Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ... VI. THE MONITOR AND MERRIMAC. i. PRELUDE TO HAMPTON ROADS. Could we fancy some ancient monarch of the quarter-deck, some Blake, DuQuesne, Tromp, Ruyter, nay, even a Jervis or a Nelson of our own century, risen from his bed of fame and escorted to a modern ship of war, what would not be his bewilderment at the scene! Amazed at his surroundings, he would accuse his own eyes of treachery, and declare himself delirious or dreaming: and when, after infinite wonder, the truth became clear to him, he would no longer recognize his profession, and would confess that he was but a novice in naval combat. In place of that majestic structure of oak and canvas, perfected by the elaboration of centuries, and beautiful in the form and finish of its multitudinous details, over which his admiral's pennant once floated, he beholds under his feet a long, low, iron-bound raft, rising but a few inches out of the water, and, fixed thereon, a stumpy iron cylinder. No cunningly-carved stern or quarter-gallery, no magnificent figure-head, no solid bulwarks surmounted with snowy hammocks, no polished and shining capstan, no neatly-coiled cables, nothing of all the paraphernalia of that holy-stoned deck he was wont to pace in great glory, now meets his eye: there is only a rusty, greasy, iron planking, stript of all adornment, and indeed of everything once familiar. At each larger swell the ocean rushes over the deck, a result which his astonished gaze finds to be a matter of design. Instead of those clouds of canvas he was wont to see stretching far up into the sky, with all their attendant complexity of rope and spar, there is not only no sail visible, but no yard for a sail, nor a single mast for a yard. That vast apparatus of timber and rigging which marked the...
