do so it
would be necessary for her to carry a quantity of coal exceeding her entire
tonnage capacity, and he expressed his readiness to eat the first steamer
that made the voyage from Liverpool to New York. But he lived to regret his
offer.
In 1838 the "Great Western" and the "Sirius" inaugurated the steam
passenger service across the Atlantic, and the days of the liner began. By
this time paddle-wheel gunboats were finding their way into the British
navy, and other powers were beginning to follow the example of England.
Steamships were first in action in 1840, when Sir Charles Napier employed
them side by side with sailing-ships that had shared the triumphs of
Nelson. This was in the attack on Acre, when England intervened to check
the revolt of the Pasha of Egypt, Ibrahim, against his suzerain, the
Sultan.
But still the steamship was regarded as an auxiliary. The great
three-decker battleships, the smart sailing frigates, were the main
strength of navies. The paddle-steamer was a defective type of warship,
because her paddle-boxes and paddle-wheels, and her high-placed engines,
presented a huge target singularly vulnerable. A couple of shots might
disable in a minute her means of propulsion. True she had masts and sails,
but if she could not use her engines, the paddles would prove a drag upon
all her movements.
It was the invention of the screw-propeller that made steam propulsion for
warships really practical. Brunel was one of the great advocates of the
change. He was a man who was in many ways before his time, and he had to
encounter a more than usual amount of official conservatist obstruction.
For years the veteran officers who advised the Admiralty opposed and
ridiculed the invention. When at last it was fitted to a gunboat, the
"Rattler," it was obvious that it provided the best means of applying steam
propulsion to the purposes of naval war. The propeller was safe under
water, and the engines could be placed low down in the ship.
By 1854, when the Crimean War began, both the British and French navies
possessed a number of steam-propelled line-of-battle ships, frigates, and
gunboats, fitted with the screw. They had also some old paddle-ships. But
in the fleets dispatched to the Baltic and the Black Sea there were still a
considerable number of sailing-ships, and a fleet still did most of its
work under sail. Even the steamships had only what we should now describe
as auxiliary engines. The most powerful line-of-battle ships in the British
navy had engines of only 400 to 600 horsepower.[17] With such relatively
small power they still had to depend chiefly on their sails. Tug-boats were
attached to the fleets to tow the sailing-ships, when the steamships were
using their engines.
[17] Compare this with 23,000 horse-power of the "Dreadnought's"
turbine engines.
Another change was taking place in the armament of warships and coast
defences. The rifled cannon was still in the experimental stage, but
explosive shells, which in Nelson's days were only fired from mortars at
very short range, had now been adapted to guns mounted on the broadside
and the coast battery. Solid shot were still largely used, but the coming
of the shell meant that there would be terrible loss in action in the
crowded gun-decks, and inventors were already proposing that ships should
be armoured to keep these destructive missiles from penetrating their
sides.
The attack on the sea front of Sebastopol by the allied fleets on 17
October, 1854, was the event that brought home to the minds of even the
most conservative the necessity of a great change in warship construction.
It rang the knell of the old wooden walls, and led to the introduction of
armour-clad navies.
The idea of protecting ships from the fire of artillery and musketry by
iron plating was an old one, and the wonder is that it did not much earlier
receive practical application. The Dutch claim to have been the pioneers of
ironclad building more than three hundred years ago. During the famous
siege of Antwerp by the Spaniards in 1585 the people of the city built a
huge flat-bottomed warship, armoured with heavy iron plates, which they
named the "Finis Belli," a boastful expression of the hope that she would
end the war. An old print of the "Finis Belli" shows a four-masted ship
with a high poop and forecastle, but with a low freeboard amidships. On
this lower deck, taking up half the length of the ship, is an armoured
citadel, with port-holes for four heavy guns on each side. The roof of the
citadel has a high bulwark, loopholed for musketry. On three of the masts
there are also crow's-nests or round tops for musketeers.
Heavily weighted with her armour, the ship had a deep draught of water, and
probably steered badly. In descending the Scheldt to attack the Spaniards
she ran aground in a hopeless position under their batteries, and fell into
the hands of the Spanish commander, the Duke of Parma. He kept the "Finis
Belli" "as a curiosity" till the end of the siege, and then had her
dismantled. If she had scored a success, armoured navies would no doubt
have made their appearance in the seventeenth century.
Between the days of the "Finis Belli" and the coming of the first ironclads
there were numerous projects of inventors. In 1805 a Scotchman, named
Gillespie, proposed the mounting of guns and "ponderous mortars" in
revolving armoured turrets, both in fortifications on shore and on floating
batteries. Two years later Abraham Bloodgood, of New York, designed a
floating battery with an armoured turret. During the war between England
and the United States in 1812 an American engineer, John Steevens, who was
a man in advance of his time, proposed the construction of a
steam-propelled warship, with a ram-bow, and with her guns protected by
shields. He prepared a design, but failed to persuade the Navy Department
that it was practicable. His son, Robert L. Steevens, improved the design,
made experiments with guns, projectiles, and armour plates, and at last in
1842 obtained a vote of Congress for the building of the "Steevens
battery," a low-freeboard ram, steam-propelled, and armed with eight heavy
guns mounted on her centre-line, on turntables protected by armoured
breastworks. The methods of the American navy were very dilatory,
professional opinion was opposed to Steevens, whose project was regarded as
that of a "crank," and the ship was left unfinished for years. She was
still on the stocks when the Civil War began. Then other types came into
fashion, and she was broken up on the ways.
