by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER XXVII
THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
The struggle which Jefferson Davis was making to parry the force of themortal blows delivered by the United States Navy at last gave promise ofstartling success.
The fight to establish the right of the Confederacy to arm its alliesunder letters of marque and reprisal had been won by the SouthernPresident. The first armed vessel sailing under the orders of Daviswhich was captured by the navy had brought the question to sharp issue.The Washington Government had proclaimed the vessels flying theConfederate flag under letters of marque to be pirates and subject tothe treatment of felons.
The Captain and the crew of the _Savannah_ when captured had been put inirons and condemned to death as pirates. If the Washington Governmentcould make good this daring assumption, the power of the Confederacy todamage the commerce of the North would be practically destroyed at ablow.
Davis met the crisis with firmness. He selected an equal number ofFederal prisoners of war in Richmond and threw them into a dungeon belowLibby Prison. He dispatched a letter to Washington whose language couldnot be misunderstood.
"Dare to execute an officer or sailor of the _Savannah_, and I will put to death as felons an equal number of Federal officers and men. I have placed them in close confinement and ordered similar treatment to that accorded our prisoners from the captured vessel."
Socola received a message summoning him to the house on Church Hill.A courier had arrived from Washington. The Government must knowimmediately if this threat were idle or genuine. If Jefferson Davisshould dare to execute these thirteen officers and men, theadministration could not resist the storm of indignant protest whichwould overwhelm it from the North.
Socola read the cipher dispatch by the dim light of the candle in hisattic and turned to Miss Van Lew.
"My information in the State Department is of the most positive kind.The prisoners have been put in the dungeon set apart for condemnedfelons and they but wait the word of the execution of the men from the_Savannah_, to be led to certain death. It may be talk. We must know.Apply for permission to visit the condemned men and minister to theircomfort--"
"At once," was the prompt response. "I've made friends with CaptainTodd, the Commandant of Libby Prison; I'll succeed."
Crazy Bet appeared at Libby Prison next morning with a basket of flowersfor the condemned men. Captain Todd humored her mania. Poor oldabolition fanatic, she could do no harm. She was too frank and outspokento be dangerous. Besides, it was a war of brothers. His own sister wasthe wife of Abraham Lincoln. These condemned men were the best blood ofthe North. It was a pitiful tragedy.
Miss Van Lew, with a market basket on her arm, watched for Socola'sappearance from the office of the Secretary of State. The young clerkwas walking slowly down Main Street and turned into an unused narrowroad at the foot of the hill.
Crazy Bet, swinging the basket and humming a song, passed him withoutturning her head.
"It's true," she whispered quickly, "all horribly true. Thirteen of thefinest officers of the Union army have been condemned to death themoment the crew of the _Savannah_ are executed--among them ColonelCochrane of New York and Colonel Paul Revere of Massachusetts. Thedispatch must go to-night."
"To-night," was the short answer.
Within an hour Socola's courier was on his way to Washington with amessage which unlocked the prison doors of the condemned men on bothsides of the line.
Abraham Lincoln stoutly opposed a repetition of the effort to treatConfederate prisoners as outlaws, no matter where taken by land or sea.Davis had established the legality of his letters of marque and reprisalbeyond question.
The United States Navy in the first flood of its victories made anotherfalse step which brought to the South an hour of brilliant hope. CaptainWilkes overhauled a British steamer carrying the royal mail and tookfrom her decks by force the Commissioners Mason and Slidell whom Davishad dispatched to Europe to plead for the recognition of theConfederacy. The North had gone wild with joy over the act and Congressvoted Wilkes the thanks of the nation as its hero.
Great Britain demanded an apology and the restoration of the prisoners,put her navy on a war footing and dispatched a division of her army toCanada to strike the North by land as well as sea.
The hard common sense of Abraham Lincoln rescued the National Governmentfrom a delicate and dangerous situation. Lincoln apologized to GreatBritain, restored the Confederate Commissioners and returned withredoubled energy to the prosecution of the war. In answer to the shoutsof demagogues and the reproaches of both friend and foe, the homelyrail-splitter from the West had a simple answer.
"One war at a time."
Jefferson Davis watched this threat of British invasion with breathlessintensity. He saw the hope of thus breaking the power of the navy fadewith sickening disappointment.
There was one more hope. The hull of the _Merrimac_ had been raised fromthe bottom of the harbor of Norfolk and the work of transforming herinto a giant iron-clad ship capable of carrying a fighting crew of threehundred men had been completed, though her engines were slow.
But the enthusiastic men set to this task by Davis had accomplishedwonders. Their reports to him had raised high hopes of a sensation. Ifthis new monster of the sea should succeed single handed in destroyingthe fleet of six vessels lying in Hampton Roads, the naval warfare ofthe world would be revolutionized in a day and overtures for peace mightbe within sight.
The Norfolk newspapers, under instructions from the ConfederateCommandant, pronounced the experiment of the _Merrimac_ a stupid andfearful failure. Her engines were useless. Her steering gear wouldn'twork. Her armament was so heavy she couldn't be handled. These paperswere easily circulated at Newport News and Old Point Comfort among theofficers and men of the Federal fleet.
