maintained
the unequal fight, if fight it can be called where there was absolutely
no hope for him. Finally the _Cumberland_ went down to her cross-trees,
in fifty-four feet of water. Lieutenant Morris succeeded in saving
himself by swimming, but of the crew of 376, 121 lost their lives.

The _Cumberland_ being destroyed, the _Merrimac_ headed for the
_Congress_, which had run aground. She replied with her harmless
broadsides, but the _Merrimac_ held her completely at her mercy, raking
her fore and aft, and killing 100 of the crew, including the commander.
It being evident that not a man could escape, the white flag was run up
in token of surrender. The hot firing from the shore preventing
Commodore Buchanan from taking possession of the _Congress_, whereupon
he fired her with hot shot.

During the fighting, Commodore Buchanan fearlessly exposed himself on
the upper deck of the _Merrimac_, and was badly wounded in the thigh by
a Union sharpshooter, whereupon the command was assumed by Lieutenant
Jones. By that time it was growing dark and the _Merrimac_ steamed back
to Sewall's Point, intending to return the next morning and complete her
appalling work of destruction.

CONSTERNATION IN THE NORTH.

The news of what she had done caused consternation throughout the North.
President Lincoln called a special cabinet meeting, at which Secretary
Stanton declared, in great excitement, that nothing could prevent the
monster from steaming up the Potomac, destroying Washington, and laying
the principal northern cities under contribution. The alarm of the bluff
secretary was natural, but there was no real ground for it.

THE MONITOR.

The Swedish inventor, John Ericsson, had completed his _Monitor_, which
at that hour was steaming southward from New York. Although an ironclad
like the _Merrimac_, she was as different as can be conceived in
construction. She resembled a raft, the upper portion of which was 172
feet long and the lower 124 feet. The sides of the former were made of
oak, twenty-five inches thick, and covered with five-inch iron armor.

The turret was protected by eight-inch plates of wrought iron,
increasing in thickness to the port-holes, near which it was eleven
inches through. It was nine feet high, with a diameter of twenty-one
feet. She drew only ten feet of water, and was armored with two
eleven-inch Dahlgren guns, smooth bore, firing solid shot weighing 180
pounds.

The pilot-house was made of nine