Chapter VIII: Part 8

Mr. Blennerhasset's judgment was in favor of abandoning the scheme. Mrs. Blennerhasset, who was very ambitious, argued strongly on the other side. She was eager to see her husband assume a position fitting to his great talents. Mr. Tyler joined her in her arguments. Blennerhasset gave way. It was a fatal compliance, one destined to destroy his happiness and peace for the remainder of his life, and to expose his wife to the most frightful scenes of outrage and barbarity.

The frontier contained hosts of lawless men, men to whom loyalty meant license. Three days after the conversation described, word was brought to the island that a party of the Wood County militia, made up of the lowest and most brutal men in the community, would land on the island that very night, seize the boats, arrest all the men they found, and probably burn the house.

The danger was imminent. Blennerhasset and all the men with him took to the boats to escape arrest and possibly murder from these exasperated frontiersmen. Mrs. Blennerhasset and her children were left in the mansion, with the expectation that their presence would restrain the brutality of the militia, and preserve the house and its valuable contents from destruction. It proved a fallacious hope. Colonel Phelps, the commander of the militia, pursued Blennerhasset. In his absence his men behaved like savages. They took possession of the house, became brutally drunk from the liquors they found in the cellar, rioted through its elegantly furnished rooms, burned its fences for bonfires, and for seven days made life a pandemonium of horrors for the helpless woman and frightened children who had been left in their midst.

The experience of those seven days was frightful. There was no escape. Mrs. Blennerhasset was compelled to witness the ruthless destruction of all she held most dear, and to listen to the brutal ribaldry and insults of the rioting savages. Not until the end of the time named did relief come. Then Mr. Putnam, a friend from the neighboring town of Belpré, ventured on the island. He provided a boat in which the unhappy lady was enabled to save a few articles of furniture and some choice books. In this boat, with her two sons, six and eight years old, and with two young men from Belpré, she started down the river to join her husband. Two or three negro servants accompanied her.

It was a journey of great hardships. The weather was cold, the river filled with floating ice, the boat devoid of any comforts. A rude cabin, open in the front, afforded the only shelter from wind and rain. Half frozen in her flight, the poor woman made her way down the stream, and at length joined her husband at the mouth of the Cumberland River, which he had reached with his companions, having distanced pursuit. Their flight was continued down the Mississippi as far as Natchez.

No sooner had Mrs. Blennerhasset left the island than the slight restraint which her presence had exercised upon the militia disappeared. The mansion was ransacked. Whatever they did not care to carry away was destroyed. Books, pictures, rich furniture were used to feed bonfires. Doors were torn from their hinges, windows dashed in, costly mirrors broken with hammers. Destruction swept the island, all its improvements being ruthlessly destroyed. For months the mansion stood, an eyesore of desolation, until some hand, moved by the last impulse of savagery, set it on fire, and it was burned to the ground.

What followed may be briefly told. So great was the indignation against Burr that he was forced to abandon his project. His adherents were left in destitution. Some of them were a thousand miles and more from their homes, and were forced to make their way back as they best could. Burr and Blennerhasset were both arrested for treason. The latter escaped. There was no criminating evidence against him. As for Burr, he had been far too shrewd to leave himself open to the hand of the law. His trial resulted in an acquittal. Though no doubt was felt of his guilt, no evidence could be found to establish it. He was perforce set free.

If he had done nothing more, he had, by his detestable arts, broken up one of the happiest homes in America, and ruined his guileless victim.

Blennerhasset bought a cotton plantation at Natchez. His wife, who had the energy he lacked, managed it. They dwelt there for ten years, favorites with the neighboring planters. Then came war with England, and the plantation ceased to afford them a living. The ruined man returned to his native land, utterly worn out and discouraged, and died there in poverty in 1831.

Mrs. Blennerhasset became a charge on the charity of her friends. After several years she returned to the United States, where she sought to obtain remuneration from Congress for her destroyed property. She would probably have succeeded but for her sudden death. She was buried at the expense of a society of Irish ladies in the city of New York. And thus ended the career of two of the victims of Aaron Burr. They had listened to the siren voice of the tempter, and ruin and despair were their rewards.

HOW THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH WAS INVENTED.

The year 1832 is only sixty years ago in time, yet since then there has been a striking development of conveniences, rapidity of travel, and arrangements for the diffusion of intelligence. People then still travelled in great part by aid of horses, the railroad having just begun its marvellous career. News, which now fly over continents and under oceans at lightning speed, then jogged on at stage-coach rates of progress, creeping where they now fly. On the ocean, steam was beginning to battle with wind and wave, but the ocean racer was yet a far-off dream, and mariners still put their trust in sails much more than in the new-born contrivances which were preparing to revolutionize travel. But the wand of the enchanter had been waved; steam had come, and with it the new era of progress had dawned. And another great agent in the development of civilization was about to come. Electricity, which during all previous time had laughed at bonds, was soon to become man's slave, and to be made his purveyor of news. It is the story of this chaining of the lightning, and forcing it to become the swift conveyer of man's sayings and doings, that we have here to tell.

