Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/12

 6 Southern Historical Society Papers.

lays and obstacles of all sorts impeded the construction of the vessel. All the plates of iron for the casemate had to be rolled at the Trede- gar in Richmond and shipped to Norfolk. Each step towards com- pletion seemed but to disclose new obstacles, not the least of which was to secure a crew. We had no merchant marine and but few sailors. Some few were secured after the defeat and dispersion of our gunboats at Roanoke Island ; some as volunteers from our army, and a detachment from the Norfolk United Artilery brought the number up to three hundred and twenty men. They proved to be as gallant and trusty a body of men as any one would wish to com- mand ; but what a contrast they made to a crew of trained jack tars I The United States Government were duly informed by spies of the completion of the Merrimac, but to deceive them the Norfolk papers of March 6th gave out that the new vessel had proved to be a failure and a great disappointment to her projectors. I doubt much whether they relied upon our statements, for on March yth Mr. Welles, Sec- retary of the United States Navy, wrote to Captain John Marston, United States Navy, commanding at Fortress Monroe : "Send the St. Lawrence, Congress, and Cumberland immediately into the Po- tomac river. Use steam to tow them up. Let there be no delay." This order was modified by telegram of March 8th from Secretary Welles to Captain Marston, as follows : " The Assistant-Secretary of the Navy will be at Old Point by the Baltimore boat this evening. Do not move the ships until further orders, which he will carry. " Had the first order been executed and these vessels moved up the Potomac river the victory of the Merrimac would have been shorn of its chief triumphs.

THE ACTION OF SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1862.

On this day the United States Government had at anchor in Hamp- ton Roads, near Fort Monroe, besides twelve gunboats, mounting from one to five guns, the frigates Roanoke (forty guns), Minnesota (forty-eight guns), St. Lawrence (fifty guns), Brandywine (fifty guns), and the frigates Congress (fifty guns) and Cumberland (thirty guns) lying at Newport News under the guns of a strongly-fortified land battery. Without a trial trip, with workmen on board up to the last minute, with a crew and officers strangers to each other and to the ship, with no opportunity to get things into shape or to drill the men at the guns or instruct them in their various duties, the Merrimac,