Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/107

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Her casemates (at an angle of 45 degrees, covered with two feet of solid wood and five inches of iron), had been pierced by the heavy shot fired by the Monitor. The turrets of these vessels were impenetrable to the shot of the Tennessee, and after four hours of fruitless contest the issue had become that of further disaster and further fearful carnage.

GREAT DISPARITY OF FORCES.

In presenting to your consideration this great disparity of the opposing forces at New Orleans and Mobile Bay, we do not seek to pluck one leaf from the crown of the victor. His conspicuous gal- lantry on both occasions places him in the front rank of the great naval commanders, of whom history speaks, and makes his victo- ries the more meritorious and unique, in that they were wrested from forts and fleets combined.

The officers of your navy were as fine a body of men as ever sought service. There was no lack of skill, no lack of initiative, no want of gallantry in those so fortunate as to secure commands.

Tatnall, though near seventy years of age, at Port Royal, Savan- nah, and Hampton Roads, showed that the fiery courage, which had carried him, in 1859, to the assistance of the English and French at Peiho, in China, with the exclamation, " Blood is thicker than water," still animated his breast.

The services of Buchanan in the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, March 8 and 9, 1862, and August 5, 1864, in Mobile Bay, need no recital here.

Ingram, who had won national fame in 1853, in protecting Ameri- can citizenship in Smyrna, in the Kostza case, at Charleston, 1863, and elsewhere, showed no decline of zeal in the maintenance of his cause.

Cooke, at Roanoke Island and Elizabeth City, in February, 1862, though breasting a forlorn hope, showed the same spirit that won him deserved promotion, in the successful career of the Albemarle, in the engagements of April 19, and May 5, 1864, in Albemarle Sound.

ACTION OF THE ARKANSAS.

Brown (in the ill equipped Arkansas), on the Mississippi River, July 15, 1862, ran the gauntlet of the Federal fleet of four ironclads, eight rams, four gunboats, and two ships of war; inflicted much damage to the enemy, put two of their vessels ashore in crippled