uccess.

Unable to do any harm to her dwarfish foe, the Merrimac now,
as if in disdain, turned her attention to the Minnesota,
hurling shells through her side. In return the frigate
poured into her a whole broadside at close range.

"It was enough," said the captain of the frigate afterwards,
"to have blown out of the water any wooden ship in the
world." It was wasted on the iron-clad foe.

This change of action did not please the captain of the
Monitor. He thrust his vessel quickly between the two
combatants, and assailed so sharply that the Merrimac
steamed away. The Monitor followed. Suddenly the fugitive
vessel turned, and, like an animal moved by an impulse of
fury, rushed head on upon her tormentor. Her beak struck the
flat iron deck so sharply as to be wrenched by the blow. The
great hull seemed for the moment as if it would crowd the
low-lying vessel bodily beneath the waves. But no such
result followed. The Monitor glided away unharmed. As she
went she sent a ball against the Merrimac that seemed to
crush in her armored sides.

At ten o'clock the Monitor steamed away, as if in flight.
The Merrimac now prepared to pay attention again to the
Minnesota, her captain deeming that he had silenced his
tormenting foe. He was mistaken. In half an hour the
Monitor, having hoisted a new supply of balls into her
turret, was back again, and for two hours more the strange
battle continued.

Then it came to an end. The Merrimac turned and ran away.
She had need to,--those on shore saw that she was sagging
down at the stern. The battle was over. The turreted
iron-clad had driven her great antagonist from the field,
and won the victory. And thus ended one of the strangest and
most notable naval combats in history.

During the fight the Monitor had fired forty-one shots, and
been struck twenty-two times. Her greatest injury was the
shattering of her pilot-house. Her commander, Lieutenant
Worden, was knocked senseless and temporarily blinded by the
shock. On board the Merrimac two men were killed and
nineteen wounded. Her iron prow was gone, her armor broken
and damaged, her steam-pipe and smoke-stock riddled, the
muzzles of two of her guns shot away, while water made its
way into her through more than one crevice.

Back to Norfolk went the injured Merrimac. Here she was put
into the dry-dock and hastily repaired. After that had been
done, she steamed down to the old fighting-ground on two or
three occasions, and c