The man who introduced the armour-clad ship into the world's navies was the
Emperor Napoleon III, the same who introduced rifled field artillery into
the armies of the world. Like other great revolutions, this epoch-making
change in naval war began in a small way. What forced the question upon the
Emperor's attention was the failure of the combined French and English
fleets in the attack on the sea-forts of Sebastopol on 17 October, 1854.
The most powerful ships in both navies had engaged the sea-forts, and
suffered such loss and injury that it was obvious that if the attack had
been continued the results would have been disastrous. Some means must be
found of keeping explosive shells out of a ship's gun-decks, if they were
ever to engage land batteries on anything like equal terms. Under the
Emperor's directions the French naval architects designed four ships of a
new type, which were rapidly constructed in the Imperial dockyards. They
were "floating batteries," not intended to take part in fleet actions, but
only to be used against fortifications. Their broad beam, heavy lines,
rounded bows, and engines of only 225 horsepower, condemned them to slow
speed, just sufficient to place them in firing position. They were armoured
with 4-inch iron and armed with eighteen 50-pounder guns. The port-holes
had heavy iron ports, which were closed while the guns were reloading.
Three of these floating batteries, the "Devastation," "Lave," and
"Tonnant," came into action against the shore batteries at Kinburn on 17
October, 1855 (the anniversary of the attack on the Sebastopol sea-forts).
There was some difficulty in getting into position, as they could just
crawl along, and steered abominably. But when they opened fire at 800 yards
at 9 a.m. they silenced and wrecked the Russian batteries in eighty-five
minutes, themselves suffering only trifling damage, and not losing a dozen
men.
It was the first and last fight of the floating batteries. But while in
England men were still discussing the problem of the sea-going ironclad,
the French constructors were solving it. They had to look not to
parliamentary and departmental committees, but to the initiative and
support of an intelligent autocrat. So events went quicker in France. In
1858 the keels of the first three French sea-going armour-clads were laid
down at Toulon, and next year the armoured frigate "Gloire," the first of
European ironclads, was launched, and every dockyard in France was busy
constructing armour-clads or rebuilding and armouring existing ships.
France had gained a start in the building of the new type of warship. When
the "Dreadnought" was launched, it was said somewhat boastfully that
single-handed she could destroy the whole North Sea fleet of Germany. It
might be more truly said of the "Gloire" that she could have met
single-handed and destroyed the British Channel or Mediterranean Fleet of
the day. It was the moment when tension with France over the Orsini
conspiracy had caused a widespread anticipation of war between that country
and England, and had called the Volunteer force into existence to repel
invasion. But the true defence must be in the command of the sea, and the
first English ironclad, the old "Warrior," was laid down at the Thames
Ironworks. Work was begun in June, 1859, and the ship was launched in
December, 1860. She was modelled on the old steam frigates, for the special
types of modern battleships and armoured cruisers were still in the future.
She was built of iron, with unarmoured ends and 4 1/4-inch iron plating on
a backing of 18 inches of teak over 200 feet amidships of her total length
of 380 feet. There was a race of ironclad building between France and
England, in which the latter won easily, and it was only for a very short
time that our sea supremacy was endangered by the French Emperor's naval
enterprise. But when the English and French fleets entered the Gulf of
Mexico in 1861, our ships were all wooden walls, while the French admiral's
flag flew on the ironclad "Normandie," the first armoured ship that ever
crossed the Atlantic.
Notwithstanding this fact, American writers are fond of saying, and many
Englishmen believe, that the introduction of armoured navies was the
outcome of the American Civil War of the early 'sixties. All that is true
is that the War of Secession gave the world the spectacle of the first
fight between armour-clad ships, and the experiences of that war greatly
influenced the direction taken in the general policy of designers of
ironclad warships.
[Illustration: H.M.S. WARRIOR, THE FIRST BRITISH IRONCLAD]
Towards the close of the Crimean War a Swedish engineer settled in the
United States, John Ericsson, had sent to the Emperor Napoleon a design for
a small armoured turret-ship of what was afterwards known as the Monitor
type. He wrote to the Emperor that he asked for no reward or profit, for he
was only anxious to help France in her warfare with Russia, the hereditary
foe of Sweden. The war was drawing to a close, and for his future projects
the Emperor wanted large sea-going ships, not light-draught vessels for
work in the shallows of the Baltic. So Ericsson received a complimentary
letter of thanks and a medal, and kept his design for later use. His
opportunity came in the first months of the Civil War.
