Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/63

Rh the night of May 10, 1862, came upon the Confederacy like a clap of thunder. Commodore Tatnall's intention was to lighten the ship, by throwing overboard coal and stores, to a draft of eighteen feet, and then proceed up the James river to Harrison's bar, forty miles below Richmond. After the ship had been thus lightened, the pilots suddenly declared the ship could not be taken there. The ship being now no longer an ironclad as to her hull the lightening had brought the eaves of her shield above water, and there were no means to bring her down again to her proper draft of twenty-two feet nothing remained but to destroy her.

But what service would she have been at Harrison's bar or anywhere else, when one shell at her unprotected water-line would have sent her to the bottom as quickly as an iron pot sinks! In point of fact, when the Merrimac was left without support by the evacuation of Norfolk, there remained but one of two things to do, viz., to blow her up, or to attack the enemy's fleet below Old Point, and proceed to the York river and destroy McClellan's transports. The latter course might have resulted greatly to Confederate advantage. It is possible, now, to see some such results as these : That Flag-Officer Goldsborough's vessels would have proceeded to sea without waiting to be attacked ; Fortress Monroe would have surrendered; McClellan's plan of campaign would Have been frustrated, and the Chesapeake bay and the mouths of the Potomac, Rappahannock, York and James rivers would have been controlled. But Commodore Tattnell has been fully justified in the alternative course he adopted.

The moral effect of the Merrimac was most wonderful. The United States authorities were panic-stricken. Many of those high in command completely "lost their heads." The dread of the Merrimac extended among the seaboard cities from Boston to Washington. Never in the history of the world has the effect of a single ship