In the far remote period named--if we measure time by deeds, not by years--a packet-ship, the Sully, was making its deliberate way across the Atlantic from Havre to New York. Its passenger list was not large,--the ocean had not yet become a busy highway of the continents,--but among them were some persons in whom we are interested. One of these was a Boston doctor, Charles T. Jackson by name. A second was a New York artist, named Samuel F.B. Morse. The last-named gentleman had been a student at Yale, where he became greatly interested in chemistry and some other sciences. He had studied the art of painting under Benjamin West in London, had practised it in New York, had long been president of the National Academy of the Arts of Design; and was now on his way home after a second period of residence in Europe as a student of art.

An interesting conversation took place one day in the cabin of the Sully. Dr. Jackson spoke of Ampère's experiments with the electro-magnet; of how Franklin had sent electricity through several miles of wire, finding no loss of time between the touch at one end and the spark at the other; and how, in a recent experiment at Paris, a great length of wire had been carried in circles around the walls of a large apartment, an electro-magnet connected with one end, and an electric current manifested at the other, having passed through the wire so quickly as to seem instantaneous. Mr. Morse's taste for science had not died out during his years of devotion to art. He listened with the most earnest attention to the doctor's narrative, and while he did so a large and promising idea came into being in his brain.

"Why," he exclaimed, with much ardor of manner, "if that is so, and the presence of electricity can be made visible in any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence should not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity."

"How convenient it would be if we could send news in that manner!" chimed in one of the passengers.

"Why can't we?" exclaimed Morse.

Why not, indeed? The idea probably died in the minds of most of the persons present within five minutes. But Samuel Morse was not one of the men who let ideas die. This one haunted him day and night. He thought of it and dreamed of it. In those days of deliberate travel time hung heavily on the hands of transatlantic passengers, despite the partial diversions of eating and sleeping. The ocean grew monotonous, the vessel monotonous, the passengers monotonous, everything monotonous except that idea, and that grew and spread till its fibres filled every nook and cranny of the inventive brain that had taken it in to bed and board.

Morse had abundance of the native Yankee faculty of invention. To do, had been plain enough from the start. How to do, was the question to be solved. But before the Sully steamed into New York harbor the solution had been reached. In the mind of the inventor, and in graphic words and drawings on paper, were laid down the leading features of that telegraphic method which is used to-day in the great majority of the telegraph lines of the world.

An alphabet of dots and marks, a revolving ribbon of paper to receive this alphabet, a method of enclosing the wires in tubes which were to be buried underground, were the leading features of the device as first thought of. The last conception was quickly followed by that of supporting the wires in the air, but Morse clung to his original fancy for burying them,--a fancy which, it may here be said, is coming again into vogue in these latter days, so far as cities are concerned.

It is not meant to be implied that the idea of sending news by electricity was original with Morse. Others had had it before him. More than half a century before, Dr. Franklin and some friends had stretched a wire across the Schuylkill River and killed a turkey on the other side by electricity. As they ate this turkey, it is quite possible that they imbibed with it the idea of making this marvellous agent do other work than killing fowl for dinner, and from that time on it is likely that many had speculated on the possibility of sending intelligence by wire. Some experiments had been made, and with a certain degree of success, but time still waited for the hour and the man, and the hour and the man met in that fertile October day in the cabin of the Sully.

"If it can go ten miles without stopping, I can make it go round the world," said Morse to his fellow-passengers, his imagination expanding in the ardor of his new idea.

"Well, captain," he said, with a laugh, on leaving the ship, "should you hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember that the discovery was made on board the good ship Sully."

The inventor, indeed, was possessed with his new conceptions, mad with an idea, as we may say, and glad to set foot once more on shore, that he might put his plans in practice.

This proved no easy task. He was none too well provided with funds, and the need of making a living was the first necessity that presented itself to him. He experimented as much as he was able, but three years passed before his efforts yielded a satisfactory result. Then, with a circuit of seventeen hundred feet of wire, and a wooden clock, adapted by himself to suit his purpose, he managed to send a message from end to end of this wire. It was not very legible. He could make some sense of it. His friends could not. But all were much interested in the experiment. Many persons witnessed these results, as shown in a large room of the New York University, in 1837. They seemed wonderful; much was said about them; but nobody seemed to believe that the apparatus was more than a curious and unprofitable toy, and capitalists buttoned their pockets when the question of backing up this wild inventor's fancy with money was broached.

