r by the open ports, and the
guns all ready.... We came to within a mile of the Cumberland, tall and
graceful with her masts and spars and all the blue sky above. She looked
a swan, and we, the Ugly Duckling.... Our ram, you know, was under
water--seventy feet of the old berth deck, ending in a four-foot beak of
cast iron.... We came nearer. At three quarters of a mile, we opened
with the bow gun. The Cumberland answered, and the Congress, and their
gunboats and shore batteries. Then began a frightful uproar that shook
the marshes and sent the sea birds screaming. Smoke arose, and flashing
fire, and an excitement--an excitement--an excitement.--Then it was,
ladies, that I forgot to be afraid. The turtle swam on, toward the
Cumberland, swimming as fast as Montgomery coal and the engines that had
lain at the bottom of the sea could make her go. There was a frightful
noise within her shell, a humming, a shaking. The Congress, the gunboats
and the shore batteries kept firing broadsides. There was an enormous,
thundering noise, and the air was grown sulphurous cloud. Their shot
came pattering like hail, and like hail it rebounded from the iron-clad.
We passed the Congress--very close to her tall side. She gave us a
withering fire. We returned it, and steered on for the Cumberland. A
word ran from end to end of the turtle's shell, 'We are going to ram
her--stand by, men!'

"Within easy range we fired the pivot gun. I was of her crew; half naked
we were, powder-blackened and streaming with sweat. The shell she sent
burst above the Cumberland's stern pivot, killing or wounding most of
her crew that served it.... We went on.... Through the port I could now
see the Cumberland plainly, her starboard side just ahead of us, men in
the shrouds and running to and fro on her deck. When we were all but on
her, her starboard blazed. That broadside tore up the carriage of our
pivot gun, cut another off at the trunnions, and the muzzle from a
third, riddled the smokestack and steam-pipe, carried away an anchor,
and killed or wounded nineteen men. The Virginia answered with three
guns; a cloud of smoke came between the iron-clad and the armed sloop;
it lifted--and we were on her. We struck her under the fore rigging with
a dull and grinding sound. The iron beak with which we were armed was
wrested off.

"The Virginia shivered, hung a moment, then backed clear of the
Cumberland, in whose side there was now a ragged and a gaping hole. The
p