Without waiting longer than necessary for an early breakfast -about eight and a quarter o'clock, the Virginia led the way to the second trial of strength and endurance, followed by the Patrick Henry, the Jamestown, the Raleigh and the Teaser, and steamed straight for the Minnesota. The battle was to be fought below the middle ground"-in the deeper channel of the lower Roads, nearer to Fortress Monroe and the Rip-raps, and immediately off the Confederate Battery at Sewell's Point. Moving very slowly, the Virginia made straight as the channel would permit for the Minnesota and the Monitor, and opened fire from her bow pivot gun, and, closing the distance, delivered her starboard broadside at shorter range. The Monitor promptly accepted the challenge and stood boldly for the Virginia, passing her and delivering the fire of her eleven-inch gun directly upon the armored side of the Virginia. Both vessels turned and approached each other-the Monitor firing with the greatest deliberation at intervals of seven or eight minutes, and the Virginia oftener from her greater number of guns. It was soon apparent to both commanding officers that each had found a foeman worthy of his ship, and that the test was to be the strength of their country's iron rather than of the seamanship or courage of her sailors. The poetry of a naval battle was not there; it was simply a game of enormous iron bolts hurled upon thick iron plates from iron guns of heretofore unknown dimensions. The contest was not between ships, but between metal monsters with impenetrable sides.

The Virginia was working badly, the Monitor beautifully. The damage to the smokestack of the Virginia in the fight of the day before impeded the making of steam, and Chief Engineer Ramsay reported great difficulty in obtaining the necessary draft for his boilers. In addition to this, the great draft of the Virginia caused her to touch bottom and drag in the mud. Her twenty-three feet of draft confined her to a narrow channel, while the Monitor's twelve-feet draft enabled her to take any position she desired. The Monitor was the better boat-more obedient to her helm, more easily turned, and equally invulnerable, but not without apparent embarrassments. Her pilot-house, immediately in front of her turret, impeded the fire of her guns; and her commander, shut off in the pilot-house from her executive officer in the turret, had to pass his order through speaking-tubes, which were broken early in the action, and afterward by two landsmen, who were so unfamiliar with the technical communications that they were often misunderstood. Nevertheless, the Monitor was the superior ship in all the essentials necessary in action. It was not long before the experience of battle showed to Lieut. Jones the impossibility of perforating the turret, and he directed his fire upon the pilot-house with better results, and soon a shell from the Virginia "struck the forward side of the pilot-house, directly in the sight-hole or slit,

THE BATTLE OF THE IRONCLADS. MARCH 9TH. 1862.

and exploded, cracking the second iron-log, and partly lifting the top, left an opening. Worden was standing immediately behind this spot, and received in his face the force of the blow, which partly stunned him, filling his eyes with powder and utterly blinded him," and the command devolved on Lieut. S. D. Greene.

2

Two hours of hard blows from the Virginia had made no impression on the Monitor, and the same amount of pounding had done no greater injury to the Virginia; and the battle continued at close quarters for some time, at less than fifty yards, without apparent damage to either side. Under these circumstances, Lieut. Jones determined to try the same engine of destruction that the day before had broken through the wooden walls of the Cumberland; and, if not able to break in the sides of the Monitor, to run her down, or to fasten on to her and board her. Owing to the defective stearing-gear of the Virginia, this required nearly an hour of manoeuvring for position, which was mistaken by observers for retreat, or evidence of damage inflicted; and when at last the opportunity offered, there was not room enough for the ship to get that headway which might have crushed the Monitor with the weight, if not by the blow, of the Virginia; so, when the ships came together, the agile, swift-turning Monitor eluded the blow, which amounted to nothing more than a small indentation. The ram of the Virginia had been broken off in the Cumberland, but it is very doubtful if under any headway that the Virginia could have acquired in that narrow channel of the Roads, any prow would have done material damage to the Monitor. Neither was it found practicable to board the Monitor, as was intended by Lieut. Jones, as she dropped astern before the boarders could get on board.

