the knowledge of the General command- tion is given by the commander of the ing, will be punished with the extreme Confederate army.' Neither side, it penalty of military law. Exceptions will be observed, positively denied the may undoubtedly occur, as we have allegations of the other. That atrocimurderers in all communities, but the ties, beyond the inevitable cruelties of employment of Indians involves a prob- war, were committed, there can be little ability of savage ferocity which is not doubt. That the probability of their regarded as an exception to the rule. commission would be vastly increased Bloody conflicts seem to inspire their by bringing Indians into battle, hardly ancient barbarities; nor can we expect admits of question. Once begun, they civilized warfare from savage foes. If would be perpetuated on both sides, and any presumption has been raised in their arrested only by the strong hand of milfavor on the score of civilization, it has itary discipline and authority. certainly been demolished by the use of the tomahawk, war-club, and scalpingknife at Pea Ridge." The letter of General Sigel, referred to, called the attention of General Curtis to information which had been received of certain gunners having been surrounded and shot dead by the rebels after their pieces of artillery had been captured, although seeking refuge behind their horses. "When such acts are committed," he added, "it is very natural that our soldiers will seek revenge, if no satisfac

On the 11th of March, General Halleck was assigned to the enlarged command of the Department of the Mississippi, including the recent departments of Kansas and Missouri, the Department of Ohio, and country west of a north and south line drawn through Knoxville, Tennessee, and east of the western boundaries of the States of Missouri and Arkansas. This brought under his command the armies of Buell and Grant, gathering in Tennessee for the expulsion of the Confederates from that State.

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE MERRIMAC AND MONITOR, MARCH 8TH AND 9TH, 1862.

WHILE the enemy were breaking up at Manassas, preparatory to their general leave-taking of the ground before Washington which they had so long occupied, an event occurred in sight of Fortress Monroe, which fairly divided the attention of the public with the extensive military operations on the Potomac and along the vast line of the enemy. This was the sudden dash of the ironplated Merrimac, or, as she was now christened by her rebel owners, the Virginia, upon the United States vessels blockading the entrance to Norfolk and the mouth of the James river. In the extent of the action which ensued, the

scene where it occurred, the novelty of the contest, its striking conclusion, its immediate fatal results, and its lasting consequences as a new development of warfare, the engagement will ever be ranked as one of the most extraordinary and interesting in naval annals.

The Merrimac will be remembered as one of the ill-fated vessels which was scuttled in the harbor of Norfolk at the time of the destruction of the navy yard and its abandonment to the insurgents upon the open breaking out of the rebellion in Virginia. She was subsequently raised and placed in the dry dock, and efforts made to fit her with a formidable

a grave in her; Jones is less confident, but says she is as good a place to die in as a man could have. The objection to her, and it is a serious one, is the fact that she is entirely dependent on her machinery; if that gets out of order she becomes a mere log in the water. But if that holds out, it is fair to expect that she will do some damage to the two Yankee frigates now lying off Newport News before this week ends. Let us not be too sanguine, but hope for the best. She may help to help us out of our great difficulty."

armament and prepare her for sea. Her hull was cut down and a bomb-proof covering of wrought-iron put over her main deck. Her bow and stern were sharpened and clad in steel, with a projecting angle of iron to pierce any adversary she might encounter. A letter-writer from Richmond to the New Orleans Crescent, furnishes us with an account of these equipments when the vessel was completed, and exhibits something of the spirit of her officers in carrying her into action. "As it is almost certain," he says, "that the Merrimac will either have proved a brilliant success or a mis- Various reports reached the North erable failure before this reaches you, it while these preparations were going on. will not be improper in me to give your At one time everything was expected readers a few facts in regard to her. In from the vessel; then rumors came of a the first place, her engines are five hun- miscalculation in her reconstruction, by dred and ten horse power; and, in spite which the displacement of water renof her great weight, it is thought she dered her unfit for sailing; then that the will make from twelve to fifteen miles an defect was remedied, that she was ready hour. She does not draw by a foot and for sea and would come out, attack the a half as much water as was expected. United States vessels at the station, and When afloat she presents to the enemy break up the blockade. Some newspaper only a roof above the water. All of her writers went so far, in their anxiety, as machinery is below the water line. Her to calculate the means of resistance at sides and roof are composed of oak hand, should she escape the blockade and twenty-eight inches thick, covered with suddenly make her appearance in New six inches of plate and railroad iron. York harbor. The officers at Newport She has an apparatus for throwing hot News and Fortress Monroe were well water on boarders. Her armament con-advised of her state of preparation. sists of ten guns only, all rifled. The General Wool had sent word to Washguns in her sides-four in number-are 80-pounders. Those at the bow and stern throw a 100-pound solid shot, or a 120-pound shell, and these guns have three ports, which enable her to give a broadside of six guns. She has furnaces for heating shot. Her crew consists of ten lieutenants and three hundred and fifty picked men, and among them are the best gunners in the old navy. She has under water a wedge-shaped prow of oak and iron thirty-three feet long. Commodore Buchanan commands her, and the second in command is Catesby Jones-both men of the highest order of courage. Buchanan has confidence in her, and says he is going to glory or

