LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE MERRIMAC ' AND THE MONITOR.'
[TO THE EDITOR. OF THE " SPECTATOR.:`]
SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. R. W. Murray, claims, as an eye-witness of the action. between the Monitor' and the Merrimac,' to correct certain errors in the review of the fight which appeared in the Spectator of August 30th.
The main exception which he takes to that account is to the statement that " Ericsson's ship boldly attacked the conqueror of the previous day, and drove her, disabled and sinking, back to Charleston." For " Charleston," " Norfolk " should be read. But your correspondent, though admitting that the Merri- mac' " retired subsequently "—it was at 2 p.m.—to Norfolk for repairs, and that she was " slightly leaky," in effect claims the victory for the Confederate vessel, and declares that she " remained monarch of those waters " until blown up by the Confederates on the evacuation of Norfolk.
For "repairs and slightly leaky," I still prefer to read " disabled and sinking." The fight took place on March 9th. It was not until April 11th following that the Merrimac' was once more able to take the sea. The account of her retreat given by Jefferson Davis himself is, that after attempting to ram the Monitor,' the Virginia' (` Merrimac ') " removed to the navy yard," where she had a new prow built. That the `Merrimac' was " disabled " in the attempt to ram the Monitor,' is clear from the letter of Mr. Stimer, the engineer of the Monitor,' to Ericsson. " Her bow," he writes, "passed over our deck, and our sharp upper edge cut through the light iron shoe upon her stem, and well into her oak . She will not try that again."
The claim made by inference that the `Merrimac' won the victory, cannot for a moment be supported. Jefferson Davis, in his "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," thus describes the object of the fight :—" In the morning the Virginia' (' Merrimac ') with the Patrick Henry,' the Jamestown,' and the three little tugs, returned to the scene of the previous day's combat, and to the completion of the work, the destruction of the • Minnesota," which had been driven ashore by the Merrimac' the day before. But at 2 a.m. the Monitor,' which had arrived the night before, was alongside the Minnesota.' At 6 a.m. the Merri- mac' and her consorts advanced "to complete the work." At 1 p.m. the `Merrimac' was in full retreat to Norfolk Dock- yard, which she did not quit for more than a month ; and at 2 p.m. the Minnesota,' which she had come out to destroy, was afloat, and though she grounded again, by the next morning she was safely anchored off Fort Monroe. The Merrimac,' "monarch of those waters," was then passing into the hands of the shipwrights,—or, in the words of the Norfolk Day-Book, " having accomplished all that we designed [!], and having no more material to work upon, our noble vessel left the scene of these triumphs and returned tar the yard, where She awaits another opportunity of displaying her prowess." Lastly, as to her armour. In an article headed " The Great Naval Revolution," in the Cornhill Magazine, May, 1862, we read :—" They (the Confederates) took a quantity of railway metals, and placed them together in groups of three (thus III),
fastening them together by bolts and nuts the rounded heads of the rails being exposed to the enemy.' In " The Great American Civil. War," Vol. II., p. 89, this is described as a " bomb-proof plated with bars of railroad iron
3 in. thick."
There seems, however, reason to believe that a thicker plating, 4in., was afterwards added, which may be that to which
your correspondent refers.—I am, &c., C. J. CORNISH.
Previous page
