I
A PRELUDE TO THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN OF APRIL TO JUNE, 1862

By James Kendall Hosmer

Obviously the capture of Richmond was the proper objective in the offensive campaign in the East for which McClellan had been so long preparing. The selection of that city by the Confederacy for the seat of government caused all its interests to centre there; the maintenance of its capital, moreover, was essential to the good standing of the Confederacy before Europe, recognition from which was so earnestly desired. If the North could capture Richmond, quite possibly nothing more would be necessary to crush the South. The protection of Washington, too, could not be left at all in doubt. Should that city be lost to the union, England and France might justly feel that the cause of the North was hopeless, and no longer refrain from intervention.

Before Washington, McClellan and Johnston faced each other throughout the fall of 1861, the latter having, in October, a force of 41,000, which later grew to 57,337.211 Under Johnston at the end of the year were three subordinates—Jackson,275 in the Valley of Virginia; Beauregard, about Leesburg, near the Potomac; and Holmes, below Washington, about Acquia Creek, where Confederate batteries closed the Potomac. McClellan had fully twice as many men, an army well disciplined and equipped, devoted to their leader, and of fine morale. Why could the army not be used? Because the general always imagined before him a host of enemies that greatly outnumbered his own, and insisted on more men and a more perfect training before setting out. Meantime he grew cavalier in his treatment of his superiors. The venerable Scott, who now retired at seventy-five, had his last days embittered by the scant courtesy of the new commander, and even the President was slighted. “I will hold McClellan’s horse for him if he will only win us victories,” said Lincoln, with good-natured patience. In December, McClellan fell ill, and all was in doubt. With the new year, 1862, prospects brightened for the union. The great successes in the West and South, ending with the capture of New Orleans, brought cheer; at last the army of the Potomac was in motion.

In March, Johnston withdrew southward; and McClellan, his command now restricted to the “Army of the Potomac,” as he had baptized his splendid creation, was ready for the long-delayed advance. Lincoln, whose good sense when applied to warfare often, though not always, struck true, earnestly desired that Richmond should be approached by a direct southward movement, Washington being covered, while at the same time Richmond was threatened. But McClellan judged it better to proceed by the Chesapeake, landing at the end of the peninsula running up between the York and James rivers, and marching against Richmond from the east. Much could be said in favor of this route: troops and supplies could be carried by water to the neighborhood of Richmond without fatigue or danger. Yet the President yielded reluctantly, fearing danger to Washington, laying276 it down as fundamental that the capital must be protected by forty thousand men.

The Peninsular campaign had a dramatic prelude. A necessary condition was a command of the waters, which was secured in early March by an event that startled the world. Among the many disadvantages under which the South labored in her struggle with the North was a painful lack, as compared with her opponent, of factories, machine-shops, ship-yards, and skilled labor; yet determination and ingenuity brought about several wonderful fighting contrivances, of which the most remarkable was the Virginia. The hull of the Merrimac, a frigate of thirty-five hundred tons and forty guns, one of the most formidable vessels of the old navy, partly burned and afterward sunk at the evacuation of Norfolk by the Federals in April, 1861, was raised, and found to be sound enough for further use. Good heads, among whom John M. Brooke, manager of the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, was prominent, fitted to the hull a casemate, or box, pierced for cannon, and heavily plated with iron—the first effective armored ship. There was a frank farewell to masts, sails, and other former appliances for motion and management. The winds were superseded by steam, applied for the first time in naval warfare, not as auxiliary, but as the sole motive-power. One appliance of the Virginia was, however, not a new invention, but a revival of a fighting arm common in the days of Salamis and Actium—a ram, projecting from the prow like that of an ancient galley.212 The craft was cumbrous, hard to steer, and provided with engines far too weak for her immense weight, but she had marvellous defensive power and was fast enough to approach and destroy any resisting sailing-ship.
HAMPTON ROADS

On March 8th, from the direction of Norfolk, the Virginia, a mass low-lying upon the water, suddenly appeared277 before the astonished eyes of the Federal onlookers in Hampton Roads.213 Five stately wooden frigates lay at anchor off Hampton, and they gallantly discharged their broadsides at this strange assailant, but the balls glanced harmless from her impenetrable back. She turned and pierced the Cumberland with her ram, sending the frigate to the bottom; then she assailed the Congress, which presently went up in flames; the brave crews as helpless as if their means of defence were bows and arrows. Mistress of the situation, with three more frigates—Minnesota, Roanoke, and St. Lawrence—aground on the shoals or offering a futile defiance, the Virginia then withdrew for the day; she was certain of her prey and could afford to wait for a few hours, meanwhile making some changes which would render her more effective. Vivid terror overspread the North as the news was despatched278 in the evening; and it was nowhere greater than in the cabinet-room at the White House, where Lincoln anxiously studied upon means to meet the exigency; and Stanton, pacing the room “like a caged lion,” predicted she would come up the Potomac and shell Washington.214