But by this time Mr. Morse was a complete captive to his idea. Body and soul he was its slave. The question of daily fare became secondary; that of driving his idea over and through all obstacles became primary. His business as an artist was neglected. He fell into want, into almost abject poverty. For twenty-four hours he went without food. But not for a moment did he lose faith in his invention, or remit his efforts to find a capitalist with sufficient confidence in him to risk his money in it.

Failing with the private rich, he tried to obtain public support, went to Washington in 1838, exhibited his apparatus to interested congressmen, and petitioned for enough money from the public purse to build a line from Baltimore to Washington,--forty miles only. It is traditionally slow work in getting a bill through Congress. Weary with waiting, Morse went to Europe, to try his new seed in that old soil. It failed to germinate abroad as it had at home. Men with money acknowledged that the idea was a scientific success, but could not believe that it might be made a business success.

"What would people care for instantaneous news?" they said. "Some might, it is true, but the great mass would be content to wait for their news in the good old way. To lay miles of wire in the earth is to bury a large treasure in money. We cannot see our way clear to getting it back again out of the pockets of the public. Your wires work, Mr. Morse, but, from a business point of view, there's more cost than profit in the idea."

It may be that these exact words were not spoken, but the answer of Europe was near enough to this to send the inventor home disappointed. He began again his weary waiting on the slowly-revolving wheels of the congressional machinery.

March 3, 1843, came. It was the last day of the session. With the stroke of midnight on that day the existing Congress would die, and a new one be born, with which the weary work of the education of congressmen would have to be gone over again. The inventor had been given half a loaf. His bill had been passed, on February 23, in the House. All day of March 3 he hung about the Senate chamber petitioning, where possible, for the other half of his loaf, faintly hoping that in the last will and testament of the expiring Congress some small legacy might be left for him.

Evening came. The clock-hands circled rapidly round. Pressure of bills and confusion of legislation grew greater minute by minute. The floodgates of the deluge are lifted upon Congress in its last hours, and business pours onward in such an overwhelming fashion that small private petitioners can scarcely hope that the doors of the ark of safety will be opened to their petty claims. Morse hung about the chamber until the midnight hour was almost ready to strike. Every moment confusion seemed to grow "worse confounded." The work of a month of easy-going legislation was being compressed into an hour of haste and excitement. The inventor at last left the Capitol, a saddened and disappointed man, and made his way home, the last shreds of hope seeming to drop from him as he went. He was almost ready to give up the fight, and devote himself for the future solely to brush and pencil.

He slept but poorly that night, and rose the next morning still depressed and gloomy. He appeared at the breakfast-table with a face from which the very color of ambition seemed to have been washed out. As he entered the room he was met by a young lady, Miss Annie G. Ellsworth, daughter of the Commissioner of Patents. The smile on her beaming face was in striking contrast to the gloom on his downcast countenance.

"I have come to congratulate you, Mr. Morse," she said, cheerily.

"For what, my dear friend?"

"For the passage of your bill."

"What!" he gazed at her amazement. Could she be attempting a foolish and cruel jest? "The passage of my bill!" he faltered.

"Yes. Do you not know of it?"

"No."

"Then you came home too early last night. And I am happy in being the first to bring you the good news. Congress has granted your claim."

It was true: he had been remembered in the will of the expiring Congress. In the last hour of the Senate, amid the roar of the deluge of public business, his small demand had floated into sight, and thirty thousand dollars had been voted him for the construction of an experimental telegraph line.

"You have given me new life, Miss Ellsworth," he said. "As a reward for your good tidings I promise you that when my telegraph line is completed, you shall have the honor of choosing the first message to be sent over it."

The inventor was highly elated, and not without reason. Since the morning of the conversation on the ship Sully, eleven and a half years had passed. They had been years of such struggle against poverty and discouragement as only a man who is the slave of an idea has the hardihood to endure. The annals of invention contain many such instances; more, perhaps, than can be found in any other channel of human effort.

To complete our story we have to bring another inventor upon the stage. This was Ezra Cornell, memorable to-day as the founder of Cornell University, a man at that time unknown, but filled with inventive ideas, and ready to undertake any task that might offer itself, from digging a well to boring a mountain tunnel. One day Mr. Cornell, who was at that time occupying the humble position of traveling agent for a patent plough, called at the office of an agricultural newspaper in Portland, Maine. He found the editor on his knees, a piece of chalk in his hand, and parts of a plough by his side, making drawings on the floor, and trying to explain something to a plough-maker beside him. The editor looked up at his visitor, and an expression of relief replaced the perplexity on his face.

"Cornell," he cried, "you're the very man I want to see. I want a scraper made, and I can't make Robinson here see into my idea. You can understand it, and make it for me, too."

"What is your scraper to do?" asked Cornell.

