ned and fired at the "Minnesota."

The sun was going down and the tide was running out rapidly. The deep
draught of the "Merrimac" made the risk of grounding, if she closely
engaged the "Minnesota," a serious matter. So Buchanan signalled to the
gunboats to cease fire, and, accompanied by them, steamed over to the south
side of the Roads, where he anchored for the night under the Confederate
batteries, intending to complete the destruction of the Federal fleet next
morning.

The first day's fight was over. It had been a battle between the old and
the new--between a steam-propelled armoured ram and wooden sailing-ships.
The "Cumberland" had been sunk, the "Congress" forced to surrender and set
on fire, and the "Minnesota" was hopelessly aground and marked down as the
first victim for next day. The Federals had lost some two hundred men. The
Confederates only twenty-one. Buchanan was wounded, not severely, but
seriously enough for the command of the "Merrimac" to be transferred to
Lieutenant Jones. As night came on the moon rose, but the wide expanse of
water was lighted up, not by her beams only, but also by the red glare from
the burning "Congress." The flames ran up her tarred rigging like rocket
trails, masts and spars were defined in flickers of flame. At last, with a
deafening roar that was heard for many a mile, she blew up, strewing the
Roads with scattered wreckage.

At ten o'clock that evening, while the "Congress" was still burning, a
strange craft had steamed into the Roads from the sea, all unnoticed by the
Confederates. She anchored in the shallow water between the "Minnesota" and
the shore. Her light draught enabled her to go into waters where less
powerful fighting-ships would have grounded. To use the words of one who
first saw her as the sun rose next day, she looked like a plank afloat with
a can on top of it. She was Ericsson's ironclad turret-ship, the "Monitor."

In the first weeks of the war inventors had besieged the United States Navy
Department with proposals for the construction of ironclad warships. The
Department was still leisurely debating as to what policy should be
adopted, when news came that the "Merrimac," half-burnt at Norfolk Yard,
was being reconstructed as an armoured ram, and it became urgent to provide
an adversary to meet her on something like equal terms. It was at this
moment that John Ericsson came forward with his offer to construct an
armoured light-draught turret-ship, wh