On the forenoon of March 9th, doing all things deliberately, as one that has no reason to hasten, the Virginia again appeared and moved toward the Minnesota, aground and apparently certain to become a helpless victim. Suddenly in the path appeared a little craft scarcely one-fourth the size of the Virginia, “a cheese-box on a raft,” as it will go down in history, the Monitor, an iron-clad of another pattern. This vessel, undertaken as an experiment, and completed in one hundred days, was due to the genius and indomitable zeal of John Ericsson, its designer. That it should have arrived from New York at this moment is one of the fateful accidents of history. A multitude beheld the encounter, from the ships close at hand, from the shores near and far. The superior size and armament of the Virginia were neutralized by her unwieldiness and depth of draught. The Monitor, more active, and passing everywhere over shoal or through channel, could elude or strike as she chose. Neither had much power to harm the other; each crew behind its shield man?uvred and fired for the most part uninjured. Worden, commander of the Monitor, in his pilot-house at the bow, built of iron bars log-cabin fashion, received in the face, as he peered through the interstice, the blinding fire and smoke from a shell that struck within a few inches, but he escaped death. The casualties on the Virginia were few. On the morning of that day both North and South believed that the Confederacy was about to control the sea. The anticipation, whether hope or fear, vanished in the smoke of that day’s battle. With it, too, passed away the traditional beauty and romance of the old sea-service—the oakribbed279 and white-winged navies, whose dominion had been so long and picturesque, at last and forever gave way to steel and steam.215
II
THE BATTLE DESCRIBED BY CAPTAIN WORDEN AND LIEUTENANT GREENE OF THE MONITOR

By Lucius E. Chittenden

Some weeks after the historic battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, on March 9, 1862, the former vessel came to the Washington navy-yard unchanged, in the same condition as when she discharged her parting shot at the Merrimac. There she lay until her heroic commander had so far recovered from his injuries as to be able to rejoin his vessel. All leaves of absence had been revoked, the absentees had returned and were ready to welcome their captain. President Lincoln, Captain Fox, and a limited number of Captain Worden’s personal friends had been invited to his informal reception. Lieutenant Greene received the President and the guests. He was a boy in years—not too young to volunteer, however, when volunteers were scarce, and to fight the Merrimac during the last half of the battle, after the captain was disabled.

The President and the other guests stood on the deck, near the turret. The men were formed in lines, with their officers a little in advance, when Captain Worden ascended the gangway. The heavy guns in the navy-yard began firing the customary salute when he stepped upon the deck. One side of his face was permanently blackened by the powder shot into it from the muzzle of a cannon carrying a shell of one hundred pounds weight, discharged less than twenty yards away. The President280 advanced to welcome him, and introduced him to the few strangers present. The officers and men passed in review and were dismissed. Then there was a scene worth witnessing. The old tars swarmed around their loved captain, they grasped his hand, crowded to touch him, thanked God for his recovery and return, and invoked blessings upon his head in the name of all the saints in the calendar. He called them by their names, had a pleasant word for each of them, and for a few moments we looked upon an exhibition of a species of affection that could only have been the product of a common danger.

When order was restored the President gave a brief sketch of Captain Worden’s career. Commodore Paulding had been the first, Captain Worden the second officer of the navy, he said, to give an unqualified opinion in favor of armored vessels. Their opinions had been influential with him and with the Board of Construction. Captain Worden had volunteered to take command of the Monitor, at the risk of his life and reputation, before her keel was laid. He had watched her construction, and his energy had made it possible to send her to sea in time to arrest the destructive operations of the Merrimac. What he had done with a new crew, and a vessel of novel construction, we all know. He, the President, cordially acknowledged his indebtedness to Captain Worden, and he hoped the whole country would unite in the feeling of obligation. The debt was a heavy one, and would not be repudiated when its nature was understood. The details of the first battle between iron-clads would interest every one. At the request of Captain Fox, Captain Worden had consented to give an account of his voyage from New York to Hampton Roads, and of what had afterward happened there on board the Monitor.

In an easy, conversational manner, without any effort at display, Captain Worden told the story, of which the following is the substance:

281 “I suppose,” he began, “that every one knows that we left New York Harbor in some haste. We had information that the Merrimac was nearly completed, and if we were to fight her on her first appearance we must be on the ground. The Monitor had been hurried from the laying of her keel. Her engines were new, and her machinery did not move smoothly. Never was a vessel launched that so much needed trial-trips to test her machinery and get her crew accustomed to their novel duties. We went to sea practically without them. No part of the vessel was finished; there was one o............