Mr. Smith, the editor, rose from his knees and explained. A line of telegraph was to be built from Baltimore to Washington. Congress had granted the money. He had taken the contract from Professor Morse to lay the tube in which the wire was to be placed. He had made a bad bargain, he feared. The job was going to cost more than he had calculated, on. He was trying to invent something that would dig the ditch, and fill in the dirt again after the pipe was laid. Cornell listened to him, questioned him, found out the size of the pipe and the depth of the ditch, then sat down and passed some minutes in hard thinking. Finally he said,--

"You are on the wrong tack. You don't want either a ditch or a scraper."

He took a pencil and in a few minutes outlined a machine, which he said would cut a trench two feet deep, lay the pipe at its bottom, and cover the earth in behind it. The motive power need be only a team of oxen or mules. These creatures had but to trudge slowly onward. The machine would do its work faithfully behind them.

"Come, come, this is impossible!" cried editor Smith.

"I'll wager my head it can be done, and I can do it," replied inventor Cornell.

He laid a large premium on his confidence in his idea, promising that if his machine would not work he would ask no money for it. But if it succeeded, he was to be well paid. Smith agreed to these terms, and Cornell went to work.

In ten days the machine was built and ready for trial. A yoke of oxen was attached to it, three men managed it, and in the first five minutes it had laid one hundred feet of pipe and covered it with earth. It was a decided success. Mr. Smith had contracted to lay the pipe for one hundred dollars a mile. A short calculation proved to him that, with the aid of Ezra Cornell's machine, ninety dollars of this would be profit.

But the shrewd editor did not feel like risking Cornell's machine in any hands but those of the inventor. He made him a profitable offer if he would go to Baltimore and take charge of the job himself. It would pay better than selling patent ploughs. Cornell agreed to go.

Reaching Baltimore, he met Professor Morse. They had never met before. Their future lives were to be closely associated. In the conversation that ensued Morse explained what he proposed to do. An electric wire might either be laid underground or carried through the air. He had decided on the underground system, the wire being coated by an insulating compound and drawn through a pipe.

Cornell questioned him closely, got a clear idea of the scheme, saw the pipe that was to be used, and expressed doubts of its working.

"It will work, for it has worked," said Morse. "While I have been fighting Congress, inventors in Europe have been experimenting with the telegraphic idea. Short lines have been laid in England and elsewhere, in which the wire is carried in buried pipes. They had been successful. What can be done in Europe can be done in America."

What Morse said was a fact. While he had been pushing his telegraph conception in America it had been tried successfully in Europe. But the system adopted there, of vibrating needle signals, was so greatly inferior to the Morse system, that it was destined in the future to be almost or quite set aside by the latter. To-day the Morse system and alphabet are used in much the greater number of the telegraph offices of the world.

But to return to our story. Cornell went to work, and the pipe, with its interior wire, was laid with much rapidity. Not many days had elapsed before ten miles were underground, the pipe being neatly covered as laid. It reached from Baltimore nearly to the Relay House. Here it stopped, for something had gone wrong. Morse tested his wire. It would not work. No trace of an electric current could be got through it. The insulation was evidently imperfect. What was to be done? He would be charged with wasting the public money on an impracticable experiment. Yet if he stopped he might expect a roar of newspaper disapprobation of his whole scheme. He was in a serious dilemma. How should he escape?

He sought Cornell, and told him of the failure of his experiments. The work must be stopped. He must try other kinds of pipe and new methods of insulation. But if the public should suspect failure there would be vials of wrath poured on their devoted heads.

"The public shall not suspect failure. Leave it to me," said Cornell.

He turned to his men. The machine was slowly moving forward, drawn by a team of eight mules, depositing pipe as it went. A section had just been laid. Night was at hand.

"Hurry up, boys," cried Cornell, cheerily. "We must lay another length before we quit."

He grasped the handles of his plough-like machine; the drivers stirred up the mules to a lively pace; the contrivance went merrily forward. But the cunning pilot knew what he was about. He steered the buried point of the machine against a rock that just protruded from the earth. In an instant there was a shock, a sound of rending wood and iron, a noise of shouting and trampling; and then the line of mules came to a halt. But behind them were only the ruins of a machine. That moment's work had converted the pipe-laying contrivance into kindling-wood and scrap-iron.

The public condoled with the inventor. It was so unlucky that his promising progress should be stopped by such an accident! As for Morse and his cunning associate, they smiled quietly to themselves as they went on with their experiments. Another kind of pipe was tried. Still the current would not go through. A year passed by. Experiment after experiment had been made. All had proved failures. Twenty-three thousand dollars of the money had been spent. Only seven thousand remained. The inventor was on the verge of despair.

"I am afraid it will never work," said Cornell. "It looks bad for the pipe plan."

