THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
The struggle which Jefferson Davis was making to parry the force of the
mortal blows delivered by the United States Navy at last gave promise of
startling success.
The fight to establish the right of the Confederacy to arm its allies
under letters of marque and reprisal had been won by the Southern
President. The first armed vessel sailing under the orders of Davis
which was captured by the navy had brought the question to sharp issue.
The Washington Government had proclaimed the vessels flying the
Confederate flag under letters of marque to be pirates and subject to
the treatment of felons.
The Captain and the crew of the _Savannah_ when captured had been put in
irons and condemned to death as pirates. If the Washington Government
could make good this daring assumption, the power of the Confederacy to
damage the commerce of the North would be practically destroyed at a
blow.
Davis met the crisis with firmness. He selected an equal number of
Federal prisoners of war in Richmond and threw them into a dungeon below
Libby Prison. He dispatched a letter to Washington whose language could
not be misunderstood.
"Dare to execute an officer or sailor of the _Savannah_, and I will
put to death as felons an equal number of Federal officers and men.
I have placed them in close confinement and ordered similar treatment
to that accorded our prisoners from the captured vessel."
Socola received a message summoning him to the house on Church Hill.
A courier had arrived from Washington. The Government must know
immediately if this threat were idle or genuine. If Jefferson Davis
should dare to execute these thirteen officers and men, the
administration could not resist the storm of indignant protest which
would overwhelm it from the North.
Socola read the cipher dispatch by the dim light of the candle in his
attic and turned to Miss Van Lew.
"My information in the State Department is of the most positive kind.
The prisoners have been put in the dungeon set apart for condemned
felons and they but wait the word of the execution of the men from the
_Savannah_, to be led to certain death. It may be talk. We must know.
Apply for permission to visit the condemned men and minister to their
comfort--"
"At once," was the prompt response. "I've made friends with Captain
Todd, the Commandant of Libby Prison; I'll succeed."
Crazy Bet appeared at Libby Prison next morning with a basket of flowers
for the condemned men. Captain Todd humored her mania. Poor old
abolition fanatic, she could do no harm. She was too frank and outspoken
to be dangerous. Besides, it was a war of brothers. His own sister was
the wife of Abraham Lincoln. These condemned men were the best blood of
the North. It was a pitiful tragedy.
Miss Van Lew, with a market basket on her arm, watched for Socola's
appearance from the office of the Secretary of State. The young clerk
was walking slowly down Main Street and turned into an unused narrow
road at the foot of the hill.
Crazy Bet, swinging the basket and humming a song, passed him without
turning her head.
"It's true," she whispered quickly, "all horribly true. Thirteen of the
finest officers of the Union army have been condemned to death the
moment the crew of the _Savannah_ are executed--among them Colonel
Cochrane of New York and Colonel Paul Revere of Massachusetts. The
dispatch must go to-night."
"To-night," was the short answer.
Within an hour Socola's courier was on his way to Washington with a
message which unlocked the prison doors of the condemned men on both
sides of the line.
Abraham Lincoln stoutly opposed a repetition of the effort to treat
Confederate prisoners as outlaws, no matter where taken by land or sea.
Davis had established the legality of his letters of marque and reprisal
beyond question.
The United States Navy in the first flood of its victories made another
false step which brought to the South an hour of brilliant hope. Captain
Wilkes overhauled a British steamer carrying the royal mail and took
from her decks by force the Commissioners Mason and Slidell whom Davis
had dispatched to Europe to plead for the recognition of the
Confederacy. The North had gone wild with joy over the act and Congress
voted Wilkes the thanks of the nation as its hero.
Great Britain demanded an apology and the restoration of the prisoners,
put her navy on a war footing and dispatched a division of her army to
Canada to strike the North by land as well as sea.
The hard common sense of Abraham Lincoln rescued the National Government
from a delicate and dangerous situation. Lincoln apologized to Great
Britain, restored the Confederate Commissioners and returned with
redoubled energy to the prosecution of the war. In answer to the shouts
of demagogues and the reproaches of both friend and foe, the homely
rail-splitter from the West had a simple answer.
"One war at a time."
Jefferson Davis watched this threat of British invasion with breathless
intensity. He saw the hope of thus breaking the power of the navy fade
with sickening disappointment.
There was one more hope. The hull of the _Merrimac_ had been raised from
the bottom of the harbor of Norfolk and the work of transforming her
into a giant iron-clad ship capable of carrying a fighting crew of three
hundred men had been completed, though her engines were slow.
But the enthusiastic men set to this task by Davis had accomplished
wonders. Their reports to him had raised high hopes of a sensation. If
this new monster of the sea should succeed single handed in destroying
the fleet of six vessels lying in Hampton Roads, the naval warfare of
the world would be revolutionized in a day and overtures for peace might
be within sight.
The Norfolk newspapers, under instructions from the Confederate
Commandant, pronounced the experiment of the _Merrimac_ a stupid and
fearful failure. Her engines were useless. Her steering gear wouldn't
work. Her armament was so heavy she couldn't be handled. These papers
were easily circulated at Newport News and Old Point Comfort among the
officers and men of the Federal fleet.
