The fight that followed was an extraordinary one, and was gazed on with intense interest by the throng of spectators who crowded the shores of the bay.  The Merrimac had no solid shot, as she had expected only wooden antagonists.  Her shells were hurled upon the Monitor, but most of them missed their mark, and those that struck failed to do any injury.  So small was the object fired at that the great shells, as a rule, whirled uselessly by, and plunged hissing into the waves.  The massive solid balls of the Monitor were far more effective.  Nearly every one struck the broad sides of the Merrimac, breaking her armor in several places, and shattering the wood backing behind it.  Many times the Merrimac tried to ram her small antagonist, and thus to rid herself of this teasing tormentor, but the active “cheese-box” slipped agilely out of her way.  The Monitor in turn tried to disable the screw of her opponent, but without success.

Unable to do any harm to her dwarfish foe, the Merrimac now, as if in disdain, turned her attention to the Minnesota, hurling shells through her side.  In return the frigate poured into her a whole broadside at close range.

“It was enough,” said the captain of the frigate afterwards, “to have blown out of the water any wooden ship in the world.”  It was wasted on the iron-clad foe.

This change of action did not please the captain of the Monitor.  He thrust his vessel quickly between the two combatants, and assailed so sharply that the Merrimac steamed away.  The Monitor followed.  Suddenly the fugitive vessel turned, and, like an animal moved by an impulse of fury, rushed head on upon her tormentor.  Her beak struck the flat iron deck so sharply as to be wrenched by the blow.  The great hull seemed for the moment as if it would crowd the low-lying vessel bodily beneath the waves.  But no such result followed.  The Monitor glided away unharmed.  As she went she sent a ball against the Merrimac that seemed to crush in her armored sides.

At ten o’clock the Monitor steamed away, as if in flight.  The Merrimac now prepared to pay attention again to the Minnesota, her captain deeming that he had silenced his tormenting foe.  He was mistaken.  In half an hour the Monitor, having hoisted a new supply of balls into her turret, was back again, and for two hours more the strange battle continued.

Then it came to an end.  The Merrimac turned and ran away.  She had need to,—­those on shore saw that she was sagging down at the stern.  The battle was over.  The turreted iron-clad had driven her great antagonist from the field, and won the victory.  And thus ended one of the strangest and most notable naval combats in history.

During the fight the Monitor had fired forty-one shots, and been struck twenty-two times.  Her greatest injury was the shattering of her pilot-house.  Her commander, Lieutenant Worden, was knocked senseless and temporarily blinded by the shock.  On board the Merrimac two men were killed and nineteen wounded.  Her iron prow was gone, her armor broken and damaged, her steam-pipe and smoke-stock riddled, the muzzles of two of her guns shot away, while water made its way into her through more than one crevice.