had she gone into her at fifteen knots there would have been another tale to tell. As it was, the Monitor's sharp upper edge cut through the light iron shoe upon the Merrimac's prow, deep into the oak, which was behind it. On the Monitor all that could be found was a slight dent.

The ammunition in the Monitor's turret was now failing. To replenish it was a matter of some difficulty, as it required the scuttle in the floor of the turret to be brought immediately over a second opening in the deck below, and kept there, whilst the projectiles and powder were being hoisted up. Worden accordingly hauled off to the Middle Ground, where the water was too shallow for the Merrimac to follow him, and lay there for fifteen minutes, till he was ready to recommence battle. Among the Confederates and on board the Merrimac the impression was that the Northern ironclad had been disabled. Why they did not use this respite for the destruction of the Minnesota is not clear, but they did not; and they were disagreeably surprised to see the turret-ship once more making for them.

In this, the last stage of the battle, the Merrimac's gunners adopted tactics which, if tried before, might have given them. victory; they concentrated their fire upon the pilot-house, which was the Monitor's weak point. At half-past eleven, as Worden was at one of the sight-holes, a shell struck it, and burst just outside, driving in one of the iron logs of which it was built, raising the top, and filling Worden's eyes with fragments of iron and powder. Blinded and bleeding he fell back, and, imagining that the structure was demolished, ordered his ship to sheer off. For some minutes the Monitor drifted helpless, her commander disabled. Then Lieutenant Greene came forward from the turret, and found Worden at the foot of the short ladder which led to the pilot-house, with the blood pouring from his face, and under the impression that he had received a mortal wound.

He

* Her speed did not, probably, exceed five knots at this period of the fight, if, indeed, it was so much, as she had lost her funnel.

was assisted to his cabin, but in the agony of his wound did not forget to ask how the battle went, and whether the Minnesota was saved. When told she was, he said, "Then I can die happy." Fortunately he afterwards recovered, and was able to take part in many of the later operations of the war.

For twenty minutes the Monitor drifted in shoal water, and then under the guidance of Greene went once more to seek her antagonist. But the Merrimac, seeing that she could not follow her on the shallows, was already in retreat, though the Southerners stated that she waited an hour for the battle to be renewed. Greene did not pursue closely, probably because he feared to imperil his ship, and merely discharged a shot or two at the retreating ironclad.

The battle was seemingly a drawn one, for neither ship had inflicted any serious harm on the other, and neither had lost a single man. Had the Monitor concentrated her fire upon one particular part of the Merrimac's casemate, had the Merrimac poured hers upon the Monitor's pilot house all through the engagement, the result must have been more decisive. Again, had the Confederate ship possessed and employed solid shot, or the Monitor 30lbs. or 50lbs. charges of powder for her guns* the effect of the continuous firing would have been far more destructive. The Merrimac's crew of landsmen seems to have fought well; their gunnery was very fair, and no great fault can be found with them, while the Monitor's seamen, if not severely tried in the battle, gave good proof of their endurance. The attempt to destroy the Union fleet was completely frustrated; henceforward the wooden ships felt that they were safe; Washington and the towns on the Northern seaboard were relieved from all fear of attack, the blockade was maintained, and the fact demonstrated to the South that the engineering talent of the North would outmatch any ironclad vessels which it built.

That weight of powder was afterwards used in these guns.

It was the opinion of Jones, and the other Confederate officers, that the Monitor should have easily sunk the Merrimac. Why she did not is hard to explain, except upon the supposition, which does not appear to be supported by any evidence, that Worden and Greene had received orders to be very tender with their ship. With a higher speed, and manoeuvring better than the Merrimac, she should have been able to ram her, and disable her steering-gear, if ramming is a possibility, but she only seems to have made one very half hearted attempt to do this. She was struck twenty-two times in the action, nine times on her turret and twice on her pilothouse, but received no damage beyond slight indentations. She fired forty-one shots. The Merrimac, as a result of the fighting of the 8th and 9th had ninety-seven indentations in her armour; both courses of plating were shattered, but the backing was uninjured where hits had been made by the Monitor at an angle; where the shots had struck perpendicularly the backing also was broken and splintered, though it was not perforated.

