Iron had triumphed over wood. Sail had given way to steam. Nor was this message lost to the world, for this battle had long been anticipated, the existence of the Virginia a badly-kept secret. There were French and British ships standing out to sea that had been waiting for this encounter. They had watched closely the events of the day and fully expected the total destruction of the blockading fleet in the morning.
This was a new kind of war at sea. The sun set on a day of Southern victory.
IRON OF THE NORTH
The same storm that had kept the Virginia in port had prevented the Monitor from leaving the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Days and weeks of frustrating delays had followed her launching in mid-February. Ericsson’s design was magnificent; her construction from keel to completion in 101 days was a mechanical miracle. It was the human factor that could not have been allowed for in the drawings.
The metal ship had a single-screw propeller that was turned by a powerful two-cylinder engine — also of Ericsson’s design. However the engineers who had fitted the propeller had made a single major mistake. They had assumed that the drive shaft rotated in one direction — when in fact it rotated the opposite way. So when the first sea tests were begun and her commander, Lieutenant John Worden, ordered half-speed ahead, the craft shuddered and went backward and slammed into the dock.
“What is happening?” he called down to Chief Engineer Alban Stimers. The engineer’s profane reply could luckily not be heard above the clank of machinery. This died away and Stimers went forward to the pilothouse and called up to Worden.
“No one ever seems to have asked if the propeller is left-handed or right-handed. When you want to go forward it goes into reverse.”
“Can a new propeller be fitted?”
“No. This was one was specially designed and made to order. I don’t know how long it would take to manufacture a new one, but I know it could not be done very quickly. And she would have to go back into drydock to have it replaced, which would take even more time.”
“Damnation! What about running the engine in reverse then? That would certainly make her go forward.”
Stimers shook his head gloomily, mopping his sopping face with a rag that only spread more grease across his skin. “We could. But we wouldn’t get more than two or three knots — not her design speed of seven.”
Worden climbed down from the armored pilothouse. “Why? I don’t understand.”
“Well you have to know something about engines to get the drift. You see each slide valve is driven by a loose eccentric which is shifted part way around to get into reverse. This gives the best result in one position — not the other.”
“The answer then?”
“The entire engine must be taken down and the eccentrics repositioned.”
Worden knew that time was growing short. The newspapers, both North and South, were filled with reports that the Southern ironclad was nearing completion. He had also had more specific intelligence reports that it would be a matter of weeks, possibly days, before the enemy ship came out to tackle the blockading fleet. Every day wasted was a day lost. But the propeller had to be put right. They were not going to backwater stern first into battle!
“Start on it at once.”
It was not until February 19 that ablebodied seamen and officers were mustered and Monitor was finally towed by a tug for the short trip from Greenpoint to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the monster pair of guns were lowered into place. They were 11-inch smoothbore Dahlgren cannon capable of firing a solid shot weighing 166 pounds. Stores were loaded aboard as well, along with a supply of powder, shot, shell, grape and canister. The iron ship was going to war.
Though not quite yet.
Engineer Stimers had the responsibility of test-firing the guns, although he had never seen a recoil mechanism like theirs before. After the guns were fired the recoil ran them back along a metal track. When this happened the guns were slowed by friction plates that were clamped tightly to the track. But Stimers turned the friction recoil wheel the wrong way — loosening rather than tightening the clamps.
When the first gun was test-fired it flew back at great speed and was only stopped by the cascabel striking the interior of the turret. This sheared off several bolts that secured the bearings of the guide-rollers to the carriage. These were hard to get to and it took a long time to drill them out and replace them.
The human element again. Stimers was so upset by the incident that he made the same mistake with the second gun. Which had to be repaired in the same manner. Ericsson himself supervised the repairs, staring angrily at the shamed engineer, muttering darkly in Swedish until the job had been done to his satisfaction.
It wasn’t until February 26 that all the repairs had been made. The following morning at 7 A M., cold and dark and with a fierce sno
wstorm blowing, the Monitor let go her lines. Her destination Hampton Roads and the blockading Union fleet. The longshoremen headed for shelter and only John Ericsson and Thomas Fitch Roland, owner of the ironworks where the ship had been made, remained on the dock.
“At last,” Roland said. “Now the Ericsson battery will prove its worth. It is a wonderful machine that you have invented and it is a matter of great pride to me that we have completed it to everyone’s satisfaction.”
“It will do what it has been designed to do. You have my word on that.” Then he gasped. “But — what is happening?”
Monitor had turned her bow suddenly towards the bank of the narrow, choppy channel. A collision seemed certain — however just before she struck the bank the bow swung out — toward the other side. Slower and slower the iron ship continued, corkscrewing from side to side until she finally hit a flimsy dock, almost demolishing it, and stopped.
Ericsson was almost dancing with rage. “Get a tug,” he said through tight-clamped teeth. “Get her back to the dock.”
“I couldn’t hold her,” the abashed helmsman explained. “Once I turned the rudder to one side, I had to fight to get it back. Even with Lieutenant Worden helping me it was almost physically impossible to do. Then, once I got it over it would go to the other side and the same thing would happen.”
Ericsson insisted on making the examination himself, inspecting the tiller ropes and linkage to the rudder. Sailors relayed instructions from him to turn the wheel first one way, then the other. It was more than an hour before he emerged, trousers soaked from the bilges, filthy and grease-covered but unaware of it.