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Shipwrecks: l The U.S.S. Monitor
l> Loss of the U.S.S.
Monitor Story l U.S.S.
Monitor Today! l Shipwreck Gallery
The Loss of the U.S.S. Monitor Story
At daybreak on the 29th of December, 1862, at Fort Monroe, the
Monitor hove short her anchor, and by ten o'clock in the
forenoon she was under way for Charleston, South Carolina, in
charge of Commander J. B. Bankhead. The Rhode Island, a powerful
side-wheeled steamer, was to be our convoy, and to hasten our
speed she took us in tow with two long twelve-inch hawsers. The
weather was heavy with dark, stormy-looking clouds and a
westerly wind. We passed out of the Roads and rounded Cape
Henry, proceeding on our course with but little change in the
weather up to the next day at noon, when the wind shifted to the
south-south-west and increased to a gale. At twelve o'clock it
was my trick at the lee wheel, and being a good hand I was kept
there. At dark we were about seventy miles at sea, and directly
off Cape Hatteras. The sea rolled high and pitched together in
the peculiar manner only seen at Hatteras. The Rhode Island
steamed slowly and steadily ahead. The sea rolled over us as if
our vessel were a rock in the ocean only a few inches above the
water, and men who stood abaft on the deck of the Rhode Island
have told me that several times we were thought to have gone
down. It seemed that for minutes we were out of sight, as the
heavy seas entirely submerged the vessel. The wheel had been
temporarily rigged on top of the turret, where all the officers,
except those on duty in the engine-room, now were. I heard their
remarks, and watched closely the movements of the vessel, so
that I exactly understood our condition. The vessel was making
very heavy weather, riding one huge wave, plunging through the
next as if shooting straight for the bottom of the ocean, and
splashing down upon another with such force that her hull would
tremble, and with a shock that would sometimes take us off our
feet, while a fourth would leap upon us and break far above the
turret, so that if we had not been protected by a rifle-armor
that was securely fastened and rose to the height of a man's
chest, we should have been washed away. I had volunteered for
service on the Monitor while she lay at the Washington Navy Yard
in November. This going to sea in an iron-clad I began to think
was the dearest part of my bargain. I thought of what I had been
taught in the service, that a man always gets into trouble if he
volunteers.
About eight o'clock, while I was taking a message from the
captain to the engineer, I saw the water pouring in through the
coal-bunkers in sudden volumes as it swept over the deck. About
that time the engineer reported that the coal was too wet to
keep up steam, which had run down from its usual pressure of
eighty pounds to twenty. The water in the vessel was gaining
rapidly over the small pumps, and I heard the captain order the
chief engineer to start the main pump, a very powerful one of
new invention. This was done, and I saw a stream of water eight
inches in diameter spouting up from beneath the waves.
About half-past eight the first signals of distress to the Rhode
Island were burned. She lay to, and we rode the sea more
comfortably than when we were being towed. The Rhode Island was
obliged to turn slowly ahead to keep from drifting upon us and
to prevent the tow-lines from being caught in her wheels. At one
time, when she drifted close alongside, our captain shouted
through his trumpet that we were sinking, and asking the steamer
to send us her boats. The Monitor steamed ahead again with
renewed difficulties, and I was ordered to leave the wheel and
was kept employed as messenger by the captain. The chief
engineer reported that the coal was so wet that he could not
keep up steam, and I heard the captain order him to slow down
and put all steam that could be spared upon the pumps. As there
was danger of being towed under by our consort, the tow-lines
were ordered to be cut, and I saw James Fenwick, quarter-gunner,
swept from the deck and carried by a heavy sea leeward and out
of sight in attempting to obey the order. Our daring boatswain's
mate, John Stocking, then succeeded in reaching the bows of the
vessel, and I saw him swept by a heavy sea far away into the
darkness.
About half-past ten o'clock our anchor was let go with all the
cable, and struck bottom in about sixty fathoms of water; this
brought us out of the trough of the sea, and we rode it more
comfortably. The fires could no longer be kept up with the wet
coal. The small pumps were choked up with water, or, as the
engineer reported, were drowned, and the main pump had almost
stopped working from lack of power. This was reported to the
captain, and he ordered me to see if there was any water in the
ward-room. This was the first time I had been below the
berth-deck. I went forward, and saw the water running in through
the hawse-pipe, and eight-inch hole, in full force, as in
dropping the anchor the cable had torn away the packing that had
kept this place tight. I reported my observations, and at the
same time heard the chief engineer report that the water had
reached the ash-pits and was gaining very rapidly. The captain
ordered him to stop the main engine and turn all steam on the
pumps, which I noticed soon worked again.