The men who had built the strange craft knew she was anything but afailure. With eager, excited hands her crew finished the last touch ofher preparations and with her guns shotted she slowly steamed out of theharbor of Norfolk accompanied by two saucy little improvised gunboats,the _Beaufort_ and the _Raleigh_.
Her speed was not more than five knots an hour and she steered so badlythe _Beaufort_ was compelled to pull her into the main current of thechannel more than once.
The Federal squadron lay off Newport News, the _Congress_ and the_Cumberland_ well out in the stream, the _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St.Lawrence_ further down toward Fortress Monroe. The _Congress_,_Cumberland_ and _St. Lawrence_ mounted one hundred and twenty-fourguns, twenty-two of them of nine-inch caliber. Their crews aggregatedmore than a thousand men.
The new crack steam frigates _Minnesota_ and _Roanoke_ had crews of sixhundred men each and carried more than eighty guns of nine andeleven-inch caliber. That any single craft afloat would dare attack sucha squadron was preposterous.
It was one o'clock before the strange black looking object swung intothe channel and turned her nose up stream toward Newport News.
The crews of the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_ were lounging on deckenjoying the balmy spring air. It was wash day and the clothes werefluttering in the breeze.
They couldn't make out the foolish-looking thing at first. It lookedlike the top of a long-hipped roof house that had been sawed off at theeaves and pushed into the water. The two little river steamers thataccompanied the raft seemed to be towing it.
"What 'ell, Bill, is that thing?" a sailor asked his mate on the_Congress_.
Bill scanned the horizon.
"I give it up, sir," he admitted. "I been a sailin' the seas for fortyyears--but that's one on me!"
A battle signal suddenly flashed from the _Cumberland_ and down came thewash lines.
The _Beaufort_ with a single thirty-two-pounder rifle mounted in her bowwas steaming alongside the port of the strange craft. A puff of whitesmoke flared from her single gun and its dull roar waked the stillbeautiful waters of the Virginia harbor.
The _Merrimac_ flung her big battle flag into the sky and her tinyescorts
dropped down stream to give her free play. The _Congress_ andthe _Cumberland_ were surprised, but they slipped their anchors in ajiffy, swung their guns in haste and began pouring a storm of shot onthe iron sides of the coming foe.
The _Merrimac_ moved forward with slow, steady throb as though the shotthat rained on her slanting sides were so many pebbles thrown by schoolboys. She passed the _Congress_ and pointed her ugly prow for the_Cumberland_. The ship poured her broadside squarely into the face ofthe Merrimac without damage and the bow gun roared an answer thatpierced her bulwarks.
Through the thick cloud of heavy smoke that hung low on the water thethrobbing monster bore straight down on the _Cumberland_, struck heramidship and sent her to the bottom.
As the gallant ship sank in sickening lurches her brave crew cheered herto her grave and continued firing her useless guns until the wavesengulfed the decks. When her keel touched the bottom her flag was stillflying from her masthead. She rolled over on her beam's end and carriedthe flag beneath the waves.
The Confederate mosquito fleet, consisting of the little gunboats_Patrick Henry_, _Teaser_ and _Jamestown_, swung down from the rivernow, ran boldly past the flaming shore batteries and joined in theattack on the Federal squadron.
The _Congress_ had set one of her sails and with the aid of a tug wasdesperately working to reach shoal water before she could be sunk. Hercaptain succeeded in beaching her directly under the guns of the shorebatteries. At four o'clock she gave up the bloody unequal contest andhauled down her colors.
The _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St. Lawrence_, in trying to reach thescene of the battle, had all been grounded. The _Minnesota_ was stilllying helpless in the mud as the sun set and the new monarch of the seasslowly withdrew to Sewell's Point to overhaul her machinery and prepareto finish her work next day.
The _Merrimac_ had lost twenty-one killed and wounded--among the woundedwas her gallant flag officer, Franklin Buchanan. The _Patrick Henry_ hadlost fourteen, the _Beaufort_ eight, the _Raleigh_ seven, including twoofficers.
The Federal squadron had lost two ships and four hundred men.
But by far the greatest loss to the United States Navy was the supremacyof the seas. The power of her fleets had been smashed at a blow. Theugly, black, powder-stained, iron thing lying under the guns of Sewell'sPoint had won the crown of the world's naval supremacy. The fleets ofthe United States were practically out of commission while she wasafloat. The panic at the North which followed the startling news fromHampton Roads was indescribable. Abraham Lincoln hastily called aCabinet meeting to consider what action it was necessary to take to meetthe now appalling situation. Never before had any man in authority atWashington realized how absolute was their dependence on the UnitedStates Navy--how impossible it would be to maintain the Governmentwithout its power.
Edwin M. Stanton, the indefatigable Secretary of War, completely losthis nerve at this Cabinet meeting. He paced the floor with quick excitedtread, glancing out of the window of the White House toward the watersof the Potomac with undisguised fear.