"Then let us try the other," said Morse. "If the current won't go underground, it may be coaxed to go above-ground."

The plan suggested was to string the wire upon poles, insulating it from the wood by some non-conductor. A suitable insulator was needed. Cornell devised one; another inventor produced another. Morse approved of the latter, started for New York with it to make arrangements for its manufacture, and on his way met Professor Henry, who knew more about electricity than any other man in the country. Morse showed him the models of the two insulators, and indicated the one he had chosen. Mr. Henry examined them closely.

"You are mistaken," he said. "That one won't work. This is the insulator you need." He pointed to Cornell's device.

In a few words he gave his reasons. Morse saw that he was right. The Cornell insulator was chosen And now the work went forward with great rapidity. The planting of poles, and stringing of wires over a glass insulator at their tops, was an easy and rapid process. And more encouraging still, the thing worked to a charm. There was no trouble now in obtaining signals from the wire.

The first public proof of the system was made on May 11, 1844. On that day the Whig National Convention, then in session at Baltimore, had nominated Henry Clay for the Presidency. The telegraph was being built from the Washington end, and was yet miles distant from Baltimore. The first railroad train from Baltimore carried passengers who were eager to tell the tidings to their Washington friends. But it carried also an agent of Professor Morse, who brought the news to the inventor at the unfinished end of the telegraph. From that point he sent it over the wire to Washington. It was successfully received at the Washington end, and never were human beings more surprised than were the train passengers on alighting at the capital city to find that they brought stale news, and that Clay's nomination was already known throughout Washington. It was the first public proof in America of the powers of the telegraph, and certainly a vital and convincing one.

Before the 24th of May the telegraph line to Baltimore was completed, the tests successfully made, and all was ready for the public exhibition of its marvellous powers, which had been fixed for that day. Miss Ellsworth, in compliance with the inventor's promise, made her more than a year before, was given the privilege of choosing the first message to go over the magic wires. She selected the appropriate message from Scriptures: "What hath God wrought?" With these significant words began the reign of that marvellous invention which has wrought so wonderfully in binding the ends of the earth together and making one family of mankind.

There were difficulties still in the way of the inventor, severe ones. His after-life lay in no bed of roses. His patents were violated, his honor was questioned, even his integrity was assailed; rival companies stole his business, and lawsuits made his life a burden. He won at last, but failed to have the success of his associate, Mr. Cornell, who grew in time very wealthy from his telegraphic enterprises.

As regards the Morse system of telegraphy, it may be said in conclusion that over one hundred devices have been invented to supersede it, but that it holds its own triumphant over them all. The inventor wrought with his brain to good purpose in those days and nights of mental discipline above the Atlantic waves and on board the good ship Sully.

THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC.

On the 9th of March, 1862, for the first time in human history, two iron-clad ships met in battle. The occasion was a memorable one, and its story is well worthy of being retold in our cycle of historic events. For centuries, for thousands of years, in truth, wooden vessels had been struggling for the mastery of the seas. With the first shot fired from the turret of the Monitor at the roof-like sides of the Merrimac, in the early morning of the day named, the long reign of wooden war vessels ended; that of iron monarchs of the deep began. England could no more trust to her "wooden walls" for safety, and all the nations of Europe, when the echo of that shot reached their ears, felt that the ancient era of naval construction was at an end, and that the future navies of the world must ride the waves clad in massive armor of steel.

On the 8th of March, indeed, this had been shown. On that day the Merrimac steamed down from Norfolk harbor into Hampton Roads, where lay a fleet of wooden men-of-war, some of them the largest sailing frigates then in the American navy. On shore soldiers were encamped, here Union, there Confederate; and the inmates of the camps, the garrison of Fortress Monroe, the crews of the ships at anchor under its guns, all gazed with eager eyes over the open waters of the bay, their interest in the coming contest as intense as Roman audience ever displayed for the life and death struggle in the gladiatorial arena. Before them lay a mightier amphitheatre than that of the Coliseum, and before them was to be fought more notable struggle for life and death than ever took place within the walls of mighty Rome.

It was in the afternoon of the 8th, about one o'clock, that the long roll sounded in the camps on shore, and the cry resounded from camp to camp, "The Merrimac is coming!" For several weeks she had been looked for, and preparations made for her reception. The frigates bore a powerful armament of heavy guns, ready to batter her iron-clad sides, and strong hopes were entertained that this modern leviathan would soon cease to trouble the deep. The lesson fixed by fate for that day had not yet been learned.

Down the bay she came, looking at a distance like a flood-borne house, its sides drowned, only its sloping roof visible. The strange-appearing craft moved slowly, accompanied by two small gunboats as tenders. As she came near no signs of life were visible, while her iron sides displayed no evidence of guns. Yet within that threatening monster was a crew of three hundred men, and her armament embraced ten heavy cannon. Hinged lids closed the gun-ports; raised only when the guns were thrust forward for firing. As for the men, they were hidden somewhere under that iron roof; to be felt, but not seen.