The men who had built the strange craft knew she was anything but a
failure. With eager, excited hands her crew finished the last touch of
her preparations and with her guns shotted she slowly steamed out of the
harbor of Norfolk accompanied by two saucy little improvised gunboats,
the _Beaufort_ and the _Raleigh_.
Her speed was not more than five knots an hour and she steered so badly
the _Beaufort_ was compelled to pull her into the main current of the
channel more than once.
The Federal squadron lay off Newport News, the _Congress_ and the
_Cumberland_ well out in the stream, the _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St.
Lawrence_ further down toward Fortress Monroe. The _Congress_,
_Cumberland_ and _St. Lawrence_ mounted one hundred and twenty-four
guns, twenty-two of them of nine-inch caliber. Their crews aggregated
more than a thousand men.
The new crack steam frigates _Minnesota_ and _Roanoke_ had crews of six
hundred men each and carried more than eighty guns of nine and
eleven-inch caliber. That any single craft afloat would dare attack such
a squadron was preposterous.
It was one o'clock before the strange black looking object swung into
the channel and turned her nose up stream toward Newport News.
The crews of the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_ were lounging on deck
enjoying the balmy spring air. It was wash day and the clothes were
fluttering in the breeze.
They couldn't make out the foolish-looking thing at first. It looked
like the top of a long-hipped roof house that had been sawed off at the
eaves and pushed into the water. The two little river steamers that
accompanied the raft seemed to be towing it.
"What 'ell, Bill, is that thing?" a sailor asked his mate on the
_Congress_.
Bill scanned the horizon.
"I give it up, sir," he admitted. "I been a sailin' the seas for forty
years--but that's one on me!"
A battle signal suddenly flashed from the _Cumberland_ and down came the
wash lines.
The _Beaufort_ with a single thirty-two-pounder rifle mounted in her bow
was steaming alongside the port of the strange craft. A puff of white
smoke flared from her single gun and its dull roar waked the still
beautiful waters of the Virginia harbor.
The _Merrimac_ flung her big battle flag into the sky and her tiny
escorts dropped down stream to give her free play. The _Congress_ and
the _Cumberland_ were surprised, but they slipped their anchors in a
jiffy, swung their guns in haste and began pouring a storm of shot on
the iron sides of the coming foe.
The _Merrimac_ moved forward with slow, steady throb as though the shot
that rained on her slanting sides were so many pebbles thrown by school
boys. She passed the _Congress_ and pointed her ugly prow for the
_Cumberland_. The ship poured her broadside squarely into the face of
the Merrimac without damage and the bow gun roared an answer that
pierced her bulwarks.
Through the thick cloud of heavy smoke that hung low on the water the
throbbing monster bore straight down on the _Cumberland_, struck her
amidship and sent her to the bottom.
As the gallant ship sank in sickening lurches her brave crew cheered her
to her grave and continued firing her useless guns until the waves
engulfed the decks. When her keel touched the bottom her flag was still
flying from her masthead. She rolled over on her beam's end and carried
the flag beneath the waves.
The Confederate mosquito fleet, consisting of the little gunboats
_Patrick Henry_, _Teaser_ and _Jamestown_, swung down from the river
now, ran boldly past the flaming shore batteries and joined in the
attack on the Federal squadron.
The _Congress_ had set one of her sails and with the aid of a tug was
desperately working to reach shoal water before she could be sunk. Her
captain succeeded in beaching her directly under the guns of the shore
batteries. At four o'clock she gave up the bloody unequal contest and
hauled down her colors.
The _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St. Lawrence_, in trying to reach the
scene of the battle, had all been grounded. The _Minnesota_ was still
lying helpless in the mud as the sun set and the new monarch of the seas
slowly withdrew to Sewell's Point to overhaul her machinery and prepare
to finish her work next day.
The _Merrimac_ had lost twenty-one killed and wounded--among the wounded
was her gallant flag officer, Franklin Buchanan. The _Patrick Henry_ had
lost fourteen, the _Beaufort_ eight, the _Raleigh_ seven, including two
officers.
The Federal squadron had lost two ships and four hundred men.
But by far the greatest loss to the United States Navy was the supremacy
of the seas. The power of her fleets had been smashed at a blow. The
ugly, black, powder-stained, iron thing lying under the guns of Sewell's
Point had won the crown of the world's naval supremacy. The fleets of
the United States were practically out of commission while she was
afloat. The panic at the North which followed the startling news from
Hampton Roads was indescribable. Abraham Lincoln hastily called a
Cabinet meeting to consider what action it was necessary to take to meet
the now appalling situation. Never before had any man in authority at
Washington realized how absolute was their dependence on the United
States Navy--how impossible it would be to maintain the Government
without its power.
Edwin M. Stanton, the indefatigable Secretary of War, completely lost
his nerve at this Cabinet meeting. He paced the floor with quick excited
tread, glancing out of the window of the White House toward the waters
of the Potomac with undisguised fear.
