g a storm of shot on
the iron sides of the coming foe.

The _Merrimac_ moved forward with slow, steady throb as though the shot
that rained on her slanting sides were so many pebbles thrown by school
boys. She passed the _Congress_ and pointed her ugly prow for the
_Cumberland_. The ship poured her broadside squarely into the face of
the Merrimac without damage and the bow gun roared an answer that
pierced her bulwarks.

Through the thick cloud of heavy smoke that hung low on the water the
throbbing monster bore straight down on the _Cumberland_, struck her
amidship and sent her to the bottom.

As the gallant ship sank in sickening lurches her brave crew cheered her
to her grave and continued firing her useless guns until the waves
engulfed the decks. When her keel touched the bottom her flag was still
flying from her masthead. She rolled over on her beam's end and carried
the flag beneath the waves.

The Confederate mosquito fleet, consisting of the little gunboats
_Patrick Henry_, _Teaser_ and _Jamestown_, swung down from the river
now, ran boldly past the flaming shore batteries and joined in the
attack on the Federal squadron.

The _Congress_ had set one of her sails and with the aid of a tug was
desperately working to reach shoal water before she could be sunk. Her
captain succeeded in beaching her directly under the guns of the shore
batteries. At four o'clock she gave up the bloody unequal contest and
hauled down her colors.

The _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St. Lawrence_, in trying to reach the
scene of the battle, had all been grounded. The _Minnesota_ was still
lying helpless in the mud as the sun set and the new monarch of the seas
slowly withdrew to Sewell's Point to overhaul her machinery and prepare
to finish her work next day.

The _Merrimac_ had lost twenty-one killed and wounded--among the wounded
was her gallant flag officer, Franklin Buchanan. The _Patrick Henry_ had
lost fourteen, the _Beaufort_ eight, the _Raleigh_ seven, including two
officers.

The Federal squadron had lost two ships and four hundred men.

But by far the greatest loss to the United States Navy was the supremacy
of the seas. The power of her fleets had been smashed at a blow. The
ugly, black, powder-stained, iron thing lying under the guns of Sewell's
Point had won the crown of the world's naval supremacy. The fleets of
the United States were practically out of commission while she was
afloat. The panic at the North whic