n the Merrimac owing to pressure of time. He enjoyed, however,
enormous advantages in every other respect, owing to the vastly
superior resources of the North in marine engineering, armor-plating,
and all other points of naval construction. The _Monitor_ was launched
at New York on January 30, 1862, the hundredth day after the laying
of her keel-plate. Her length over all was 172 feet, her beam was
41, and her draught only 10--less than half the draught of the
_Merrimac_. Her whole crew numbered only 58; but every single one
was a trained professional naval seaman who had volunteered for
dangerous service under Captain John L. Worden. She was not a good
sea boat; and she nearly foundered on her way down from New York to
Fortress Monroe. Her underwater hull was shipshape enough; but her
superstructure--a round iron tower resting on a very low deck--was
not. Contemptuous eyewitnesses described her very well as looking
like a tin can on a shingle or a cheesebox on a raft. She carried
only two guns, eleven-inchers, both mounted inside her turret,
which revolved by machinery; but their 180-pound shot were far
more powerful than any aboard the _Merrimac_. In maneuvering the
_Monitor_ enjoyed an immense advantage, with her light draft, strong
engines, and well-protected screws and rudder.

On the eighth of March, a lovely spring day, the _Merrimac_ made
her trial trip by going into action with her wheezy old engines,
lubberly crew, and the guns she had never yet fired. She shoveled
along at only five knots; but the Confederate garrisons cheered
her to the echo. Seven miles north she came upon the astonished
fifty-gun _Congress_ and thirty-gun _Cumberland_ swinging drowsily
at anchor off Newport News, with their boats alongside and the
men's wash drying in the rigging. Yet the surprised frigates opened
fire at twelve hundred yards and were joined by the shore batteries,
all converging on the _Merrimac_, from whose iron sides the shot
glanced up without doing more than hammer her hard and start a few
rivets. Closing in at top speed--barely six knots--the _Merrimac_
gave the _Congress_ a broadside before ramming the _Cumberland_
and opening a hole "wide enough to drive in a horse and cart."
Backing clear and turning the after-pivot gun, the _Merrimac_ then
got in three raking shells against the _Congress_, which grounded
when trying to escape. Meanwhile the _Cumberland_ was listing over
and rapidly filling, though she kept up th