"I am sure, gentlemen," he said to the Cabinet, "that monster is now on
her way to Washington. In my opinion we will have a shell from one of
her big guns in the White House before we leave this room!"
Lincoln was profoundly depressed but refused to believe the cause of the
Union could thus be completely lost at a single blow from a nondescript,
iron raft. Yet it was only too easy to see that the moral effect of this
victory would be crushing on public opinion.
The wires to Washington were hot with frantic calls for help. New York
was ready to surrender at the first demand. So utter was the
demoralization at Fortress Monroe, the one absolutely impregnable fort
on the Atlantic coast, that the commander had already determined to
surrender in answer to the first shot the _Merrimac_ should fire.
The preparations for moving McClellan's army to the Virginia Peninsula
for the campaign to capture Richmond were suddenly halted. Two hundred
thousand men must rest on their arms until this crisis should pass. All
orders issued to the Army of the Potomac were now made contingent on the
destruction of the iron monster lying in Hampton Roads.
By one of the strangest coincidences in history the United States Navy
had completed an experiment in floating iron at precisely the same
moment.
While the guns of the battle were yet echoing over the waters of the
harbor, this strange little craft, a floating iron cheese box, was
slowly steaming into the Virginia capes.
At nine o'clock that night Ericsson's _Monitor_ was beside the
panic-stricken _Roanoke_.
When C. S. Bushnell took the model of this strange craft to Washington,
he was referred to Commander C. H. Davis by the Naval Board. When Davis
had examined it he handed it back to Bushnell with a pitying smile:
"Take the little thing home, and worship it. It would not be idolatry,
because it's made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or the
earth beneath or in the waters under the earth."
Wiser councils had prevailed, and the floating cheese box was completed
and arrived in Hampton Roads in time to put its powers to supreme test.
The _Merrimac's_ crew ate their breakfast at their leisure and prepared
to drive their ugly duckling into the battle line again and finish the
work of destroying the battered Federal squadron.
The _Merrimac_ had fought the battle of the day before under the
constant pounding of more than one hundred guns bearing on her iron
sides. Her armor was intact. Two of her guns were disabled by having
their muzzles shot off. Her nose had been torn off and sank with the
_Cumberland_. One anchor, her smoke stacks and steam pipes were shot
away. Every scrap of her railing, stanchions, and boat davits had been
swept clean. Her flag staff was gone and a boarding pike had been set up
in its place.
With stern faces, and absolutely sure of victory, her crew swung her
into the stream, crowded on full steam and moved down on the
_Minnesota_.
Close under the ship's side they saw for the first time the cheese box.
They had heard of the experiment of her building but knew nothing of her
arrival.
Her insignificant size was a surprise and the big _Merrimac_ dashed at
her with a sullen furious growl of her big guns. The game little bulldog
swung out from the _Minnesota_ and made straight for the onrushing
monster.
The flotilla of gunboats had been signaled to retire and watch the
duel.
From the big eleven-inch guns of the _Monitor_ shot after shot was
hurled against the slanting armored walls of the _Merrimac_.
Broadside after broadside poured from her guns against the iron-clad
tower of the _Monitor_.
The _Merrimac_, drawing twenty feet of water, was slow and difficult to
handle. The game little _Monitor_ drew but twelve feet and required no
maneuvering. Her tower revolved. She could stand and fight in one spot
all day.
The big black hull of the _Merrimac_ bore down on the _Monitor_ now to
ram and sink her at a blow. The nimble craft side stepped the avalanche
of iron, turned quickly and attempted to jamb her nose into the steering
gear of the Southerner--but in vain.
For two solid hours the iron-clads pounded and hammered each other. The
shots made no impression on either boat.
Again the _Merrimac_ tried to ram her antagonist and run her aground.
The nimble foe avoided the blow, though struck a grinding, crushing
side-swipe.
The little _Monitor_ now stuck her nose squarely against the side of the
_Merrimac_, held it there, and fired both her eleven-inch guns against
the walls of the Southerner.
The charge of powder was not heavy enough. No harm was done. The impact
of the shots had merely forced the sloping sides an inch or two.
The captain of the _Merrimac_ turned to his men in sharp command.
"All hands on deck. Board and capture her!"
The smoke-smeared crew swarmed to the portholes and were just in the act
of springing on the decks of the _Monitor_, when she backed quickly and
dropped down stream.
After six hours of thunder in each other's faces the _Monitor_ drew
away into the shoal waters guarding the _Minnesota_.
The _Merrimac_ could not follow her in the shallows and at two o'clock
turned her prow again toward Sewell's Point.
The battle was a drawn conflict. But the plucky little _Monitor_ had won
a tremendous moral victory. She had rescued the navy in the nick of
time. The Government at Washington once more breathed.
From the heights of rejoicing the South sank again to the bitterness of
failure. For twenty-four hours her flag had been mistress of the seas.
Jefferson Davis saw the hope of peace fade into the certainty of a
struggle for the possession of Richmond.
The way had been cleared. McClellan's two hundred thousand men were
rushing on their transports for the Virginia peninsula.