The clouds now began to separate, a moon about half size beamed
out upon the sea, and the Rhode Island, now a mile away, became
visible. Signals were being exchanged,* and I felt that the
Monitor would be saved, or at least that the captain would not
leave his ship until there was no hope of saving her. I was sent
below again to see how the water stood in the ward-room. I went
forward to the cabin and found the water just above the soles of
my shoes, which indicated that there must be more than a foot in
the vessel. I reported this to the captain and all hands were
set to baling, -- baling out the ocean, as it seemed, -- but the
object was to employ the men, as there now seemed to be danger
of excitement among them. I kept employed most of the time
taking the buckets from through the hatchway on top of the
turret. They seldom would have more than a pint of water in
them, however, the balance having been spilled out in passing
from one man to another.
The weather was clear, but the sea did not cease rolling in the
least, and the Rhode Island, with the two lines wound up in her
wheel, was tossing at the mercy of the sea, and came drifting
against our sides. A boat that had been lowered was caught
between the vessels and crushed and lost. Some of our seamen
bravely leaped down on deck to guard our sides, and lines were
thrown to them from the deck of the Rhode Island , which now lay
her whole length against us, floating off astern; but not a man
would be the first to leave his ship, although the captain gave
orders to do so. I was again sent to examine the water in the
ward-room, which I found to be more than two feet above the
deck; and I think I was the last person who saw Engineer S.A.
Lewis as he lay seasick in his bunk, apparently watching the
water as it grew deeper and deeper, and aware of what his fate
must be. He called me as I passed his door, and asked if the
pumps were working. I replied that they were. "Is there any
hope?" he asked; and feeling a little moved at the scene, and
knowing certainly what must be his end, and the darkness that
stared at us all, I replied, "As long as there is life there is
hope." "hope and hang on when you are wrecked," is an old saying
among sailors. I left the ward-room, and learned that the water
had gained so as to choke up the main pump. As I was crossing
the berth-deck I saw our ensign, Mr. Fredrickson, hand a watch
to Master's Mate Williams, saying, "Here, this is yours; I may
be lost." The watch and chain were both of unusual value.
Williams received them into his hand, then with a hesitating
glance at the time-piece said, "This thing may be the means of
sinking me," and threw it upon the deck. There were three or
four cabin-boys pale and prostrate with seasickness, and the
cabin cook, an old African negro, under great excitement, was
scolding them most profanely.
As I ascended the turret ladder the sea broke over the ship, and
came pouring down the hatchway with so much force that it took
me off my feet; and at the same time the steam broke from the
boiler-room, as the water had reached the fires, and for an
instant I seemed to realize that we had gone down. Our fires
were out, and I heard the water blowing out the boilers. I
reported my observations to the captain, and at the same time
saw a boat alongside. The captain again gave orders for the men
to leave the ship, and fifteen, all of whom were seamen and men
whom I had placed my confidence upon, were the ones who crowded
the first boat to leave the ship. I was disgusted at witnessing
the scramble, and, not feeling in the least alarmed about
myself, resolved that I, an "old haymaker," as landsmen are
called, would stick to the ship as long as my officers. I saw
three of these men swept from the deck and carried leeward on
the swift current.
Baling was now resumed. I occupied the turret all alone, and
passed buckets from the lower hatchway to the man on the top of
the turret. I took off my coat -- one that I had received from
home only a few days before (I could not feel that our noble
little ship was yet lost) -- and rolling it up with my boots,
drew the tampion from one of the guns, placed them inside, and
replaced the tampion. A black cat was sitting on the breech of
one of the guns, howling one of those hoarse and solemn tunes
which no one can appreciate who is not filled with the
superstitions which I had been taught by the sailors, who are
always afraid to kill a cat. I would almost as soon have touched
a ghost, but I caught her, and placing her in another gun,
replaced the wad and tampion; but I could still hear that
distressing yowl. As I raised my last bucket to the upper
hatchway no one was there to take it. I scrambled up the ladder
and found that we below had been deserted. I shouted to those on
the berth-deck, "Come up; the officers have left the ship, and a
boat is alongside."
As I reached the top of the turret I saw a boat made fast on the
weather quarter filled with men. Three others were standing on
deck trying to get on board. One man was floating leeward,
shouting in vain for help; another, who hurriedly passed me and
jumped down from the turret, was swept off by a breaking wave
and never rose. I was excited, feeling that it was the only
chance to be saved. I made a loose line fast to one of the
stanchions, and let myself down from the turret, the ladder
having been washed away. The moment I struck the deck the sea
broke over it and swept me as I had seen it sweep my shipmates.
I grasped one of the smokestack braces and, hand-over-hand,
ascended to keep my head above water. It required all my
strength to keep the sea from tearing me away. As it swept from
the vessel I found myself dangling in the air nearly at the top
of the smoke-stack. I let myself fall, and succeeded in reaching
a life-line that encircled the deck by means of short
stanchions, and to which the boat was attached. The sea again
broke over us, lifting me feet upward as I still clung to the
life-line. I thought I had nearly measured the depth of the
ocean, when I felt the turn, and as my head rose above the water
I was somewhat dazed from being so nearly drowned, and spouted
up, it seemed, more than a gallon of water that had found its
way into my lungs. I was then about twenty feet from the other
men, whom I found to be the captain and one seaman; the other
had been washed overboard and was now struggling in the water.
