Merrimac was most unhandy, and on the ebb tide there would be shoals
enough between us and a berth for the night.... The Minnesota could not
get away, at dawn she would be yet aground, and we would then take her
for our prize. 'Stay till dusk, and the blessed old iron box will ground
herself where Noah's flood won't float her!' The pilot ruled, and in the
gold and purple sunset we drew off. As we passed, the Minnesota blazed
with all her guns; we answered her, and answered, too, the Saint
Lawrence. The evening star was shining when we anchored off Sewell's
Point. The wounded were taken ashore, for we had no place for wounded
men under the turtle's shell. Commodore Buchanan leaving us, Lieutenant
Catesby Ap Rice Jones took command.

"I do not remember what we had for supper. We had not eaten since early
morning, so we must have had something. But we were too tired to think
or to reason or to remember. We dropped beside our guns and slept, but
not for long. Three hours, perhaps, we slept, and then a whisper seemed
to run through the Merrimac. It was as though the iron-clad herself had
spoken, 'Come! watch the Congress die!' Most of us arose from beside the
guns and mounted to the iron grating above, to the top of the turtle's
shell. It was a night as soft as silk; the water smooth, in long, faint,
olive swells; a half-moon in the sky. There were lights across at Old
Point, lights on the battery at the Rip Raps, lights in the frightened
shipping, huddled under the guns of Fortress Monroe, lights along either
shore. There were lanterns in the rigging of the Minnesota where she lay
upon the sand bar, and lanterns on the Saint Lawrence and the Roanoke.
As we looked a small moving light, as low as possible to the water,
appeared between the Saint Lawrence and the Minnesota. A man said,
'What's that? Must be a rowboat.' Another answered, 'It's going too fast
for a rowboat--funny! right on the water like that!' 'A launch, I
reckon,' said a third, 'with plenty of rowers. Now it's behind the
Minnesota.'--'Shut up, you talkers,' said a midshipman, 'I want to look
at the Congress!'

"Four miles away, off Newport News, lay the burning Congress. In the
still, clear night, she seemed almost at hand. All her masts, her spars,
and her rigging showed black in the heart of a great ring of firelight.
Her hull, lifted high by the sand bank which held her, had round red
eyes. Her ports were windows lit from within. She made a vision of
beaut