CHAPTER V. THE ATLANTIC COAST. HEN the Monitor sent the Merrimac from Hampton Roads back to Norfolk with the water pouring in through her seams, the world saw that the days of the old-time ships-the wooden seventy-fours and frigates-had gone by never to return. Orders were at once given for the construction of several more monitors, also of an iron-plated ship, to be called the New Ironsides. From the day when the Stars and Stripes had been lowered at Fort Sumter there had been one sentiment uppermost in the minds of the people of the North, one fixed, resolute determination that the flag should wave once more over that fortress-a determination which was behind the order of the Secretary of the Navy for the construction of the new turreted war-vessels. A few days later and there was great activity in the iron-mills. Day and night the forges flamed. Through the weeks the great engines never ceased their throbbing, or the ponderous steam-hammers their pounding, in preparing the iron plates to resist the solid shot which would be hurled against them from Sumter. As fast as completed the monitors were sent south to Port Royal. Knowing that there was to be a bombardment of that fortress, I made my way thither to witness it. The Montauk arrived first, steamed down past Savannah River to the Ogeechee Sound, and opened fire upon the Confederate Fort McAllister, to try her guns and machinery, dismounting one gun in the fort, killing and wounding several men, remaining four hours, using up all her ammunition, and then, the tide going out, steamed into deeper water unharmed by the eleven-inch solid shot which had struck the turret. There was an exciting scene off Charleston on the morning of January 30th. The Confederates had plated two steamers - the Palmetto State and Chicora-with railroad iron. The vessels had been strengthened by timbers, were mounted with heavy guns, and provided with iron beaks which were to be thrust through the sides of the wooden steamers of the with a very valuable cargo. The sailors of the fleet were happy over the thought that they would have a portion of the prize-money. A thin haze was hanging over the water; the faint dawn of the morning was on the eastern sky when the sailors on the Mercedita beheld the Palmetto State rushing upon them; and at the same instant a shell crashed into the ves sel, and through the boiler, letting out the steam upon the unsuspecting crew, and the next moment the iron beak of the Confederate craft pierced. the side, letting in a torrent of water. The officer in command, knowing that his vessel is helpless, surrenders; but the Palmetto State cannot stop to take the crew on broad-it has more important work in hand, and steams with the Chicora for the Keystone State, both vessels sending shells through her sides. The Union sailors spring to their guns, the engineer puts on steam, and the Keystone State is rushing like a race-horse towards the Chicora to run her down, when a shot pierces her boiler, and she, too, is helpless. The whole Union fleet is in motion-the Memphis, while sending its shot against the Chicora, throws a cable to the Keystone State and takes her away; the Quaker City, the Augusta, the Housatonic are at hand, whereupon the two Confederate vessels turn about and make for the harbor, anchoring under the guns of Sumter and Moultrie. More than one-fourth of the crew of the Keystone State had been killed by the shells or scalded by the escaping steam. The Confederates issued a proclamation that every one of the vessels of the Union fleet had been driven away; that the blockade had been raised. The British and French consuls went down the harbor on a steamboat furnished them by General Beauregard, looked with their glasses, but did not see any of the vessels of the blockading fleet. General Beauregard published their statements, and announced that the blockade had been raised. It was telegraphed to Richmond, and Jefferson Davis reannounced it; but the next morning there were twenty-four war-vessels off Charleston harbor flying the Stars and Stripes. If the blockade had been really broken, sixty days must have elapsed before it could be re-established under the international law; but the merchants of other countries did not see fit to send any vessels openly to Charleston. The blockade had not been broken, and the vigilance of the fleet was not relaxed. The steamer Nashville, owned by the Confederates, which had brought a valuable cargo of arms from England to Wilmington, and which were used by the Confederate troops in the battles of the Peninsula against McClellan, at Fair Oaks, and Glendale, had been cooped up in Savannah several months. She was loaded with cotton, carried several cannon, and was waiting for an opportunity to slip past the fleet off Savannah, but in attempting to do so, on the night of the last day of February, ran aground. Captain Worden, on the Montauk, discovered the Nashville, but paying no attention to the fire from Fort McAllister, ran up so near that he could send his eleven-inch shells into the Confederate vessel, which was riddled |