An actor in the scenes of that wild night when the Monitor went down craves permission to relate the story of her last cruise.

Her work is now over.  She lies a hundred fathoms deep under the stormy waters off Cape Hatteras.  But “the little cheese-box on a raft” has made herself a name which will not soon be forgotten by the American people.

Every child knows her early story,—­it is one of the thousand romances of the war,—­how, as our ships lay at anchor in Hampton Roads, and the army of the Potomac covered the Peninsula, one shining March day,—­

  “Far away to the South uprose
    A little feather of snow-white smoke;
  And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
      Was steadily steering its course
      To try the force
    Of our ribs of oak.”

Iron conquered oak; the balls from the Congress and Cumberland rattled from the sides of the Rebel ship like hail; she passed on resistless, and

  “Down went the Cumberland, all a wrack.”

The Congress struck her flag, and the band of men on the Peninsula waited their turn,—­for the iron monster belched out fire and shell to both sea and land.  Evening cut short her work, and she returned to Norfolk, leaving terror and confusion behind her.

The morning saw her return; but now between her expected prey, the Minnesota, and herself, lay a low, black raft, to the lookers-on from the Merrimack no more formidable than the masts of the sunken Cumberland, or the useless guns of the Congress, near whose shattered hulks the Monitor kept guard, the avenger of their loss.

As the haughty monster approached the scene of her triumph, the shock of an unexampled cannonade checked her career.  That little black turret poured out a fire so tremendous, so continuous, that the jubilant crew of the Merrimack faltered, surprised, terrified.  The revolving tower was a marvel to them.  One on board of her at the time has since told me, that, though at first entirely confident of victory, consternation finally took hold of all.

“D—­n it!” said one, “the thing is full of guns.”

An hour the contest raged, and then the iron scales of the invincible began to crumble under repeated blows thundered from that strange revolving terror.  A slaughtering, destroying shot smashing through the port, a great seam battered in the side, crippled and defeated, the Merrimack turned prow and steamed away.

This was the end of her career, as really as when, a few weeks later, early morning saw her wrapped in sudden flame and smoke, and the people of Norfolk heard in their beds the report which was her death-knell.

So fear ended for a time, and the Monitor saw little service, until at Fort Darling she dismounted every gun, save one, when all her comrades failed to reach the mark.  Then, a little worn by hard fighting, she went to Washington for some slight repairs, but specially to have better arrangements made for ventilation, as those on board suffered from the confined air during action.