Part 45 (1/2)
”BLIND” FORTUNE.
A soldier shot in the head so as to be deprived of sight in both eyes left the Carver Hospital, Was.h.i.+ngton, and blundered in crossing the avenue. At that very moment the President's carriage was coming along to the Soldiers' Home from the mansion. The coach alone would probably have not brought any casualty upon the unfortunate young invalid, but it was again surrounded by one of the cavalry detachments, which Lincoln insisted on being withdrawn, but it was replaced, for the time.
The soldier hearing this double clatter of hoofs became bewildered, and stood still in the midroad, or, if anything, inclined toward the thundering danger. The cavalry chargers, trained to avoid hurting men--for a rider might be thrown--eluded contact, and the coachman neatly pulled aside. In the next moment, in a cloud of dust, the President, leaning out of the window, to ascertain the cause of the abrupt stop, saw the poor young soldier by his side. Lincoln threw out a hand to seize him by the arm, and rea.s.sure him of safety by the vibrating clutch. Then, perceiving the nature of the affair, he asked in a voice trembling with emotion about the man's regiment and disablement. The man was from the Northwest--Michigan. Lumbermen--and they are of the woods woody out there--and Lincoln believed in ”the ax as the enlarger of our borders”--are brotherly. The next day the soldier was commissioned lieutenant with perpetual leave, but full pay.--(By the veteran reservist, H. W. Knight, of the escort.)
LITTLE DAVID AND THE STONE FOR GOLIATH.
In the spring, 1862, spies and foreign officers who had seen the rebel ram _Merrimac_ being built at Norfolk, reported her as formidable. The United States _Galena_, our first ironclad, was a failure. There was no vessel of the kind to deal with the monster save Ericsson's floating battery, ready for sea in March, called the _Monitor_, as a warning to Great Britain, expected to interfere on behalf of the South and raise the blockade over the cotton ports.
This craft with a revolving turret was just as much of a new idea as its prototype.
On March 8, the _Merrimac_ came out of Norfolk and ran down the _c.u.mberland_ sloop of war; blew the _Congress_ to splinters, and compelled her being blown up to save her from the enemy; the _Minnesota_ was run aground to prevent being rammed. The victor returned to her dock to make ready for a fresh onslaught. The effect was profound; it seemed no exaggeration to suppose that the irresistible conqueror would pa.s.s through the United States fleet at Hampton Roads and, speeding along the coast, reduce New York to the most onerous terms or to ashes.
On Sunday, the ninth, the _Monitor_ arrived after a sea pa.s.sage, showing she rode too low for ocean navigation. Though in no fit state for battle, no time was allowed her, as the _Merrimac_ ran out to exult over the ruins of the encounter. The _Monitor_ threw herself in her way, bore her broadside without injury, and her shock with impunity, but on the other hand hurled her extremely heavy ball in, under her water-line. The ram backed out, and, wheeling and putting on full steam, returned to her haven. She was, it appears, too low to cross the bar to go up to Richmond, and was not ocean-going; she was blown up when Yorktown was evacuated by the Confederates in May, 1862.
The President had said of her defeater, to some naval officers: ”I think she will be the veritable sling with the stone to smite the Philistine _Merrimac_.”
LINCOLN'S CHEESE-BOX ON A RAFT.
There is a chapter yet to be published upon iron-clad war-s.h.i.+ps, as introduced practically in the Civil War. To the Southerners is due the innovation on a fair scale, though the experiments were not at all profitably demonstrative. Upon rumors that the enemy were building the novelties of iron-cased vessels, the Federal government responded by voting money--and throwing it away upon a fiasco. Meanwhile, the others had razeed a frigate, the _Merrimac_, and upon an angular roof laid railroad-iron to make her shot-proof. Stories of her likelihood to be a terror, especially as she was stated by spies to be seaworthy, inspired the Americanized Swedish naval engineer, Ericsson, to build a turret-s.h.i.+p. The Naval Construction Board unanimously rebuffed the innovator. Luckily, President Lincoln became interested as a flat-boat builder, in his youth. He took up the inventor and the design. He scoffed at the idea that the man had not planned thoroughly, saying, as to the weight of the armor sinking the hull:
”Out West, in boat-building, we figured out the carrying power to a nicety.”
His champions.h.i.+p earned the _Monitor_ the name of Lincoln's ”cheese-box on a raft.”
The a.s.sistant secretary of the navy, knowing all the facts, observes:
”I withhold no credit from Captain John Ericsson, her inventor, but _I know_ the country is princ.i.p.ally indebted to President Lincoln for the construction of this vessel, and for the success of the trial to Captain Worden.”--(Captain Fox, Ericsson's adviser, confirms this credit.)
NO ”DUTCH COURAGE.”
After the miraculous intervention of the Ericsson _Monitor_, the President took a party aboard to inspect the little champion which had saved the fleet and, perhaps, the capital, where the captain received them. He apologized for the limited accommodation, and for the lack of the traditional lemon and necessary attributes for a presidential visit. But the teetotaler chief merrily replied:
”Some uncharitable persons say that old Bourbon valor inspires our generals in the field, but it is plain that _Dutch courage_ was not needed on board of the _Monitor!_”
”IF I HAD AS MUCH MONEY AND WAS AS BADLY SKEERED----”