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140 caulay. This was one of the most magnificent ships in the American navy, being rated as a forty-gun frigate, of four thousand tons burden. She was built in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1856, and was considered one of the finest specimens of naval architecture then afloat. She was two hundred and eighty-one feet long, fifty-two feet broad, and drew twenty-three feet of water. Her engines were of eight hundred horse power, driving a two-bladed propeller fourteen feet in diameter, and so adjusted as to be raised from the water when the vessel was driven by wind alone. Her armament consisted of twenty-four nine-inch shell guns, fourteen eight-inch, and two one hundred- pound pivot guns. This magnificent structure was raised by the rebels and cut down, leaving only the hull, which was exceedingly massive and solid. Over this they constructed a sloping shield of railroad iron, firmly plaited together, and extending two feet under the water. Its appearance was much like the slanting roof of a house set upon a ship's hull, like an extinguisher, the ends of the vessel, fore and aft, projecting a few feet beyond this roof The gun-deck was completely inclosed by this shield, and nothing appeared above it but a short smoke-stack and two flag-staffs."

An eye witness gives the following account of the first appearance and conflict of the Merrimac: "About noon of Saturday, the eighth of March, 1862, this monster was seen coming around Cra-