o go to the monitors with orders to attack the Tennessee. These
Palmer delivered in person to each ironclad. "Happy as my friend Perkins
(of the Chickasaw) habitually is," he wrote in his diary, "I thought he
would turn a somersault overboard with joy when I told him, 'The admiral
wants you to go at once and fight that Tennessee.'" The wooden vessels
at the same time were directed to charge the ram, bows on, at full
speed, as well as to attack her with their guns.

The monitors being, like the Tennessee herself, very slow, the ramming
contest first began. The first to reach the hostile ironclad was the
Monongahela, Captain Strong, which struck her squarely amidships on the
starboard side, when she was still four hundred yards distant from the
body of the fleet. Five minutes later the Lackawanna, Captain Marchand,
going at full speed, delivered her blow also at right angles on the port
side, abreast the after end of the armored superstructure. As they swung
round, both United States vessels fired such guns as would bear, but the
shot glanced harmlessly from the armor; nor did the blow of the ships
themselves produce any serious injury upon the enemy, although their own
stems were crushed in for several feet above and below the water line.
Upon them followed the Hartford, approaching, like the Lackawanna, on
the port side; but toward her the Tennessee turned, so that the two met
nearly, though not exactly, bows on. The Hartford's anchor, which there
had not been time to cat, was hanging at the water's edge; it took the
brunt of the collision, which doubled it up, and the two antagonists
scraped by, their port sides touching. At that close range seven
nine-inch guns were discharged against the sloping sides of the
ironclad, but without effect. The admiral had clambered again into the
rigging, on this occasion into the port mizzen-rigging, whence he
watched the effects of this encounter. Both the Lackawanna and the
Hartford now made a circuit to get a position whence they could again
charge the enemy; but in the midst of their sweep the Lackawanna ran
square into the flag-ship, striking near where Farragut stood, and
cutting the vessel down to within two feet of the water. The immediate
impression among the ship's company was that the injury was fatal; and
the general cry that arose, "Save the admiral! Get the admiral on board
the Lackawanna!" by its ignoring of their own danger, testified how
Farragut's martial and personal