earn the truth of this. For when she came grimly
out the next day, expecting to sink the rest of the fleet and then steam
up to the city of Washington and perhaps burn that, her captain found
before him the queerest thing in the shape of a ship he had ever seen.
It was an iron vessel that looked like "a cheese box on a raft." All
that could be seen was a flat deck that came just above the water, and
above this a round tower of iron, out of which peeped two monsters of
cannon.

This strange vessel had come into Hampton Roads during the night, and
there it lay ready to do battle for the Union. It was a new style of
war-ship that had been built in New York and was called the "Monitor."

The "Merrimac" soon had enough to keep herself busy, and was forced to
let the wooden fleet alone. For four long hours these two iron monsters
battered each other with cannon balls. Such a fight had never been seen
before. It was the first time two iron-clad ships had met in war.

I cannot say that either ship was hurt much. The balls could not get
through the iron bars and plates and glanced off into the water. But the
"Merrimac" got the worst of it, and in the end she turned and hurried
back to Norfolk, from which place she had come. The "Monitor" waited for
her, but she never came out again. Soon afterwards the Confederates left
Norfolk and sunk their iron ship, and that was the last of the
"Merrimac."

When the news of this wonderful sea-fight got to Europe the kings and
ministers of war read it with alarm. They saw they had something to do.
Their wooden war-vessels were out of date, and they went to work in a
hurry to build iron-clad ships. To-day all the great nations of the
earth have fleets of steel-covered ships-of-war, and the United States
has some of the best and strongest of this kind of ships.

All through the war there were battles of iron-clads. On the western
rivers steamboats were plated with iron and attacked the forts on shore.
And along the coast iron-clad vessels helped the wooden ships to
blockade the ports of the South. More vessels like the "Monitor" were
built in the North, and a number somewhat like the "Merrimac" were built
in the South. I cannot say that any of them did much good either North
or South.

A great naval battle was fought in the Mississippi, which led to the
capture of New Orleans, and another was fought in the Bay of Mobile, on
the Gulf of Mexico. Here there were some strong forts and a power