HISTORY OF THE GREAT REBELLION.

sides from the enemy with apparent indifference. She plied her shot with great assiduity, seeking to drive them through the port-holes of her gigantic enemy. This extraordinary encounter lasted some hours, presenting the strange spectacle of two vessels, thirty or forty yards apart, armed with the most destructive weapons of modern warfare, pounding away at each other, without being able to inflict material injury. The shots, any one of which would have been fatal to the best wooden ship afloat, rolled off from each combatant like dewdrops from a leaf. From that hour the naval history of the world The relative military strength of nations was dates a new era. changed. Navies, blockades, defences, and even commerce, as an element of naval strength, were henceforth to assume new characters and to change their relative importance. As the thunder of those guns rolled across the Atlantic, foreign powers at once perceived that the day of wooden vessels had passed away, and that iron-plated ships were to replace the enormous three-deckers that had previously been their bulwarks of defence on the sea.

All the

The question of vulnerability being sufficiently tested, the Merrimac no longer fired upon the Monitor, but turned her attention to the Minnesota, which delivered without the slightest effect, though every shot hit, a broadside which would have sufficed to blow out of water the most formidable timber-built ship in the world. The Merrimac in return fired one shell from her rifled bow gun, which knocked four rooms into one, exploded some charges of powder, and set the ship on fire. The second went through the boiler of the gunboat Dragon, which was attempting to tow the ship off. The boiler exploded, blowing up the vessel, and killing and wounding six men. guns of the Minnesota were actively employed, together with those of the Monitor, and the gunner reported that sixty shot had struck and rolled harmlessly from the sides of the enemy, which now got aground through the ebb of tide. In this position she withstood the utmost efforts of the combined fire. Soon she got off and stood down the bay, followed by the Monitor. She suddenly turned, however, and ran full speed into her diminutive antagonist, inflicting no perceptible damage, and receiving from her a shot which penetrated the roof. The fierce conflict between the two was then renewed until the Monitor hauled off for the purpose of hoisting more shot into her turret. This was practically the termination of the fight, as the Merrimac retired soon after towards Craney Island, apparently in a Thus closed one of the most remarkable naval disabled condition. actions in the history of the world, when the amount of damage done is taken into consideration. Two frigates carrying seventy-two guns were destroyed; two others carrying ninety guns, and several gunboats were disabled, and a number of men were killed and wounded at the shore batteries. The loss in killed, wounded, and missing, was two hundred and sixty men. This havoc displayed the capabilities of an iron-clad steamer of ten guns; and the vessel of such capabilities was withstood for two hours by a much smaller one of two guns. Five times did the Merrimac attempt to ram the Monitor, but the low deck of the latter caused the iron prow of her assailant to run over