In the fifty years between the war of 1812 and the outbreak of the
struggle between North and South, the American navy had been greatly
neglected. It was a favourite theory in the United States that a navy
could be improvised, and that the great thing would be, in case of war,
to send out swarms of privateers to prey upon the enemy's commerce. Very
little money was spent on the navy or the dockyards. On the navy list
there were a number of old ships, some of which had fought against
England in 1812. There were a number of small craft for revenue purposes,
a lot of sailing-ships, and a few fairly modern steam frigates and
smaller steam vessels depending largely on sail-power, and known as
"sloops-of-war"--really small frigates.
While the dockyards of Europe had long been busy with the construction of
the new armoured navies, the United States had not a single ironclad. Both
parties to the quarrel had to improvise up-to-date ships.
Sea power was destined to play a great part in the conflict. As soon as the
Washington Government realized that it was going to be a serious and
prolonged war, not an affair of a few weeks, a general plan of operations
was devised, of which the essential feature was the isolation of the
Southern Confederacy. When the crisis came in 1861 the United States had
done little to open up and occupy the vast territories between the Rocky
Mountains and the Mississippi Valley. The population of the States was
chiefly to be found between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, and in that
region lay the states of the Confederacy. They were mainly agricultural
communities, with hardly any factories. For arms, munitions of war, and
supplies of many kinds they would have to depend on importation from beyond
their frontiers. It was therefore decided that while the United States
armies operated on the northern or land frontier of the Confederacy, its
sea frontiers on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico should be closely
blockaded, and its river frontier, the line of the Mississippi, should be
seized and held by a mixed naval and military force. For these last
operations troops on the banks and gunboats on the river had to combine. It
was said at the time, that on the Mississippi army and navy were like the
two blades of a pair of shears, useless apart, but very effective when
working together.
Strange to say, it was not the industrial North, but the agricultural
South, that put the first ironclad into commission as a weapon against the
coast blockade. When the Secessionist forces seized the Navy Yard at
Norfolk, in Virginia, a fine steam frigate, the "Merrimac" (built in 1855),
was under repair there. The guard of the dockyard set her on fire before
surrendering, but the flames were extinguished, and the "Merrimac," with
her upper works badly damaged, was in possession of the Southerners. A
Northern squadron of frigates and gunboats, steam and sailing ships,
anchored in Hampton Roads, the landlocked sheet of water into which runs
not only the Elizabeth River, which gives access to Norfolk, but also the
James River, the waterway to Richmond, then the Confederate capital. The
northern shores of Hampton Roads were held by Federal troops, the southern
by the Confederates. Presently spies brought to Washington the news that
the "Rebels" were preparing a terrible new kind of warship at Norfolk to
destroy the squadron in Hampton Roads and raise the blockade.
The news was true. The Confederates had cut down the "Merrimac" nearly to
the water's edge and built a solid deck over her at this level. Then on the
deck they erected a huge deck-house, with sloping sides pierced with
port-holes for ten heavy smooth-bore guns. The funnel passed up through the
roof of the deck-house. There were no masts, only a flagstaff. The flat
deck space, fore and aft, and the sloping sides of the deck-house were to
be armoured with four inches of iron, but there were no armour plates
available. Railway iron was collected and rolled into long narrow strips,
and these were bolted on the structure in two layers, laid crosswise in
different directions. An armoured conning-tower, low and three-sided, was
built on the front of the deck-house roof. The bow was armed with a mass of
iron, in order to revive the ancient method of attack by ramming. Thus
equipped the "Merrimac" was commissioned, under the command of Commodore
Buchanan, and renamed the "Confederate States' ironclad steam-ram
'Virginia,'" but the ship was always generally known by her former name.
At noon on Saturday, 8 March, 1862, the "Merrimac" started on her voyage
down the Elizabeth River. It was to be at once her trial trip and her first
fighting expedition. She was to attack and destroy the Federal blockading
fleet in Hampton Roads. Up to the last moment the ship was crowded with
working men. They were cleared out of her as she cast off from the quay. As
the "Merrimac" went down the river the officers were telling off the men to
their stations. Not one of her guns had ever been fired. There had been a
few hurried drills. Everything was improvised.
The first disappointment was to find that with the engines doing their best
she could only make five knots. She steered badly, answering her helm
slowly and turning on a wide circle. As one of her officers put it, "she
was as unmanageable as a water-logged vessel." She drew 22 feet of water,
so that she had to keep to the narrow channel in the middle of the river,
and the risk of getting hopelessly aground was serious.
The Confederate troops crowded the batteries on either bank, and cheered
the "Merrimac" as she went slowly down. It was a fine day, with bright
sunshine and absolutely no wind, and the broad stretch of water in Hampton
Roads was like a pond. At the same time a small squadron of Confederate
gunboats came down the James River to co-operate in the attack. These ships
were the "Yorktown" (12 guns), the "Jamestown" (2 guns), and the "Teaser"
(1 gun). Two other gunboats, the "Beaufort" and the "Raleigh," followed the
"Merrimac." But the chief hope of the attack was placed upon the ironclad.
