File:A short history of the American navy (1907) (14580461599).jpg

Identifier: shorthistoryofam00spea (find matches)
Title: A short history of the American navy
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Spears, John Randolph, 1850-1936 Navy League of the United States
Subjects: United States. Navy
Publisher: New York, C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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r wet their feet. The Congress was then run ashore where the Merrimaccould not follow, but she was set on fire by hot shot andburned. Having accomplished this much, the Merrimacwas obHged to return toward Norfolk and leave the otherFederal ships for another day; for the ebb of the tide leftthe water too shoal for an attack on them. But as shesteamed away it seemed to those who had seen her work,and to those, too, who had heard of it, that she carriedwithin her iron-clad walls the fate of the Nation. But as night came on and the flames of the Congress il-luminated the waters of Hampton Roads, a new defenderof the flag appeared. In August, 1861, Congress had au-thorized a commission of naval officers to consider anyplans of iron-clad vessels that might be submitted to them.Among those submitted was one by John Ericsson, of NewYork, who had brought the screw propeller into use onwarships. No sailor could have invented the Monitor.Ericsson began by designing a hull with rounded ends. It I
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0< bJD CCO THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 89 was 124 feet long 34 wide and 6 deep. On top of this helaid a great box, wedge-shaped at each end, and 172 feetlong 41 wide and 5 deep. A single row of rivets unitedthe two. This superstructure projected 3 feet 8 inchesbeyond the sides of the lower hull and 24 feet beyond eachend. The combination was Hke a raft on a canoe. A re-volving turret 9 feet high and 20 feet in diameter, insidemeasurements, was placed on the centre of the deck, andit revolved on a spindle turned bj^ steam-engines. Two11-inch Dahlgrens were mounted, side by side, in the tur-ret and fired through ports cut in the wall, which wascomposed of eight 1-inch iron plates. The commission ex-pressed the opinion that she did not have the propertieswhich si sea-going vessel should possess, and that opin-ion has been fully sustained, but she was devised on a planthat would render the battery shot and shell proof, anda contract was made for a trial vessel. It should be saidtha

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