This was Ericsson's
"cheese-box on a raft," named by him the _Monitor_. The Union officers
who had witnessed the day's events with dismay, and were filled with
gloomy forebodings for the morrow, while welcoming this providential
reinforcement, were by no means reassured. The _Monitor_ was only half
the size of her antagonist, and had only two guns to the other's ten.
But this very disparity proved an essential advantage. With only ten
feet draft to the _Merrimac's_ twenty-two, she not only possessed
superior mobility, but might run where the _Merrimac_ could not follow.
When, therefore, at eight o'clock on Sunday, March 9, the _Merrimac_
again came into Hampton Roads to complete her victory, Lieutenant John
L. Worden, commanding the _Monitor_, steamed boldly out to meet her.
Then ensued a three hours' naval conflict which held the breathless
attention of the active participants and the spectators on ship and
shore, and for many weeks excited the wonderment of the reading world.
If the _Monitor's_ solid eleven-inch balls bounded without apparent
effect from the sloping roof of the _Merrimac_, so, in turn, the
_Merrimac's_ broadsides passed harmlessly over the low deck of the
_Monitor_, or rebounded from the round sides of her iron turret. When
the unwieldy rebel turtleback, with her slow, awkward movement, tried
to ram the pointed raft that carried the cheese-box, the little vessel,
obedient to her rudder, easily glided out of the line of direct impact.
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