The nine vessels of the blockading fleet lay along the north side of
Hampton Roads, from the point at Newport News to Old Point Comfort, where
the Roads open on Chesapeake Bay. They were strung out over a distance of
about eight miles. The shore on that side was held by the Federals, and the
point at Newport News bristled with batteries. Near the point were anchored
the sailing frigate "Congress," of 50 guns, and the sloop "Cumberland," a
full-rigged three-master, armed with 30 guns. On board the Federal ships
there was not the remotest expectation of attack. Clothes were drying in
the rigging. A crowd of boats lay alongside. It was known that the
Confederates had been busy converting the old "Merrimac" into an armoured
ram at Norfolk Navy Yard, but it was not believed that she was yet ready
for action. The men had just eaten their dinners, and were having a pipe,
when the first alarm was raised. By the wharf at Newport News lay a
tug-boat, the "Zouave," which had been armed with a 30-pounder gun, and was
rated as a gunboat and tender to the fleet. Her captain noticed the smoke
of steamers coming down the Elizabeth River, and cast off from the wharf
and went alongside the "Cumberland." The officer of the watch told him to
run across to the river mouth and find out what was coming down from
Norfolk.
[Illustration: HAMPTON ROADS (1ST. DAY) "MERRIMAC" COMES OUT.
SINKS "CUMBERLAND" & BURNS "CONGRESS"]
[Illustration: HAMPTON ROADS (2ND. DAY) DUEL BETWEEN
"MONITOR" & "MERRIMAC"]
"It did not take us long to find out," he says, "for we had not gone over
two miles when we saw what to all appearances looked like the roof of a
very big barn belching forth smoke as from a chimney. We were all divided
in opinion as to what was coming. The boatswain's mate was the first to
make out the Confederate flag, and then we all guessed it was the
'Merrimac' come at last."
The little "Zouave" fired half a dozen shots, which fell short. The
"Merrimac" took no notice of this demonstration, but steadily held her way.
Then the "Cumberland" signalled to the "Zouave" to come back, and she ran
past the anchored warships and under shelter of the batteries. These were
now opening fire on the Confederate gunboats issuing from the James River.
The "Congress" and "Cumberland" had cleared for action and weighed anchor.
Other ships of the fleet had taken the alarm, and were coming up into the
Roads to help their consorts. The Confederate batteries at Sewell's Point
opened fire at long range against these ships as they stood into the Roads.
The "Merrimac" was steering straight for the "Cumberland," in grim silence,
her unarmoured consorts keeping well astern. When the range was about
three-quarters of a mile the two Federal ships opened fire with the heavy
guns mounted on pivots on their upper decks, and the shore batteries also
brought some guns to bear. A heavy cannonade from sea and shore was now
echoing over the landlocked waters, but the "Merrimac" fired not a gun in
reply. A few cannon-shot struck her sloping armoured sides, and rebounded
with a ringing clang. The rest ricochetted harmlessly over the water,
throwing up sparkling geysers of foam in the bright sunlight.
At last, when the range was only some 500 yards, the bow-gun of the
"Merrimac" was fired at the "Cumberland," with an aim so true that it
killed or wounded most of the men at one of her big pivot-guns. A moment
after the ram was abeam of the "Congress," and fired her starboard battery
of four guns into her at deadly close range. With the projectiles from 25
guns of the "Congress" and 15 of the "Cumberland" rattling on her armour,
riddling her funnel, and destroying davits, rails, and deck-fittings, the
"Merrimac" steamed straight for the "Cumberland," which made an ineffectual
attempt to avoid the coming collision. At the last moment some men were
killed and wounded in the gun-deck of the ram by shots entering a
port-hole. Then came a grinding crash as the iron ram of the "Merrimac"
struck the "Cumberland" almost at right angles on the starboard side under
her fore-rigging. On board the Confederate ship the shock was hardly felt.
But the "Cumberland" heeled over with the blow, and righted herself again
as the "Merrimac" reversed her engines and cleared her, leaving a huge
breach in the side of her enemy. The ram had crushed in several of her
frames and made a hole in her side "big enough to drive a coach and horses
through." The water was pouring into her like a mill-race.
From the "Merrimac," lying close alongside with silent guns, came a hail
and a summons to surrender. From the deck of the "Cumberland" her
commander, Morris, replied with a curt refusal. The firing began again; the
"Cumberland's" men, driven from the gun-deck by the inrush of rising water,
took refuge on the upper deck. Some jumped overboard and began swimming
ashore. Others kept her two pivot-guns in action for a few minutes. Then
with a lurch she went down. Boats from the shore saved a few of her people.
Those who watched from the batteries could hardly believe their eyes as
they saw the masts of the warship sticking out of the water where a few
minutes ago the "Cumberland" had waited in confidence for the attack of the
improvised "rebel" ironclad.
As her adversary went down, the "Merrimac" turned slowly to menace the
"Congress" with the same swift destruction. She took no notice of the
harmless cannonade from the shore. Lieutenant Smith, who commanded the
"Congress," had realized that collision with the enemy meant destruction,
rapid and inevitable, and decided that his best chance was to get into
shoal water under the batteries. He had slipped his cable, shaken out some
of his sails, and signalled to the tug-boat "Zouave" to come to his help.
