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The Monitor had by far the greatest speed, and was much more easily turned than the Confederate ram, and her guns were very much heavier, and the Merrimac, while still keeping up the fight, made toward the mouth of the river.
At a Cabinet meeting in Washington Sunday morning, March 9, Secretary of War Stanton declared: "The Merrimac will change the course of the war; she will destroy seriatim every naval vessel; she will lay all the cities on the seaboard under contribution.
After a careful inspection of the final preparations I was forced to relinquish the plan for that morning, as dawn was breaking. Mr. Hobson begged to try it at all hazards. This morning proved more propitious, as a prompt start could be made. Nothing could have been more gallantly executed. * A careful inspection of the harbor from this ship showed that the Merrimac had been sunk in the channel.
Occasionally Emerson or Ellery Channing or Henry Thoreau some poet, as once Whittier, journeying to the Merrimac, or an old Brook-Farmer who remembered Miles Coverdale with Arcadian sympathy went down the avenue and disappeared in the house.
Men, women and children, all of us, crowd around the grimy Deignan of the Merrimac crew, and shout and cheer for Bill Smith, the Rough Rider, who carried his mate out of the ruck at San Juan and twirls his hat awkwardly and explains: "Ef I hadn't a saw him fall he would 'a' laid thar yit!" and go straight home and pretend to be proud of a snug little poodle of a man who doesn't play for fear of soiling his picture-clothes, and who says: "Yes, sir, thank you," and "No, thank you, ma'am," like a French doll before it has had the sawdust kicked out of it!
He looked at me rather dubiously at first, because I had been down in the engine-room of the ’Merrimac,’ where I got covered with oil, and that, with the soot and coal-dust, made my appearance most disreputable.
Our news was apt to be ten days old, but to us it was as good as new; indeed, somewhat better, for we heard of the first reverses at Shiloh, and by the hands of the Merrimac, by the same mail which brought word of the final decided victory. Thus we were spared the anxiety of suspense.
He housed himself in a wigwam at Walden Pond and was suspected of having started from the brands of his camp a forest fire which had spread far. This strange man, rumour said, had written a book no copy of which had ever been sold. It described a week on the Concord and Merrimac rivers.
Of the two stores there, I don't know which is the worst. Their 'Merrimac' won't wash, and their flannel shrinks, and their thread breaks every needleful. But, to 'Boston' dear me! Whatever did make me think of that place! Now I've thought, it'll stick in my mind till it drives me wild or back there, and that's about the same thing.
While on board the flag-ship Lieutenant Hobson thus detailed his plan of action: “I shall go right into the harbour until about four hundred yards past the Estrella battery, which is behind Morro Castle. I do not think they can sink me before I reach somewhere near that point. The Merrimac has seven thousand tons buoyancy, and I shall keep her full speed ahead. She can make about ten knots.
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