What followed has been told in song and story; it need be repeated here but in epitome. The first assault of the Merrimac was upon the Cumberland, a thirty-gun frigate. Again and again the thirty heavy balls of the frigate rattled upon the impenetrable sides of the iron-clad monster, and bounded off uselessly into the deep. The Merrimac came on at full speed, as heedless of this fusillade as though she was being fired at with peas. As she approached, two heavy balls from her guns tore through the timbers of the Cumberland. They were followed by a stunning blow from her iron beak, that opened a gaping wound in the defenceless side of her victim. Then she drew off, leaving her broken beak sticking in the ship's side, and began firing broadsides into the helpless frigate; raking her fore and aft with shell and grape, despite the fact that she had already got her death-blow, and was rapidly filling with water.

Never ship was fought more nobly than the doomed Cumberland. With the decks sinking under their feet, the men fought with unflinching courage. When the bow guns were under water, the rear guns were made to do double duty. The captain was called on to surrender. He sternly refused. The last shot was fired from a gun on a level with the waves. Then, with sails spread and flags flying, the Cumberland went down, carrying with her nearly one hundred of her crew, the remainder swimming ashore. The water was deep, but the topmast of the doomed vessel still rose above the surface, with its pennant waving in the wind. For months afterwards that old flag continued to fly, as if to say, "The Cumberland sinks, but never surrenders."

The Congress, a fifty-gun frigate, was next attacked, and handled so severely that her commander ran her ashore, and soon after hoisted the white flag, destruction appearing inevitable. Boats were sent by the enemy to take possession, but a sharp fire from the shore drove them off.

"Is this in accordance with military law?" asked one of the officers in the camp. "Since the ship has surrendered, has not the enemy the right to take possession of her?"

This legal knot was quickly and decisively cut by General Mansfield, in an unanswerable decision.

"I know the d----d ship has surrendered," he said. "But _we_ haven't." And the firing continued.

The Merrimac, not being able to seize her prize, opened fire with hot shot on the Congress, and quickly set her on fire. Night was now at hand, and the conquering iron-clad drew off. The Congress continued to burn, her loaded guns roaring her requiem one after another, as the fire spread along her decks. About one o'clock her magazine was reached, and she blew up with a tremendous explosion, the shock being so great as to prostrate many of those on the shore.

So ended that momentous day. It had shown one thing conclusively, that "wooden walls" could no longer "rule the wave." Iron had proved its superiority in naval construction. The next day was to behold another novel sight,--the struggle of iron with iron.

Morning came. The atmosphere was hazy. Only as the mist slowly lifted were the gladiators of that liquid arena successively made visible. Here, just above the water, defiantly floated the flag of the sunken Cumberland. There smoked the still-burning hull of the Congress. Here, up the bay, steamed the Merrimac, with two attendants, the Yorktown and the Patrick Henry. Yonder lay the great hull of the steam-frigate Minnesota, which had taken some part in the battle of the day before, but had unfortunately gone ashore on a mud-bank, from which the utmost efforts failed to force her off. Other Union naval vessels were visible in the distance.

The Merrimac made her way towards the Minnesota, as towards a certain prey. Her commander felt confident that an hour or two would enable him to reduce this great vessel to the condition of her recent companions.

Yet an odd sight met his vision. Alongside the Minnesota floated the strangest-looking craft that human eye had ever gazed upon. An insignificant affair it appeared; a "cheese-box on a raft" it was irreverently designated. The deck, a level expanse of iron, came scarcely above the surface. Above it rose a circular turret, capable of being revolved, and with port-holes for two great guns, among the largest up to that time used in naval warfare.

How this odd contrivance came there so opportunely may be briefly told. It was the conception of John Ericsson, the eminent Swedish engineer, and was being rapidly built in New York while the Merrimac was being plated with thick iron bars in Norfolk. A contest for time took place between these two unlike craft. Spies were in both places, to report progress. Fortunately, the Monitor was finished a day or two before her competitor. Immediately she steamed away for Hampton Roads. The passage was a severe one. Three days were consumed, during which the seas swept repeatedly over the low deck, the men being often half suffocated in their confined quarters, the turret alone standing above the water. As they approached Fortress Monroe the sound of cannonading was heard. Tarrying but a few minutes at the fort, the Monitor, as this odd vessel had been named, approached the Minnesota, and reached her side at a late hour of the night.