The "Zouave" made fast to the "Congress" on the land side, but she had not
moved far when the ship grounded within easy range of the "Merrimac's"
guns. These were already in action against her.
The leading ship of the seaward Federal squadron, the frigate "Minnesota,"
had come in within long range, and opened on the "Merrimac" and the
gunboats. But she had only fired a few shots when she also ran aground on
the edge of the main channel, but in such a position that some of her guns
could still be brought to bear. Taking no notice of this more distant foe,
the "Merrimac" devoted all her attention to the "Congress." She sent a
broadside into the stranded frigate, and then passing under her stern,
raked her fore and aft and set her on fire. Lieutenant Smith, of the
"Congress," was badly wounded. Lieutenant Prendergast, who succeeded to the
command, decided that with his ship aground and the enemy able quietly to
cannonade her without coming under fire of most of her guns, to prolong the
fight would be to waste life uselessly. After consulting his wounded chief
he dipped his colours and displayed a white flag. The little "Zouave" cast
off from the frigate, and as she cleared her, fired a single shot from her
one gun at the "Merrimac," and then ran down to the "Minnesota." This shot
led afterwards to a false report that the "Congress" had reopened fire
treacherously after surrendering.
Civil war has often been described as fratricidal. In this action between
the "Congress" and the "Merrimac" two brothers were opposed to each other.
Commodore Buchanan, who commanded the "Merrimac," knew, when he attacked
the "Congress," that a younger brother of his was a junior officer of the
frigate. The younger man escaped unscathed, but the commodore was slightly
wounded during the fight. When the "Congress" struck her colours, Buchanan
ordered two of the gunboats to take off her crew. Her flag was secured to
be sent to Richmond as a trophy. While the gunboats "Raleigh" and
"Beaufort" were taking off the Federal wounded, there came from the
batteries on shore a heavy fire of guns and rifles. Several of the wounded
and two officers of the "Raleigh" were killed, and the gunboats drew off,
leaving most of the crew of the "Congress" still on board. They escaped to
the shore in boats and by swimming. Meanwhile the "Merrimac" fired a number
of red-hot shot into her, and she was soon ablaze fore and aft. Then the
ironclad turned and fired at the "Minnesota."
The sun was going down and the tide was running out rapidly. The deep
draught of the "Merrimac" made the risk of grounding, if she closely
engaged the "Minnesota," a serious matter. So Buchanan signalled to the
gunboats to cease fire, and, accompanied by them, steamed over to the south
side of the Roads, where he anchored for the night under the Confederate
batteries, intending to complete the destruction of the Federal fleet next
morning.
The first day's fight was over. It had been a battle between the old and
the new--between a steam-propelled armoured ram and wooden sailing-ships.
The "Cumberland" had been sunk, the "Congress" forced to surrender and set
on fire, and the "Minnesota" was hopelessly aground and marked down as the
first victim for next day. The Federals had lost some two hundred men. The
Confederates only twenty-one. Buchanan was wounded, not severely, but
seriously enough for the command of the "Merrimac" to be transferred to
Lieutenant Jones. As night came on the moon rose, but the wide expanse of
water was lighted up, not by her beams only, but also by the red glare from
the burning "Congress." The flames ran up her tarred rigging like rocket
trails, masts and spars were defined in flickers of flame. At last, with a
deafening roar that was heard for many a mile, she blew up, strewing the
Roads with scattered wreckage.
At ten o'clock that evening, while the "Congress" was still burning, a
strange craft had steamed into the Roads from the sea, all unnoticed by the
Confederates. She anchored in the shallow water between the "Minnesota" and
the shore. Her light draught enabled her to go into waters where less
powerful fighting-ships would have grounded. To use the words of one who
first saw her as the sun rose next day, she looked like a plank afloat with
a can on top of it. She was Ericsson's ironclad turret-ship, the "Monitor."
In the first weeks of the war inventors had besieged the United States Navy
Department with proposals for the construction of ironclad warships. The
Department was still leisurely debating as to what policy should be
adopted, when news came that the "Merrimac," half-burnt at Norfolk Yard,
was being reconstructed as an armoured ram, and it became urgent to provide
an adversary to meet her on something like equal terms. It was at this
moment that John Ericsson came forward with his offer to construct an
armoured light-draught turret-ship, which could be very rapidly built and
put in commission. This last point was of cardinal importance, for report
said that work on the "Merrimac" was far advanced, and no ship could be
built on ordinary lines, of sufficient power to meet her, in the time now
available. The vessel must be of light draught to work in the shallow coast
waters, creeks, and river mouths of the Southern States. She might have to
fight in narrow channels, where there would not be room for manoeuvring to
bring broadside guns to bear. Ericsson, therefore, proposed that her
armament should be a pair of heavy guns mounted in a turret, which could be
revolved so as to point them in any direction, independently of the
position of the ship herself.
The hull was to be formed of two portions, a kind of barge-like structure
or lower hull, built of iron, and mostly under water when the ship was
afloat, and fixed over this the upper hull, a raft-like structure, wider
and longer, and with overhanging armoured sides and lighter deck-armour.