The first encounter between ironclads is not only in itself noteworthy as one of the decisive battles of the Civil War, definitely and finally securing to the North the command of the sea, but it produced an instant and tremendous effect in Europe and in England. The deepest misgivings as to the value of our broadside ironclads were at once aroused. Ericsson had somewhat boastingly predicted that his little vessels could overcome with ease the English ironclads of that era, and his predictions were too readily taken for fact. The Warrior with her 4 inch solid rolled plates, and her speed of fourteen knots would been a very different antagonist to the Merrimac; she could have chosen her own distance, and moreover, being a sea-going ship, could have fought in a seaway, which no Monitor could do. The truth is that the requirements of our Navy are very different from those of other countries others may be content to use their ships on their own coasts, but we never. Our ironclads must be sea

keeping, be the loss of invulnerability what it may. The Monitor was no type for our fleet, and time, which brings many revenges, has demonstrated the foresight of our Admiralty and the ability of our designers in the universal adoption of a high freeboard. The Warrior is still one of our effective ships; the Monitor would have long ago been gathered to the scrap-heap, had she survived the sea.

The turret system of mounting guns is one of the legacies of this fight to the world, but as adopted, it was Captain Coles' turret with roller bearings, and not Ericsson's with a central spindle.* It has now been accepted universally for heavy guns, whether in the form of a turret or barbette, giving as it does a wide angle of fire with the minimum of armour, and the maximum of protection to the gun-crews and mechanism for loading. The Royal Sovereign of 1864 was the first English turret ship due to the influence of this sea fight, and she has a numerous progeny in our Devastations, our Niles, and our Majestics.

The bloodlessness of an encounter which had so wide and far reaching an effect may well surprise us, but in those days artillery was in its infancy, and rifled ordnance a somewhat distrusted novelty. The guns on either side failed to penetrate, nor can we be startled at this. But the energy exerted

The turret has been claimed both by English and American writers as the discovery of Ericsson, and Coles has been stigmatised as a plagiarist. It is only due then to the memory of an able and distinguished officer to say that Coles could not possibly have seen or known of Ericsson's first design when he brought his cupola ship before the United Service Institution in 1860. He had already, in 1854, constructed a domed turret which was fired on a raft, and carried one 68-pounder. His Royal Sovereign was the successor of the Rolf Krake, an iron double-turreted monitor, with lowering bulwarks, which was ordered by the Danish Government in 1861. In 1864, she engaged the Prussian batteries at Eckernsünde, which mounted the 24-pounder rifled Krupp, and though hit 150 times was none the worse. The turret-ships Scorpion and Wivern, which were built in England for the Confederate Government, and seized and purchased in 1864 by the British Government, were also on Coles' pattern. These three ships had solid 44-inch plating on their turrets, and were a great improvement upon Ericsson's Monitor. The Huascar, built for Peru in 1865, carried one of Coles' turrets, and is afloat to this day.

D

by the projectile has risen from 1850 foot tons in the 7-inch rifle to 35,230 foot tons in the 68-ton gun, which is the standard heavy weapon of our fleet. Armour has, indeed, increased in thickness from 4 inches to 18 inches and 20 inches of greatly improved quality, whilst latterly the Harvey process has given an increase of fifty per cent. to its resisting power as compared with the wrought iron of 1862, thereby ensuring in a thickness of 9 inches, the protective power which required 14 inches at this epoch. But it is certain that the offence has developed more rapidly than the defence.*

This battle following upon the lesson of the 8th so closely, emphasised yet more clearly the doom of the old line of battle ship. Where the Congress and Cumberland had failed so hopelessly, a vessel infinitely smaller, infinitely less imposing in appearance, had encountered their antagonist without any loss at all. It had been maintained by some that the greater number of guns carried upon the unarmoured vessel would compensate for the absence of protection.† On the contrary, it was now demonstrated that an impenetrable ship cannot be overcome by hurling a mass of projectiles against her side, to merely glance off it. It was not found practicable to silence either the Merrimac or Monitor by firing upon their portholes. Some damage was done to the former ship by this method of attack, it is true; but she never ceased to be battleworthy. And the whole aim of naval tactics is to render an opponent's ship no longer serviceable for action. Till this has been done there is no victory.

The subsequent fate of the two ships which took part in the battle deserves a word. After the engagement the

* The thickest armour can still, it is true, defy the heavy gun. But a very small extent of surface can be protected by thick armour, and the rest of the ship's side is necessarily open to all shots.

By Sir Howard Douglas and Captain Fishbourne, vide for the latter's opinion, Journal United Service Institute, ii., 201 ff. The slow speed, the small number of guns carried by ironclads are his objections, and he also apprehends danger from splinters, and from shots entering through the port-holes of ironclads.