"I am sure, gentlemen," he said to the Cabinet, "that monster is now onher way to Washington. In my opinion we will have a shell from one ofher big guns in the White House before we leave this room!"
Lincoln was profoundly depressed but refused to believe the cause of theUnion could thus be completely lost at a single blow from a nondescript,iron raft. Yet it was only too easy to see that the moral effect of thisvictory would be crushing on public opinion.
The wires to Washington were hot with frantic calls for help. New Yorkwas ready to surrender at the first demand. So utter was thedemoralization at Fortress Monroe, the one absolutely impregnable forton the Atlantic coast, that the commander had already determined tosurrender in answer to the first shot the _Merrimac_ should fire.
The preparations for moving McClellan's army to the Virginia Peninsulafor the campaign to capture Richmond were suddenly halted. Two hundredthousand men must rest on their arms until this crisis should pass. Allorders issued to the Army of the Potomac were now made contingent on thedestruction of the iron monster lying in Hampton Roads.
By one of the strangest coincidences in history the United States Navyhad completed an experiment in floating iron at precisely the samemoment.
While the guns of the battle were yet echoing over the waters of theharbor, this strange little craft, a floating iron cheese box, wasslowly steaming into the Virginia capes.
At nine o'clock that night Ericsson's _Monitor_ was beside thepanic-stricken _Roanoke_.
When C. S. Bushnell took the model of this strange craft to Washington,he was referred to Commander C. H. Davis by the Naval Board. When Davishad examined it he handed it back to Bushnell with a pitying smile:
"Take the little thing home, and worship it. It would not be idolatry,because it's made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or theearth beneath or in the waters under the earth."
Wiser councils had prevailed, and the floating cheese box was completedand arrived in Hampton Roads in time to put its powers to supreme test.
The _Merrimac's_ crew ate their breakfast at their leisure and preparedto drive their ugly duckling into the battle line again and finish thework of destroying the battered Federal squadron.
The _Merrimac_ had fought the battle of the day before under theconstant pounding of more than one hundred guns bearing on her ironsides. Her armor was intact. Two of her guns were disabled by havingtheir muzzles shot off. Her nose had been torn off and sank with the_Cumberland_. One anchor, her smoke stacks and steam pipes were shotaway. Every scrap of her railing, stanchions, and boat davits had beenswept clean. Her flag staff was gone and a boarding pike had been set upin its place.
With stern faces, and absolutely sure of victory, her crew swung herinto the stream, crowded on full steam and moved down on the_Minnesota_.
Close under the ship's side they saw for the first time the cheese box.They had heard of the experiment of her building but knew nothing of herarrival.
Her insignificant size was a surprise and the big _Merrimac_ dashed ather with a sullen furious growl of her big guns. The game little bulldogswung out from the _Minnesota_ and made straight for the onrushingmonster.
The flotilla of gunboats had been signaled to retire and watch theduel.
From the big eleven-inch guns of the _Monitor_ shot after shot washurled against the slanting armored walls of the _Merrimac_.
Broadside after broadside poured from her guns against the iron-cladtower of the _Monitor_.
The _Merrimac_, drawing twenty feet of water, was slow and difficult tohandle. The game little _Monitor_ drew but twelve feet and required nomaneuvering. Her tower revolved. She could stand and fight in one spotall day.
The big black hull of the _Merrimac_ bore down on the _Monitor_ now toram and sink her at a blow. The nimble craft side stepped the avalancheof iron, turned quickly and attempted to jamb her nose into the steeringgear of the Southerner--but in vain.
For two solid hours the iron-clads pounded and hammered each other. Theshots made no impression on either boat.
Again the _Merrimac_ tried to ram her antagonist and run her aground.The nimble foe avoided the blow, though struck a grinding, crushingside-swipe.
The little _Monitor_ now stuck her nose squarely against the side of the_Merrimac_, held it there, and fired both her eleven-inch guns againstthe walls of the Southerner.
The charge of powder was not heavy enough. No harm was done. The impactof the shots had merely forced the sloping sides an inch or two.
The captain of the _Merrimac_ turned to his men in sharp command.
"All hands on deck. Board and capture her!"
The smoke-smeared crew swarmed to the portholes and were just in the actof springing on the decks of the _Monitor_, when she backed quickly anddropped down stream.
After six hours of thunder in each other's faces the _Monitor_ drewaway into the shoal waters guarding the _Minnesota_.
The _Merrimac_ could not follow he
r in the shallows and at two o'clockturned her prow again toward Sewell's Point.
The battle was a drawn conflict. But the plucky little _Monitor_ had wona tremendous moral victory. She had rescued the navy in the nick oftime. The Government at Washington once more breathed.
From the heights of rejoicing the South sank again to the bitterness offailure. For twenty-four hours her flag had been mistress of the seas.Jefferson Davis saw the hope of peace fade into the certainty of astruggle for the possession of Richmond.
The way had been cleared. McClellan's two hundred thousand men wererushing on their transports for the Virginia peninsula.