The dimensions were--
Upper part of hull, length 172 feet, beam 41 feet.
Lower hull, length 122 feet, beam 34 feet.
Depth, underside of deck to keel-plate, 11 feet 2 inches.
Draught of water, 10 feet.
Engines and boilers were aft, and the long overhang of the armoured deck
astern protected the under-water rudder and screw propeller. In the
overhang at the bow there was a well, in which the anchor hung under water.
Forward, near the bow, there was a small armoured pilot-house, or, as we
now call it, "conning-tower." Amidships, in an armoured turret, were
mounted two heavy smooth-bore guns, of large calibre, and throwing a round,
solid shot.
The conning-tower was built of solid iron blocks, nine inches thick. The
sight-holes were narrow, elongated slits. This was the helmsman's station.
The committee to which Ericsson's plans were referred was at first hostile;
some of the members declared that the ship would not float, that her deck
would be under water, and she would be swamped at once. Further objections
were that no crew could live in the under-water part of the hull. But at
length all objections were met, and the Swedish engineer was told that his
plans were accepted, and that a regular contract would be drawn up for his
signature. Ericsson knew the value of time, and before the contract was
ready the keel plates of his turret-ship had been rolled and a dozen firms
had started work on her various parts. While the ship was being built, he
proposed she should be named the "Monitor," and the name became a general
term for low-freeboard turret-ships.
[Illustration: THE "MERRIMAC" & "MONITOR" DRAWN TO THE
SAME SCALE]
The keel of the ship was laid at Greenpoint Yard, Brooklyn, in October,
1861. She was launched on 30 January, 1862. The work of completing and
fitting was carried on day and night, and she was commissioned for service
on 25 February, 1862. But even when her crew were on board there were a
number of details to be completed. Workmen were busy on her almost up to
the moment of her departure from New York harbour nine days later, so there
was no chance of drilling the men and testing the guns and turret.
Lieutenant Worden, United States Navy, was promoted to the rank of captain
and given command. He formed a crew of volunteers for what was considered a
novel and exceptionally dangerous service. Officers and men numbered
fifty-eight in all.
On the morning of Thursday, 6 March (two days before the "Merrimac's"
attack on the "Cumberland"), the "Monitor" left New York in tow of the tug
"Seth Low," bound for Hampton Roads. The two days' voyage southwards along
the coast was an anxious and trying time, and though the weather was not
really bad, the "Monitor" narrowly escaped foundering at sea.
At 4 p.m. on the Saturday she was off Cape Henry, and the sound of a
far-off cannonade was heard in the direction of Hampton Roads. The officers
rightly guessed that the "Merrimac" was in action. It was after dark that
the turret-ship steamed up the still water of the landlocked bay, amid the
red glare from the burning "Congress." She anchored beside the United
States warship "Roanoke." On board the fleet which eagerly watched her
arrival there were general disappointment and depression at seeing how
small she was.
Worden shifted his anchorage in the night, and taking advantage of the
"Monitor's" light draught steamed up the Roads, and anchored his ship in
the shallow water to landward of the stranded "Minnesota."
There was not much sleep on board the "Monitor" that night, tired as the
men were. At 2 a.m. the "Congress" blew up in a series of explosions.
After that the men tried to settle down to rest, but before dawn all hands
were roused to prepare for the coming fight. A little after 7 a.m. the
"Merrimac" was seen steaming slowly across the bay, escorted by her
flotilla of gunboats. She was coming to complete the destruction of the
United States squadron, and had marked down the "Minnesota" as her first
victim, in blissful ignorance of the arrival of the "Monitor." Worden
realized that if he allowed the fight to take place near the stranded ship,
the "Merrimac" might engage him with one of her broadsides, and use the
other to destroy the "Minnesota." He therefore steamed boldly out into the
open water, challenging the Confederate ram to a duel. As he approached the
wooden gunboats prudently turned back and ran under the shelter of the
Confederate batteries on the south shore, leaving the "Merrimac" to meet
the "Monitor" in single combat.
So that Sunday morning, 9 March, 1862, saw the first battle between
ironclad ships, with North and South, soldiers, sailors, and civilians
anxiously watching the combat from the ships in the Roads and the batteries
on either shore.
Worden was in the pilot-house with a quartermaster at the wheel, and a
local pilot to assist him. His first lieutenant, Dana Greene, commanded the
two 11-inch guns in the turret. The "Merrimac" was the first to open fire.
Worden waited to reply till she was at close quarters, then stopped his
engines, let his ship drift, and sent the order by speaking-tube to the
turret, "Commence firing!" The "Monitor's" turret swung round, and her two
guns roared out, enveloping both ships in a fog of powder smoke as the huge
cannon-balls crashed on the sloping armour of the "Merrimac." They did not
penetrate it, but the theory of the Northern artillerists was that the
hammering of heavy round shot on an enemy's armour would start the plates,
shear bolt and rivet heads, and crush in the wooden backing, and so
gradually succeed in making a breach in the armour somewhere. But
throughout this fight at close quarters the "Merrimac's" cuirass remained
intact.
