defective. Ericsson's building of the "Monitor" to meet the emergency of
1862 was a stroke of genius, but its success had for a long time a
misleading effect on the development of naval construction in the United
States.

The "Merrimac" was abandoned and burned by the Confederates a few weeks
later when they evacuated Norfolk and the neighbourhood. At the end of the
year the "Monitor" was ordered to Charleston. She started in tow of a
powerful tug, but the fate she had so narrowly escaped on her first voyage
overtook her. She was caught in a gale off Cape Hatteras on the evening of
31 December, 1862. The tow-ropes had to be cut, and shortly after midnight
the "Monitor" sank ten miles off the Cape. Several of her officers and men
went down with her. The rest were rescued by the tug, with great
difficulty.

Had the wind blown a little harder during the "Monitor's" first voyage from
New York, or had the tow-rope to which she hung parted, there is no doubt
she would have gone down in the same way. In that case the course of
history would have been different, for the "Merrimac" would have been
undisputed master of the Atlantic coast, and have driven off or destroyed
every ship of the blockading squadrons. The fates of nations sometimes
depend on trifles. That of the American Union depended for some hours on
the soundness of the hawser by which the "Monitor" hung on to the tug-boat
"Seth Low" of New York.

CHAPTER XI

LISSA

1866

In the American Civil War there had been no battle between ironclad fleets.
"Monitors" had engaged batteries. The "Merrimac" had had her duel with the
first of the little turret-ships. But experts were still wondering what
would happen when fleets of armoured ships, built in first-class dockyards,
met in battle on the sea.

The war between Austria and Italy in 1866 gave the first answer. The
experiment was not a completely satisfactory one, and some of its lessons
were misread. Others were soon made obsolete by new developments in naval
armaments.

Still, Lissa will always count among the famous sea-fights of the world,
for it was the first conflict in which the armoured sea-going ship took a
leading part. But there is another reason: it proved in the most startling
way--though neither for the first time nor the last--that men count for
more than machines, that courage and enterprise can reverse in the actual
fight the conditions that beforehand would seem to make defe