THE FIRST FIGHT OF I RON-CLADS.

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certain duties after getting on board. Some were to try to wedge the turret,some to cover the pilot-house and all the openings with tarpaulins, others toscale with ladders the turret and smoke-stack, using shells, hand-grenades,etc. Even if but two of the gun-boats should succeed in grappling her, wewere confident of success. Talking this over since with Captain S. D. Greene,who was the first lieutenant of the Monitor, and in command after CaptainWorderi was wounded in the pilot-house, he said they were prepared for any-thing of this kind and that it would have failed. Certain it is, if an oppor-tunity had been given, the attempt would have been made.

A break-down of the engines forced us to return to Norfolk . Having com-pleted our repairs on May 8th, and while returning to our old anchorage, weheard heavy firing, and, going down the harbor, found the Monitor , with theiron-clads Galena, Naugatuck, and a number of heavy ships, shelling our bat-teries at Sewell’s Point. We stood directly for the Monitor, but as weapproached they all ceased firing and retreated below the forts. We followedclose down to the Rip-Raps, whose shot passed over us, striking a mile ormore beyond the ship. We remained for some hours in the Roads , and finallythe commodore, in a tone of deepest disgust, gave the order: “Mr. Jones,fire a gun to windward, and take the ship back to her buoy.”

During the month of April, 1862, our forces, under G-eneral J. E. Johnston,had retired from the Peninsula to the neighborhood of Richmond , to defendthe city against McClellan’s advance by way of the Peninsula , and from timeto time rumors of the possible evacuation of Norfolk reached us. On the 9thof May, while at anchor off Sewell’s Point, we noticed at sunrise that ourflag was not flying over the batteries. A boat was sent ashore and foundthem abandoned. Lieutenant Pembroke Jones was then dispatched to Nor-folk , some miles distant, to call upon General Huger, who was in command,and learn the condition of affairs. He returned during the afternoon, report-ing, to our great surprise, the town deserted by our troops and the navy yardon fire. This precipitate retreat was entirely unnecessary, for while the Vir-ginia remained afloat, Norfolk was safe, or, at all events, was not tenable bythe enemy, and James River was partly guarded, for we could have retiredbehind the obstructions in the channel at Craney Island, and, with the bat-teries at that point, could have held the place, certainly until all the valuablestores and machinery had been removed from the navy yard. Moreover, hadthe Virginia been afloat at the time of the battles around Richmond, GeneralMcClellan would hardly have retreated to James River; for, had he done so,we could at any time have closed it and rendered any position on it untenable.

Norfolk evacuated, our occupation was gone, and the next thing to bedecided upon was what should be done with the ship. Two courses of actionwere open to us: we might have run the blockade of the forts and done somedamage to the shipping there and at the mouth of the York River, providedthey did not get out of our way,— for, with our great draught and low rate ofspeed, the enemy’s transports would have gone where we could not have fol-lowed them; and the Monitor and other iron-clads would have engaged us withevery advantage, playing around us as rabbits around a sloth, and the end