And now, with the new day, back to the fray came the Merrimac, looking like a giant in comparison with this dwarfish antagonist. As she approached, the little craft glided swiftly in front of her grounded consort, like a new David offering battle to a modern Goliath. As if in disdain of this puny antagonist, the Merrimac began an attack on the Minnesota. But when the two eleven-inch guns of the Monitor opened fire, hurling solid balls of one hundred and sixty-eight pounds' weight against the iron sides of her great opponent, it became at once evident that a new move had opened in the game, and that the Merrimac had no longer the best of the play.

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.

Back to Norfolk went the injured Merrimac. Here she was put into the dry-dock and hastily repaired. After that had been done, she steamed down to the old fighting-ground on two or three occasions, and challenged her small antagonist. The Monitor did not accept the challenge. If any accident had happened to her the rest of the fleet would have been lost, and it was deemed wisest to hold her back for emergencies.

On the 10th of May the Confederates marched out of Norfolk. On the 11th the Merrimac was blown up, and only her disabled hull remained as a trophy to the victors. As to her condition and fighting powers, one of the engineers who had charge of the repairs upon her said,--

"A shot from the Monitor entered one of her ports, lodged in the backing of the other side, and so shivered her timbers that she never afterwards could be made seaworthy. She could not have been kept afloat for twelve hours, and her officers knew it when they went out and dared the Monitor to fight her. It was a case of pure bluff; we didn't hold a single pair."

The combat we have recorded was perhaps the most important in the history of naval warfare. It marked a turning-point in the construction of the monarchs of the deep, by proving that the future battles of the sea must be fought behind iron walls.

STEALING A LOCOMOTIVE.

On a fine day in April, 1862, a passenger-train drew out from Marietta, Georgia, bound north. Those were not days of abundant passenger travel in the South, except for those who wore the butternut uniform and carried muskets, but this train was well filled, and at Marietta a score of men in civilian dress had boarded the cars. Soldierly-looking fellows these were too, not the kind that were likely to escape long the clutch of the Confederate conscription.

Eight miles north of Marietta the train stopped at the station of Big Shanty, with the welcome announcement of "Ten minutes for breakfast." Out from the train, like bees from the hive, swarmed the hungry passengers, and made their way with all speed to the lunch-counter, followed more deliberately by conductor, engineer, and brakesmen. The demands of the lunch-counter are of universal potency; few have the hardihood to resist them; that particular train was emptied in the first of its ten minutes of grace.

Yet breakfast did not seem to appeal to all upon the train. The Marietta group of civilians left the train with the others, but instead of seeking the refreshment-room, turned their steps towards the locomotive. No one noticed them, though there was a Confederate camp hard by the station, well filled with raw recruits, and hardly a dozen steps from the engine a sentinel steadily walked his beat, rifle on shoulder.

One of the men climbed into the engine. The sentinel paid no heed to him. Another slipped in between two cars, and pulled out a coupling-pin. The sentinel failed to observe him. A group of others climbed quickly into an open box-car. The sentinel looked at them, and walked serenely on. The last man of the party now strode rapidly up the platform, nodded to the one in the locomotive, and swung himself lightly into the cab. The sentinel turned at the end of his beat and walked back, just beginning to wonder what all this meant. Meanwhile famine was being rapidly appeased at the lunch-counter within, and the not very luxurious display of food was vanishing like a field of wheat before an army of locusts.

Suddenly the sharp report of a rifle rung with warning sound through the air. The drowsy tenants of the camp sprang to their feet. The conductor hurried, out to the platform. He had heard something besides the rifle-shot,--the grind of wheels on the track,--and his eyes opened widely in alarm and astonishment as he saw that the train was broken in two, and half of it running away. The passenger-cars stood where he had left them. The locomotive, with three box-cars, was flying rapidly up the track. The sentinel, roused to a sense of the situation only when he saw the train in actual flight, had somewhat late given the alarm.

The conductor's eyes opened very wide. The engine, under a full head of steam, was driving up the road. The locomotive had been stolen! Out from the refreshment-room poured passengers and trainmen, filled with surprise and chagrin. What did it mean? What was to be done? There was no other engine within miles. How should these daring thieves ever be overtaken? Their capture seemed a forlorn hope.

The conductor, wild with alarm and dreading reprimand, started up the track on foot, running as fast as his legs could carry him. A railroad mechanic named Murphy kept him company. To one with a love of humor it would have been an amusing sight to see two men on foot chasing a locomotive, but just then Conductor Fuller was not troubled about the opinion of men of humor; his one thought was to overtake his runaway locomotive, and he would have crawled after it if no better way appeared.

Fortune comes to him who pursues her, not to him who waits her coming. The brace of locomotive chasers had not run down their strength before they were lucky enough to spy a hand-car, standing beside the track. Here was a gleam of hope. In a minute or two they had lifted it upon the rails. Springing within it, they applied themselves to the levers, and away they went at a more promising rate of speed.

