Four days passed, however, with the Kearsarge keeping grim guard.  Then, on Sunday morning, June 19, as the crew of the Kearsarge was at divine service, the officer of the deck reported a steamer at the harbor-mouth.  A moment later, the lookout shouted, “She’s coming, and heading straight for us!” Captain Winslow, putting aside his prayer-book, seized the trumpet, ordered the decks cleared for action, and put his ship about and bore down on the Alabama.

The two vessels were remarkably well-matched, but the engagement was decisive evidence of the superior qualities of northern marksmanship.  It was, in fact, an exhibition of that magnificent gunnery which was so evident in the war of 1812, and which was to be shown again in the war with Spain.  Nearly all of the 173 shots fired by the Kearsarge took effect, while of the 370 fired by the Alabama, only 28 reached their target.  As a result, at the end of an hour and a half, the Alabama was sinking, while the Kearsarge was practically uninjured and had lost only three men.  Hauling down her flag, the Alabama tried to run in shore, but suddenly, settling by the stern, lifted her bow high in the air and plunged to the bottom of the sea.  So ended the career of the Alabama.  Winslow received the usual rewards of promotion and the thanks of Congress, and passed the remainder of his life unadventurously in the navy service.

One other battle remains to be recorded—­in some respects the most important in history, because it revolutionized the construction of battleships, and suddenly rendered all the existing navies of the world practically useless.

On the eighth day of March, 1862, a powerful squadron of Union vessels lay at anchor in Hampton Roads, consisting of the Congress, the Cumberland, the St. Lawrence, the Roanoke, and the Minnesota.  It was a beautiful spring morning, and the tall ships rocked lazily at their anchors, while their crews occupied themselves with routine duties.  Shortly before noon, a strange object was seen approaching down the Elizabeth river.  To the Union officers, it looked like the roof of a large barn belching forth smoke.  In reality, it was the Confederate ironclad, Merrimac, under command of Captain Franklin Buchanan.

Buchanan had, in his day, been one of the most distinguished officers in the United States navy.  He had entered the service in 1815, as midshipman, and won rapid promotion.  In 1845, he was selected by the secretary of the navy to organize the naval academy at Annapolis, and was its first commandant.  He commanded the Germantown at the capture of Vera Cruz, and the Susquehanna, the flagship of Commodore Perry’s famous expedition to Japan.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commandant of the Washington navy-yard, and, being himself a Baltimore man, resigned from the service after the attack made in Baltimore on the Massachusetts troops passing through there.  Finding that his state did not secede, he withdrew his resignation and asked to be restored, but for some reason, the secretary of the navy, Gideon Welles, refused this request, and Buchanan was fairly driven into the enemy’s service.