ington that she was ready to move, and the Government had responded by ordering the iron gunboat Monitor, just completed by the eminent inventor, Ericsson, at New York, and the frigate St. Lawrence to that station.

At length, on the 8th of March, a fine sunshiny day at Hampton Roads, with the water quite smooth, the Merrimac, shortly after mid-day, was seen, accompanied by two small gunboats-the Beaufort, Lieutenant-Commanding Parker, and the Raleigh, Lieutenant-Commanding Alexander, each of one gunslowly working her way out of Elizabeth river. She passed around Craney Island through the channel by Sewall's Point,

and stood toward Newport News. On the Cumberland by Lieutenant George her approach to this point she was joined by several armed steamers from James river-the Patrick Henry, Commander Tucker, of six guns, the Jamestown, Lieutenant-Commanding Barney, of two guns, and the Teazer, Lieutenant-Commanding Webb, of one gun.

M. Morris, in the absence of Captain Wm. Radford, who was attending a court of inquiry on board the Roanoke. Lieutenant Morris, a native of Massachusetts and citizen of New York, entered the service in 1846, and had received his present commission but a few months before. His second in command, Lieutenant Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr., a native and citizen of Massachusetts, had been but ten years in the service. By the numer

navy of older date, it was noted that these officers had risen in a year a hundred or more steps in the ladder of promotion. Their antagonist, the confederate commander of the Merrimac, FlagOfficer Franklin Buchanan, was a native of Maryland, who, after having seen forty-five years' service in the navy of the United States, had, at the outbreak of the rebellion, abandoned his post as commandant of the Washington Navyyard and accepted employment in the Rebel States.

The appearance which the Virginia presented on coming in sight of the vessels on the lookout was that of a submerged house, with the roof only above water, surmounted by her short smoke-ous defections of the Southerners in the stack, and the rebel flag flying from a staff. She steamed directly for the frigate Congress and the sloop-of war Cumberland, which were stationed off James river to guard the blockade and as a protection to the camp on the shore at Newport News. Both of these were sailing vessels, and had consequently no opportunity of manuvering in presence of so formidable an antagonist. The other vessels in the roads were some eight or nine miles off, at Fortress Monroe, and immediately on the appearance of the Merrimac had been signaled to As the Merrimac approached, she was the aid of the Congress and Cumberland. greeted, at a distance of about a mile, They were the flag-ship Roanoke, Captain with a discharge from the powerful pivotJohn Marston, the frigate Minnesota, Cap- guns of the Cumberland. Some of the tain Van Brunt, and some half dozen shots struck, but evidently produced no gunboats, which were employed in towing effect. The iron-roofed monster came the frigates into position-the Minnesota steadily on-her ports closed till within not having full steam on at starting, and a hundred yards. She received full the Roanoke being disabled by a broken broadsides from her two antagonists, unshaft. While the latter were getting checked and apparently uninjured. The under way, the Merrimac was slowly stout defence upon which the gallant moving onward, as the iron-clad rebel sailors relied for the protection of their steamers Yorktown and Jamestown were ships had seemingly as little power of hastening to meet her from James river. annoyance as so many "peas from a The Congress and Cumberland were, pop-gun." The balls from the monster meantime, prepared for action. The for- discharges of the Dahlgrens glanced on mer mounted fifty guns; the latter, twen- the mailed roof and bounded away. The ty-four of heavy calibre-eleven 9-inch Cumberland had thus fired five or six and 10-inch Dahlgrens on a side and two broadsides, when a single shot from the pivot-guns of the same make fore and Merrimac killed five of her men. The aft. The Congress was commanded by Merrimac then drew off and ran violentLieutenant Joseph B. Smith, a native of ly down upon her, striking her heavily the state of Maine, the son of a veteran on the port bow, knocking a hole in the of the service, Commodore Joseph Smith; | side near the water-line as large as the

