In this same letter Lyons dwelt upon the Northern elation over recent military successes.  The campaign in the West had been followed in the East by a great effort under McClellan to advance on Richmond up the peninsula of the James river and using Chesapeake Bay as a means of water transportation and supply.  This campaign had been threatened by the appearance of the iron-clad ram Merrimac and her attack on the wooden naval vessels operating in support of McClellan, but on March 9 the Monitor, a slow-moving floating iron-clad fortress, drove the Merrimac from her helpless prey, and removed the Southern threat to McClellan’s communications.  More than any other one battle of the Civil War the duel between the Merrimac and the Monitor struck the imagination of the British people, and justly so because of its significance in relation to the power of the British Navy.  It “has been the main talk of the town,” wrote Adams, “ever since the news came, in Parliament, in the clubs, in the city, among the military and naval people.  The impression is that it dates the commencement of a new era in warfare, and that Great Britain must consent to begin over again[587].”  The victory of the Monitor was relatively unimportant in British eyes, but a fight between two completely armoured ships, and especially the ease with which the Merrimac had vanquished wooden ships on the day previous, were cause of anxious consideration for the future.  Russell was more concerned over the immediate lessons of the battle.  “Only think,” he wrote, “of our position if in case of the Yankees turning upon us they should by means of iron ships renew the triumphs they achieved in 1812-13 by means of superior size and weight of metal[588].”

This, however, was but early and hasty speculation, and while American ingenuity and experiment in naval warfare had, indeed, sounded the death-knell of wooden ships of war, no great change in the character of navies was immediately possible.  Moreover British shipbuilders could surely keep pace in iron-clad construction with America or any other nation.  The success of the Monitor was soon regarded by the British Government as important mainly as indicative of a new energy in the North promising further and more important successes on land.  The Government hoped for such Northern success not because of any belief that these would go to the extent of forcing the South into submission, for they were still, and for a long time to come, obsessed with the conviction that Southern independence must ultimately be achieved.  The idea was, rather, that the North, having vindicated its fighting ability and realizing that the South, even though losing battle after battle, was stubborn in the will to independence, would reach the conclusion that the game was not worth the price and would consent to separation.  Russell wrote in this vein to Lyons, even though he thought that the “morale of the Southern army seems to be ruined for the time[589].”  He believed that the end of the war would be hastened by Northern victories, and he therefore rejoiced in them.