[Illustration: _Cassier's Magazine_
THE BATTLE OF HAMPTON ROADS. THE MERRIMAC AND MONITOR
ENGAGED AT CLOSE QUARTERS]
The Southern ship was replying with a much more rapid fire from her
broadside guns. Hit after hit thundered on the "Monitor's" turret, but its
plating held good, though the sensation of being thus pummelled was
anything but pleasant to the men inside. At an early stage of the fight a
quartermaster was disabled in a startling way. He was leaning against the
inside of the turret, when a shot struck it just outside. The momentary
yielding of the plating to the blow passed on the shock to the man's body,
and he fell stunned and collapsed, and had to be carried below.
Although the speaking-tube from conning-tower to turret was inside the
armoured deck, a similar action of a shot, that did not penetrate, smashed
it up, and after this orders had to be passed with difficulty by a chain of
men. And this was not the only trouble the crew of the "Monitor" had to
contend with. But the "Monitor," with all her defects, had the great
advantage over the "Merrimac" of a slightly greater speed and of a much
greater handiness. Her turning circle was much smaller than that of the
larger ship, and she could choose her position, and evade with comparative
ease any attempt of her clumsy adversary to ram and run her down. The
"Merrimac," with her damaged funnel and diminished draught on her furnaces,
found it even more difficult than on the previous day to get up speed. At
times she was barely moving. Her depth was also a drawback in the narrow
channel. While the light-draught "Monitor" could go anywhere, the
"Merrimac," drawing 22 feet of water, was more than once aground, and was
got afloat again after many anxious efforts.
The "Monitor" had a good supply of solid shot; the "Merrimac" very few, for
she had been sent out, not to fight an armour-clad, but to destroy a wooden
fleet. Finding that his shell-fire was making no impression on the
"Monitor's" turret, and recognizing the difficulty of ramming his enemy,
Commander Jones made up his mind to disregard the "Monitor" for a while,
and attempt to complete the destruction of the "Minnesota." He therefore
ordered his pilot to steer across the Roads, and take up a position near
the stranded frigate. The pilot afterwards confessed that he was more
anxious about facing the rapid fire of the "Minnesota's" numerous guns than
standing the more deliberate attack of the "Monitor's" slow fire. He could
have brought the "Merrimac" within half a mile of the "Minnesota," but he
made a wide detour, and ran aground two miles from the Federal ship. When
after great efforts the ironclad was floated again, the pilot declared he
could not take her any nearer the "Minnesota" without grounding again, and
Commander Jones reluctantly turned to renew the duel with the "Monitor,"
which had been steaming slowly after him. The "Monitor's" officers thought
the "Merrimac" was running away from them, and were surprised when she
closed with their ship again.
Once more there was a fight at close quarters. Those who watched the battle
could make out very little of what was happening, for the two ships were
wrapped in clouds of powder smoke and blacker smoke from their furnaces.
The "Merrimac's" funnel was down, and the smoke from her furnace-room was
pouring low over her casemate. In the midst of the semi-darkness Jones
tried to ram the turret-ship, and nearly succeeded. Worden, using the
superior handiness of his little vessel, converted the direct attack into a
glancing blow, but the Confederates thought that if they had not lost the
iron wedge of their ram the day before in sinking the "Cumberland" they
would have sunk the "Monitor."
The turret-ship now kept a more respectful distance. For more than a
quarter of an hour she did not fire a shot. The Confederates hoped they had
permanently disabled her, but what had happened was that the "Monitor" had
ceased fire in order to pass a supply of ammunition up into the turret,
which could not be revolved while this was being done. Presently the
"Monitor" began firing again. Jones of the "Merrimac" now changed his
target. Despairing of seriously damaging the "Monitor's" turret, he
concentrated his fire on her conning-tower, and before long this plan had
an important result. Dana Greene gives a vivid description of the
incident:--
"A shell struck the forward side of the pilot-house directly in
the sight-hole or slit, and exploded, cracking the second iron
log and partly lifting the top, leaving an opening. Worden was
standing immediately behind this spot, and received in his face
the force of the blow, which partly stunned him, and filling his
eyes with powder, utterly blinded him. The injury was known only
to those in the pilot-house and its immediate vicinity. The
flood of light rushing through the top of the pilot-house, now
partly open, 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.' Thus the 'Monitor' retired temporarily from the action, in
order to ascertain the extent of the injuries she had received.
At the same time Worden sent for me, and I went forward at once,
and found him standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the
pilot-house.
"He was a ghastly sight, with his eyes closed and the blood
apparently rushing from every pore in the upper part of his
face. He told me that he was seriously wounded, and directed me
to take command. I assisted in leading him to a sofa in his
cabin, where he was tenderly cared for by Dr. Logue, and then I
assumed command. Blind and suffering as he was, Worden's
fortitude never forsook him; he frequently asked from his bed of
pain of the progress of affairs, and when told that the
'Minnesota' was saved, he said, 'Then I can die happy!'"[18]
[18] "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," vol. i, pp. 726,
727. Worden recovered, and there was no permanent injury to his
sight. He lived to be a distinguished admiral of the United
States Navy.