FATE OF THE CUMBERLAND.

299

head of a hogshead and driving the ves-ing overboard. Timely notice was given sel back upon her anchors with great and all the wounded who could walk force, while the water ran into her hold. were ordered out of the cock-pit; but As the Merrimac retired, she discharged those of the wounded who had been carher guns at the sinking vessel, with dead- ried into the sick-bay and on the berthly effect. Still the powerful battery of deck were so mangled that it was imposthe Cumberland, sinking though she was, sible to save them. *** I can only kept steadily pouring its impotent fire say, in conclusion, that all did their duty, upon her assailant, who in her turn sent and we sank with the American flag her furious cannonade to add the agonies flying at the peak."" When the Cumof wounds to the fate of the drowning. berland went into action there were three To heighten, if possible, the scene of ter- hundred and seventy-six souls, officers ror, the vessel was set on fire in the for- and privates, on board; of these one ward part. Still officers and men stood hundred and seventeen were known to be by their guns in the fast-settling ship, lost, about twenty-three were missing, surrounded by the wounded and the and the rest were saved. † The Chapdying. For three-quarters of an hour lain, the Reverend John L. Lanhart, who this was continued, till the water reached had seen fifteen years' service in the the ports, yet the Cumberland did not navy, was drowned. surrender. As she sank, while her men were firing her last battery, her flag was still flying, and when the hull grounded, fifty-four feet below the surface, the pennant was still streaming at the topmast above the waves, and there it remained long after the enemy had departed. The men, at the last extremity, saved themselves as they best could. Some, unable to reach the spar-deck, leapt from the port-holes, others sought the boats and spars in the water, and others ascended the rigging. None were captured, but nany were drowned before the small steamer sent from Newport News came to their relief.

"At half past three o'clock," says Lieutenant Morris, in his report of the action, "the water had gained upon us, notwithstanding the pumps were kept actively employed, to a degree that, the forward magazine being drowned, we had to take powder from the after magazine for the 10-inch gun. At thirty-five minutes past three the water had risen to the main-hatchway and the ship canted to port, and we delivered a parting fire, each man trying to save himself by jump

*Statement of Mr. A. B. Smith, pilot on board the Cumberland at the time of the engagement.-The World, March 11, 1862.

The courage with which the Cumberland was fought to the last, her gallant officers and crew preferring death to sur. render, secured the admiration alike of friend and foe. The simple story of her resistance and final destruction is the best eulogy of her defenders. Though sadly perishing by brutal wounds inflicted by rebel officers, once sworn to her protection, her history and fate will be proudly cherished among the most inspiring records of our naval history. Well did her officers and crew earn the grateful acknowledgement awarded to them by the Secretary of the Navy in behalf of the country. Addressing Lieutenant Morris, from the Navy Department, March 21st, the Honorable Gideon Welles wrote, "In the calamitous assault of the armed steamer Merrimac upon the sloop Cumberland and frigate Congress, on the 9th inst., which were comparatively helpless, the Department has had occasion to admire the courage and determination of yourself and the officers and men associated with you, who, under the most disastrous and appalling circumstances,

*Geo. M. Morris, Lieutenant and Executive Officer, to Commander Wm. Radford, Newport News, Va., March 9, 1862.

List of Mr. Hugh Nott, Paymaster's Clerk of the Cum berland.-New York Herald, March 16, 1862