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Updated: June 25, 2025
The fleet consisted of four heavy sloops-of-war of the Hartford class; three corvettes of the Iroquois class; nine gunboats of the Cayuga class, and the large side-wheel steamer Mississippi, carrying in the aggregate one hundred and fifty-four guns, principally of nine-inch and eleven-inch calibre; but as the large ships carried their batteries mostly in broadside, the actual number that could be brought to bear, under the most favorable conditions, on every given point, would be cut down to the neighborhood of ninety guns.
The latter, in the hands of the two Herschels and Rosse, had reached its utmost limits as is shown by the fact that to this day the Rosse telescope is the largest of its kind in the world. Meanwhile the production of refracting telescopes made but slow progress. As late as 1836 the largest instrument of this kind in the world was the eleven-inch telescope of the observatory at Munich.
I thought they must all have been sunk by the forts. Looking ahead, I saw eleven of the enemy's gunboats coming down, upon us, and I supposed we were gone. Three made a dash to board us, but a charge from our eleven-inch settled one, the Governor Moore. The ram Manassas just missed us astern, and we soon disposed of the other.
This proved to be the Indianola, armed with two eleven-inch guns forward and two nine-inch aft, all in iron casemates. The Webb returned to De Russy with this information, which was forwarded to Alexandria. We had barely time to congratulate ourselves on the capture of the Queen before the appearance of the Indianola deprived us again of the navigation of the great river, so vital to our cause.
Great as was her power to resist a single shot, or the end-on charge of a heavy vessel, when she surrendered nearly all the plating on the after side of the casemate was found to be started, and the after gun-carriage was disabled; there being distinct marks of nine eleven-inch solid shot having struck within a few square feet of that port.
His three weeks' holiday had been no end enjoyable; and now, besides a coin or two in his pocket, he had a clean, crisp note in his purse. As he stepped out of the train at the station, the burly figure of Jim Cotton hove in sight, and an eleven-inch palm clapped Gus on the back. "Hallo! old man. How goes it?"
Recruiting his shattered health for a short time at his welcoming home, he was ordered as executive officer of the Cayuga, one of the so-called ninety-day gunboats, carrying a battery of one eleven-inch Dahlgren gun, a twenty pounder Parrott rifle, and two twenty-four pounder howitzers, and commanded by Lieutenant-Commanding N.B. Harrison, a loyal Virginian, who had wavered never a moment as to his duty when his State threw down the gauntlet of rebellion.
Upon which claim put forth by the Manhattan, the writer ventures the opinion: First, that four hits out of six shots was poor shooting for a monitor at a target like the Tennessee, and suggestive of considerable distance between the vessels; second, that eye-witnesses have affirmed that only one of the Manhattan's shot took effect, a solid shot that struck the ram on the port beam, crushing her armor and splintering the backing, but not entering the casemate, though leaving a clean hole through; third, that the effect of that one shot showed what the Manhattan might have accomplished had she taken as favorable a position as that chosen by the Chickasaw; fourth, that it is believed the report of a board of survey confirmed the opinion as to that one shot; fifth, that, as between the great difference of sound in the firing of the fifteen-inch gun and an eleven-inch, and the greater destructive effect of the larger projectiles which could not but be felt by those receiving it, the enemy would best be likely to know from what source they sustained the most vital damage; sixth, that the concurrent opinions of the day, as given by press correspondents, eye-witnesses to the conflict, magazine summaries, official reports, the praise of Perkins on every lip, the talk of his promotion by distinguished officers, and the testimony of the enemy themselves, including Admiral Buchanan and Captain Johnston, all go to show that the surrender of the Tennessee was due more to the dogged and unrelenting effort and skilful management of Perkins of the Chickasaw than from any other cause.
In the morning General Wood's forces continued to retreat, fighting with dogged courage in a costly rear-guard action, and destroying railroads and bridges as they went. The carnage wrought by the German six- and eleven-inch explosive shells with delayed-action fuses was frightful beyond anything I have ever known.
She was not exactly a Monitor; but she had a turret forward, and mounted two eleven-inch guns and four twelve-pounder howitzers. She had a heavy iron ram on her bow, and the turret was protected by three inches of iron, and the deck with two inches. It did not seem possible that a cannon-ball could make any impression on her thick armor.
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