The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 66

The _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St. Lawrence_, in trying to reach the scene of the battle, had all been grounded. The _Minnesota_ was still lying helpless in the mud as the sun set and the new monarch of the seas slowly withdrew to Sewell's Point to overhaul her machinery and prepare to finish her work next day.

The _Merrimac_ had lost twenty-one killed and wounded--among the wounded was her gallant flag officer, Franklin Buchanan. The _Patrick Henry_ had lost fourteen, the _Beaufort_ eight, the _Raleigh_ seven, including two officers.

The Federal squadron had lost two ships and four hundred men.

But by far the greatest loss to the United States Navy was the supremacy of the seas. The power of her fleets had been smashed at a blow. The ugly, black, powder-stained, iron thing lying under the guns of Sewell's Point had won the crown of the world's naval supremacy. The fleets of the United States were practically out of commission while she was afloat. The panic at the North which followed the startling news from Hampton Roads was indescribable. Abraham Lincoln hastily called a Cabinet meeting to consider what action it was necessary to take to meet the now appalling situation. Never before had any man in authority at Washington realized how absolute was their dependence on the United States Navy--how impossible it would be to maintain the Government without its power.

Edwin M. Stanton, the indefatigable Secretary of War, completely lost his nerve at this Cabinet meeting. He paced the floor with quick excited tread, glancing out of the window of the White House toward the waters of the Potomac with undisguised fear.

"I am sure, gentlemen," he said to the Cabinet, "that monster is now on her way to Washington. In my opinion we will have a sh.e.l.l from one of her big guns in the White House before we leave this room!"

Lincoln was profoundly depressed but refused to believe the cause of the Union could thus be completely lost at a single blow from a nondescript, iron raft. Yet it was only too easy to see that the moral effect of this victory would be crushing on public opinion.

The wires to Washington were hot with frantic calls for help. New York was ready to surrender at the first demand. So utter was the demoralization at Fortress Monroe, the one absolutely impregnable fort on the Atlantic coast, that the commander had already determined to surrender in answer to the first shot the _Merrimac_ should fire.

The preparations for moving McClellan's army to the Virginia Peninsula for the campaign to capture Richmond were suddenly halted. Two hundred thousand men must rest on their arms until this crisis should pa.s.s. All orders issued to the Army of the Potomac were now made contingent on the destruction of the iron monster lying in Hampton Roads.

By one of the strangest coincidences in history the United States Navy had completed an experiment in floating iron at precisely the same moment.

While the guns of the battle were yet echoing over the waters of the harbor, this strange little craft, a floating iron cheese box, was slowly steaming into the Virginia capes.

At nine o'clock that night Ericsson's _Monitor_ was beside the panic-stricken _Roanoke_.

When C. S. Bushnell took the model of this strange craft to Washington, he was referred to Commander C. H. Davis by the Naval Board. When Davis had examined it he handed it back to Bushnell with a pitying smile:

"Take the little thing home, and worship it. It would not be idolatry, because it's made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth."

Wiser councils had prevailed, and the floating cheese box was completed and arrived in Hampton Roads in time to put its powers to supreme test.

The _Merrimac's_ crew ate their breakfast at their leisure and prepared to drive their ugly duckling into the battle line again and finish the work of destroying the battered Federal squadron.

The _Merrimac_ had fought the battle of the day before under the constant pounding of more than one hundred guns bearing on her iron sides. Her armor was intact. Two of her guns were disabled by having their muzzles shot off. Her nose had been torn off and sank with the _c.u.mberland_. One anchor, her smoke stacks and steam pipes were shot away. Every sc.r.a.p of her railing, stanchions, and boat davits had been swept clean. Her flag staff was gone and a boarding pike had been set up in its place.

With stern faces, and absolutely sure of victory, her crew swung her into the stream, crowded on full steam and moved down on the _Minnesota_.

Close under the ship's side they saw for the first time the cheese box.

They had heard of the experiment of her building but knew nothing of her arrival.