For a mile or two all went on swimmingly. Then sudden disaster came. The car struck a broken rail and was hurled headlong from the track, sending its occupants flying into the muddy roadside ditch. This was enough to discourage anybody with less go in him than Conductor Fuller. But in a moment he was on his feet, trying his limbs. No bones were broken. A mud-bath was the full measure of his misfortune. Murphy was equally sound. The car was none the worse. With scarce a minute's delay they sprang to it, righted it, and with some strong tugging lifted it upon the track. With very few minutes' delay they were away again, somewhat more cautiously than before, and sharply on the lookout for further gifts of broken rails from the runaways ahead.

Leaving the pair of pursuers to their seemingly hopeless task, we must return to the score of locomotive pirates. These men who had done such strange work at Big Shanty were by no means what they seemed. They were clad in the butternut gray and the slouch hats of the Confederacy, but their ordinary attire was the blue uniform of the Union army. They were, in truth, a party of daring scouts, who had stealthily made their way south in disguise, their purpose being to steal a train, burn the bridges behind them as they fled, and thus make useless for a time the only railroad by which the Confederate authorities could send troops to Chattanooga, then threatened by the Union forces under General Mitchel.

They had been remarkably successful, as we have seen, at the beginning of their enterprise. Making their way, by devious routes, to Marietta, they had gathered at that place, boarded a train, and started north. The rush of passengers and trainmen into the refreshment-room at Big Shanty had been calculated upon. The presence of a Confederate camp at that out-of-the-way station had not been. It might have proved fatal to their enterprise but for the stolid stupidity of the sentinel. But that peril had been met and passed. They were safely away. Exhilaration filled their souls. All was safe behind; all seemed safe ahead.

True, there was one peril close at hand. Beside the track ran that slender wire, a resting-place, it seemed, for passing birds. In that outstretching wire their most imminent danger lurked. Fast as they might go, it could flash the news of their exploit a thousand-fold faster. The flight of the lightning news-bearer must be stopped. The train was halted a mile or two from the town, the pole climbed, the wire cut. Danger from this source was at an end. Halting long enough to tear up the rail to whose absence Conductor Fuller owed his somersault, they sprang to their places again and the runaway train sped blithely on.

Several times they stopped for wood and water. When any questions were asked they were answered by the companion of the engineer, James J. Andrews by name, a Union spy by profession, the originator of and leader in this daring enterprise.

"I am taking a train-load of powder to General Beauregard," was his stereotyped answer, as he pointed to the closed box-cars behind him, within one of which lay concealed the bulk of his confederates.

For some time they went swimmingly on, without delay or difficulty. Yet trouble was in the air, ill-fortune awaiting them in front, pursuing them from behind. They had, by the fatality of unlucky chance, chosen the wrong day for their work. Yesterday they would have found a clear track; to-day the road ahead was blocked with trains, hurrying swiftly southward.

At Kingston, thirty miles from Big Shanty, this trouble came upon them in a rush. A local train was to pass at that point. Andrews was well aware of this, and drew his train upon the siding to let it pass, expecting when it had gone to find the road clear to Chattanooga. The train came in on time, halted, and on its last car was seen waving the red danger-flag, the railroad signal that another train was following close behind. Andrews looked at this with no friendly eyes.

"How comes it," he asked the conductor, somewhat sharply, "that the road is blocked in this manner, when I have orders to take this powder to Beauregard without delay?"

"Mitchel has taken Huntsville," answered the conductor. "They say he is coming to Chattanooga. We are getting everything out of there as quickly as we can."

This looked serious. How many trains might there be in the rear? A badly-blocked road meant ruin to their enterprise and possibly death to themselves. They waited with intense anxiety, each minute of delay seeming to stretch almost into an hour. The next train came. They watched it pass with hopeful eyes. Ah! upon its rear floated that fatal red flag, the crimson emblem of death, as it seemed to them.

The next train came. Still the red flag! Still hope deferred, danger coming near! An hour of frightful anxiety passed. It was torture to those upon the engine. It was agony to those in the box-car, who knew nothing of the cause of this frightful delay, and to whom life itself must have seemed to have stopped.

Andrews had to cast off every appearance of anxiety and to feign easy indifference, for the station people were showing somewhat too much curiosity about this train, whose crew were strangers, and concerning which the telegraph had sent them no advices. The practised spy was full of resources, but their searching questions taxed him for satisfying answers.

At length, after more than an hour's delay, the blockade was broken. A train passed destitute of the red flag. The relief was great. They had waited at that station like men with the hangman's rope upon their necks. Now the track to Chattanooga was clear and success seemed assured. The train began to move. It slowly gathered speed. Up went hope in the hearts of those upon the engine. New life flowed in the veins of those within the car as they heard the grinding sound on the rails beneath them, and felt the motion of their prison upon wheels.