well upon the various controversies which
this battle has involved. As to the first use of armor, we know that
France experimented with floating armored batteries in the Crimean War,
and England had armored ships before 1862. As to the invention of the
movable turret, which has been a bone of contention, the pages of
Colonel Church's _Life of John Ericsson_ and other books are open to the
curious. The struggle of Ericsson to obtain official recognition, the
raising of money, the hasty equipment of the _Monitor_, and the
restraining orders under which she fought form a story supplementary to
the battle, but of peculiar interest. The _Monitor_ was ordered to act
on the defensive. It was her mission first to protect the wooden ships.
That explains certain misconceptions of her cautious attitude. And the
fact that the powder charges for her Dahlgren guns were officially
limited to fifteen pounds, although thirty and even fifty pounds were
used with safety afterward, invites speculation upon the results if she
had fought with a free hand.

But the main result was reached. The Union fleet was saved. The career
of the _Merrimac_ was checked. No Union vessel was destroyed after the
_Monitor_ appeared. It seems proper to note these facts here, in view of
the fact that Mr. Ramsay's fresh and striking story of the _Merrimac_,
which is presented for the first time, enters upon the details of the
battle more fully than the narrative of Lieutenant Worden and Lieutenant
Greene. Fortunately the discussion has become academic in the
half-century that has passed since Southern cheers over the first
conquests of the _Merrimac_ faltered before the acclaim which greeted
the _Monitor's_ achievement of her task. One may disagree with the
phrasing of various historians on both sides, one may find it difficult
to accept the inscription upon the shaft of the _Merrimac_ outside the
"Confederate White House" in Richmond, but no American can cease to
wonder at the fortitude and daring of those other Americans who fought
to the death in those hastily improvised crafts, bearing the brunt not
only of battle, but of a strange and terrible experiment. It is not an
argument that this book offers, but a saga of heroes, an illumination of
qualities which have made our history in times of crisis.

The year of this battle witnessed the destruction of both the vessels
engaged. Mr. Ramsay describes the blowing-up of the _Merrimac_. An
eye-witness of the sinki