During this duel, from nine to eleven o'clock, between the iron-clads, the Yorktown and Jamestown participated, and received the fire of the Monitor and Minnesota. The latter vessel had received from the steamer Rancocas 100 solid shot, which she used against the Virginia, but with no perceptible injury to her iron sides. The Virginia used shells exclusively, the only solid shot that she carried being of large windage for use as hot shot; but as the solid shot from the Monitor and Minnesota did not injure the four-inch iron sides of the Virginia, it is not probable that solid shot from the guns of the Virginia would have done any more injury upon the nineinch iron bulwarks of the Monitor. In the close contact of less than forty yards, the rapid firing of both ships enveloped them in dense clouds of smoke, almost totally concealing the contestants, from which they would emerge in their evolutions to receive the cheers of their respective friends, with their flags flying, to indicate that no victory had been won by either side.

1 Commander S. D. Greene, in Century, March, 1885: p. 761.

2 Greene and Wood, in the Century, March, 1885.

As the ships steamed round each other for position, the Virginia would turn her guns upon the stranded Minnesota and endeavor to destroy her. One of these shots took effect in the steamer Dragon, lying alongside the frigate, and exploded her boiler.

In the ineffectual effort of the Virginia to ram the Monitor, the latter delivered two shots from her eleven-inch guns directly and squarely upon the armored sides of the former, the effect of which was to knock down all the crews of the after-guns, and the concussion producing bleeding from nose and ears; the impact of these solid shots forced in the wooden backing of the shield two or three inches, and if such shots had been repeated at the same spot might have broken through and penetrated into the ship.

The battle raged almost continuously for four hours, and about 12 M. terminated without material damage to either ship, and certainly without decisive victory for either flag. So far as damage done can indicate success, the Virginia could claim the palm of victory. She had sunk the Cumberland, burned the Congress, riddled the Minnesota, destroyed the Dragon, burned the Whitehall, injured the Roanoke and St. Lawrence, and left her mark upon the Monitor. More than thirty prisoners had been captured, and over 250 of her enemies killed and wounded. Not a vessel of the Confederate squadron had been disabled, or even seriously injured. The Patrick Henry was compelled to haul out of the fight of the first day for a few hours to repair damage, but was at her post during all of the second day's fight; the clean sweep made of everything outside of the Virginia, and the loss of flag-staff and of one mast in the fleet, was the total damage done the Confederate ships.

Whether the Monitor or the Virginia first withdrew from action is yet unsettled. Lieut. Jones says: "At length the Monitor withdrew over the middle ground where we could not follow, but always maintaining a position to protect the Minnesota," which was the objective of Lieut. Jones' fight on the 9th. "To run our ship ashore on a falling tide would have been ruin. We waited her return for an hour; and at 2 P. M.

1 Chief Engineer Allan C. Stiners of the Monitor reported, March 9th, 1862 : "We were struck twenty-two times, pilot - house twice, turret nine times, side armor eight times, deck three times. The only vulnerable point was the pilot-house. One of your great logs (nine by twelve inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just outside of where the captain had his eye, and it has disabled him by destroying his left eye, and temporarily blinding the other. The log is not quite in two, but is broken and pressed inwards one and a half inches. [The log' alluded to is made of wrought iron of the best material.] She tried to run us down and sink us, as she did the Cumberland yesterday, but she got the worst of it. Her bow passed over our deck, and our sharp upper edge side cut through the light iron shoe upon her stern, and

well into her oak. She will not try that again. She gave us a tremendous thump, but did not injure us in the least. We are just able to find the point of contact.

"The turret is a splendid structure. I don't think much of the shield, but the pendulums are fine things, though I cannot tell you how they would stand the shot, as they were not hit.

"You were very correct in your estimate of the effect of shot upon the man on the inside of the turret when it was struck near him. Three men were knocked down, of whom I was one; the other two had to be carried below; but I was not disabled at all, and the others recovered before the battle was over."

2 Century, March, 1885, p. 744.