In the confusion that followed the disablement of her commander, the
"Monitor" had drifted away from the "Merrimac," but still in a position
between her and the "Minnesota." The Confederate ship fired at the
temporarily disabled turret-ship a few shots, to which there was no reply.
Commander Jones and his officers believed they had put their opponent out
of action. But the "Merrimac" was not in a position to profit by her
advantage. It was near 2 p.m. The tide was running out rapidly, and the
risk of grounding was serious. Ammunition was beginning to be scarce. The
crew was exhausted, and the ship's pumps had to be kept going, for under
the strain of the heavy firing, and the repeated groundings during the two
days, the hull was leaking badly. Jones judged the time had come to break
off the action, and the "Merrimac" turned slowly, and began to steam into
the Elizabeth River, on her way back to Norfolk.
The "Monitor," seeing her retiring, fired a few long-range shots after her.
They splashed harmlessly into the water. So the famous fight ended.
On board both ships no life had been lost, and only a few men were wounded,
Captain Worden's case being the most serious. In fact, there were fewer
casualties than on the first day, when the loss of life in the wooden ships
had been serious, and the "Merrimac," despite her armour, had had
twenty-one men killed and wounded by the lighter projectiles of the
"Cumberland" and "Congress" finding their way into her casemate through the
port-holes. Neither ship had suffered severe injury, though if the battle
had continued, the damage done to the conning-tower of the "Monitor" might
have had serious results. When the "Merrimac" was docked at Gosport Yard,
Norfolk, to be overhauled and repaired, it was found that she had
ninety-seven indentations on her armour. Twenty of these were judged to be
the marks of the "Monitor's" 11-inch balls. In these places the outer layer
of armour-plating was cracked and badly damaged. The under layer and the
wood backing were uninjured. The other seventy-seven marks were mere
surface dents made by the lighter artillery of the wooden ships. The
"Monitor" had used reduced charges of 15 pounds of gunpowder, and it was
believed that if the full charge of 30 pounds had been used, the results
might have been more serious, but the Navy Department had ordered the
reduced charge, as it was feared that with full charges the strain on the
gun-mountings and turret-gear would be too severe. The "Merrimac's" funnel
was riddled, and all outside fittings shot away. Two of her guns had been
made unserviceable on the first day by shots striking their muzzles.
Both sides claimed the victory in the Sunday's battle. The Confederates
claimed to have driven off the "Monitor," and stated that Jones had waited
for some time for her to renew the fight, before he turned back to Norfolk.
The Federals argued that the object of the "Merrimac" was to destroy the
"Minnesota," and the "Monitor" had prevented this, and was therefore the
victor. The frigate was successfully floated next tide. Sometimes the fight
is described as a drawn battle, but most writers on the subject accept the
Federal contention, and give the honours of the day to the little
turret-ship.
The battle of Hampton Roads was notable, however, not so much for its
immediate results, as for its effect on naval opinion and policy. It
finally closed the era of unarmoured ships; it led to a perhaps exaggerated
importance being attached to the ram as a weapon of attack; and it led to a
very general adoption of the armoured turret, and for a while to the
building of low-freeboard turret-ships in various navies. It was not till
long after that the story of the "Monitor's" perilous voyage from New York
was told, and thus even in America it was not realized that the "Monitor"
type was fit only for smooth waters, and was ill adapted for sea-going
ships. On the Federal side there was a kind of enthusiasm for the
"Monitor." Numbers of low-freeboard turret-ships of somewhat larger size,
and with improved details, were built for the United States, and even the
failure of Admiral Dupont's "Monitor" fleet in the attack on the
Charleston batteries did not convince the Navy Department that the type was
defective. Ericsson's building of the "Monitor" to meet the emergency of
1862 was a stroke of genius, but its success had for a long time a
misleading effect on the development of naval construction in the United
States.
The "Merrimac" was abandoned and burned by the Confederates a few weeks
later when they evacuated Norfolk and the neighbourhood. At the end of the
year the "Monitor" was ordered to Charleston. She started in tow of a
powerful tug, but the fate she had so narrowly escaped on her first voyage
overtook her. She was caught in a gale off Cape Hatteras on the evening of
31 December, 1862. The tow-ropes had to be cut, and shortly after midnight
the "Monitor" sank ten miles off the Cape. Several of her officers and men
went down with her. The rest were rescued by the tug, with great
difficulty.
Had the wind blown a little harder during the "Monitor's" first voyage from
New York, or had the tow-rope to which she hung parted, there is no doubt
she would have gone down in the same way. In that case the course of
history would have been different, for the "Merrimac" would have been
undisputed master of the Atlantic coast, and have driven off or destroyed
every ship of the blockading squadrons. The fates of nations sometimes
depend on trifles. That of the American Union depended for some hours on
the soundness of the hawser by which the "Monitor" hung on to the tug-boat
"Seth Low" of New York.