h followed the startling news from
Hampton Roads was indescribable. Abraham Lincoln hastily called a
Cabinet meeting to consider what action it was necessary to take to meet
the now appalling situation. Never before had any man in authority at
Washington realized how absolute was their dependence on the United
States Navy--how impossible it would be to maintain the Government
without its power.

Edwin M. Stanton, the indefatigable Secretary of War, completely lost
his nerve at this Cabinet meeting. He paced the floor with quick excited
tread, glancing out of the window of the White House toward the waters
of the Potomac with undisguised fear.

"I am sure, gentlemen," he said to the Cabinet, "that monster is now on
her way to Washington. In my opinion we will have a shell from one of
her big guns in the White House before we leave this room!"

Lincoln was profoundly depressed but refused to believe the cause of the
Union 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 this
victory would be crushing on public opinion.

The wires to Washington were hot with frantic calls for help. New York
was ready to surrender at the first demand. So utter was the
demoralization at Fortress Monroe, the one absolutely impregnable fort
on the Atlantic coast, that the commander had already determined to
surrender in answer to the first shot the _Merrimac_ should fire.

The preparations for moving McClellan's army to the Virginia Peninsula
for the campaign to capture Richmond were suddenly halted. Two hundred
thousand men must rest on their arms until this crisis should pass. All
orders issued to the Army of the Potomac were now made contingent on the
destruction of the iron monster lying in Hampton Roads.

By one of the strangest coincidences in history the United States Navy
had completed an experiment in floating iron at precisely the same
moment.

While the guns of the battle were yet echoing over the waters of the
harbor, this strange little craft, a floating iron cheese box, was
slowly steaming into the Virginia capes.

At nine o'clock that night Ericsson's _Monitor_ was beside the
panic-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 Davis
had examined it he handed it back to Bushnell with a pitying smile:

"Take the little thin