Her insignificant size was a surprise and the big _Merrimac_ dashed at her with a sullen furious growl of her big guns. The game little bulldog swung out from the _Minnesota_ and made straight for the onrushing monster.

The flotilla of gunboats had been signaled to retire and watch the duel.

From the big eleven-inch guns of the _Monitor_ shot after shot was hurled against the slanting armored walls of the _Merrimac_.

Broadside after broadside poured from her guns against the iron-clad tower of the _Monitor_.

The _Merrimac_, drawing twenty feet of water, was slow and difficult to handle. The game little _Monitor_ drew but twelve feet and required no maneuvering. Her tower revolved. She could stand and fight in one spot all day.

The big black hull of the _Merrimac_ bore down on the _Monitor_ now to ram and sink her at a blow. The nimble craft side stepped the avalanche of iron, turned quickly and attempted to jamb her nose into the steering gear of the Southerner--but in vain.

For two solid hours the iron-clads pounded and hammered each other. The shots made no impression on either boat.

Again the _Merrimac_ tried to ram her antagonist and run her aground.

The nimble foe avoided the blow, though struck a grinding, crushing side-swipe.

The little _Monitor_ now stuck her nose squarely against the side of the _Merrimac_, held it there, and fired both her eleven-inch guns against the walls of the Southerner.

The charge of powder was not heavy enough. No harm was done. The impact of the shots had merely forced the sloping sides an inch or two.

The captain of the _Merrimac_ turned to his men in sharp command.

"All hands on deck. Board and capture her!"

The smoke-smeared crew swarmed to the portholes and were just in the act of springing on the decks of the _Monitor_, when she backed quickly and dropped down stream.

After six hours of thunder in each other's faces the _Monitor_ drew away into the shoal waters guarding the _Minnesota_.

The _Merrimac_ could not follow her in the shallows and at two o'clock turned her prow again toward Sewell's Point.

The battle was a drawn conflict. But the plucky little _Monitor_ had won a tremendous moral victory. She had rescued the navy in the nick of time. The Government at Washington once more breathed.

From the heights of rejoicing the South sank again to the bitterness of failure. For twenty-four hours her flag had been mistress of the seas.

Jefferson Davis saw the hope of peace fade into the certainty of a struggle for the possession of Richmond.

The way had been cleared. McClellan's two hundred thousand men were rushing on their transports for the Virginia peninsula.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER

Long before Jennie Barton arrived in Richmond Socola had waked to the realization of the fact that he had been caught in the trap he had set for another. He had laughed at his growing interest in the slender dark little Southerner. He imagined that he had hypnotized himself into the idea that he really liked her. He had kept no account of the number of visits he had made. They were part of his programme. They had grown so swiftly into the habit of his thought and life he had not stopped to question the motive that prompted his zeal in pressing his attentions.

In fact his mind had become so evenly adjusted to hers, his happiness had been so quietly perfect, he had lost sight of the fact that he was pressing his attentions at all.

The day she was suddenly called South and he said good-by with her brown eyes looking so frankly into his he was brought sharply up against the fact that he was in love.

When he took her warm hand in his to press it for the last time, he felt an almost resistless impulse to bend and kiss her. From that moment he realized that he was in love--madly, hopelessly, desperately.

He had left the car and hurried back to his post in the State Department, his heart beating like a trip hammer. It was a novel experience. He had never taken girls seriously before. The last girl on earth he had ever meant to take seriously was this slip of a Southern enthusiast. For a moment he was furious at the certainty of his abject surrender. He lifted his eyes to the big columns of the Confederate Capitol and laughed:

"Come, come, man--common sense--this is a joke! Forget it all. To your work--your country calls!"

Somehow the country refused to issue but one call--the old eternal cry of love. Wherever he turned, Jennie's brown eyes were smiling into his.

He looked at the Confederate Capitol to inspire him to deeds of daring and all he could remember was that she was a glorious little rebel with three brothers fighting for the flag that floated there. All he could get out of the supreme emblem of the "Rebellion" was that it was her Capitol and _her_ flag and he loved her.