The men in the boat were pushing back on their oars to keep the
boat from being washed onto the Monitor's deck, so that the boat
had to be hauled in by the painter about ten or twelve feet. The
first lieutenant, S.D. Greene, and other officers in the boat,
were shouting, "Is the captain on board?" and, with severe
struggles to have our voices heard above the roar of the wind
and sea, we were shouting "No," and trying to haul in the boat,
which we at last succeeded in doing. The captain, ever caring
for his men, requested us to get in, but we both, in the same
voice, told him to get in first. The moment he was over the bows
of the boat Lieutenant Greene cried, "Cut the painter! cut the
painter!" I thought, "Now or lost," and in less time than I can
explain it, exerting my strength beyond imagination, I hauled in
the boat, sprang, caught on the gunwale, was pulled into the
boat with a boat-hook in the hands of one of the men, and took
my seat with one of the oarsmen. The other man, named Thomas
Joice, managed to get into the boat in some way, I cannot tell
how, and he was the last man saved from that ill-fated ship. As
we were cut loose I saw several men standing on top of the
turret, apparently afraid to venture down upon deck, and it may
have been that they were deterred by seeing others washed
overboard while I was getting into the boat.
After a fearful and dangerous passage over the frantic seas, we
reached the Rhode Island, which still had the tow-line caught in
her wheel and had drifted perhaps two miles to leeward. We came
alongside under the lee bows, where the first boat, that had
left the Monitor nearly an hour before, had just discharged its
men; but we found that getting on board the Rhode Island was a
harder task than getting from the Monitor. We were carried by
the sea from stem to stern, for to have made fast would have
been fatal; the boat was bounding against the ship's sides;
sometimes it was below the wheel, and then, on the summit of a
huge wave, far above the decks; then the two boats would crash
together; and once, while Surgeon Weeks was holding on to the
rail, he lost his fingers by a collision which swamped the other
boat. Lines were thrown to us from the deck of the Rhode Island,
which were of no assistance, for not one of us could climb a
small rope; and besides, the men who threw them would
immediately let go their holds, in their excitement, to throw
another -- which I found to be the case when I kept hauling in
rope instead of climbing.
It must be understood that two vessels lying side by side, when
there is any motion to the sea, move alternately; or in other
words, one is constantly passing the other up or down. At one
time, when our boat was near the bows of the steamer, we would
rise upon the sea until we could touch her rail; then in an
instant, by a very rapid descent, we could touch her keel. While
we were thus rising and falling upon the sea, I caught a rope,
and rising with the boat managed to reach a foot or two of the
rail, when a man, if there had been one, could easily have
hauled me on board. But they had all followed after the boat,
which at that instant was washed astern, and I hung dangling in
the air over the bow of the Rhode Island , with Ensign Norman
Atwater hanging to the cat-head, three or four feet from me,
like myself, with both hands clinching a rope and shouting for
some one to save him. Our hands grew painful and all the time
weaker, until I saw his strength give way. He slipped a foot,
caught again, and with his last prayer, "O God!" I saw him fall
and sink, to rise no more. The ship rolled, and rose upon the
sea, sometimes with her keel out of water, so that I was hanging
thirty feet above the sea, and with the fate in view that had
befallen our much-beloved companion, which no one had witnessed
but myself. I still clung to the rope with aching hands, calling
in vain for help. But I could not be heard, for the wind
shrieked far above my voice. My heart here, for the only time in
my life, gave up hope, and home and friends were most tenderly
thought of. While I was in this state, within a few seconds of
giving up, the sea rolled forward, bringing with it the boat,
and when I would have fallen into the sea, it was there. I can
only recollect hearing an old sailor say, as I fell into the
bottom of the boat, "Where in ___ did he come from?"
When I became aware of what was going on, no one had succeeded
in getting out of the boat, which then lay just forward of the
wheel-house. Our captain ordered them to throw bowlines, which
was immediately done. The second one I caught, and, placing
myself within the loop, was hauled on board. I assisted in
helping the others out of the boat, and it again went back to
the Monitor; it did not reach it, however, and after drifting
about on the ocean several days it was picked up by a passing
vessel and carried to Philadelphia.**
It was half-past twelve, the night of the thirty-first of
December, 1862, when I stood on the forecastle of the Rhode
Island, watching the red and white lights that hung from the
pennant-staff above the turret, and which now and then were seen
as we would perhaps both rise on the sea together, until at
last, just as the moon had passed below the horizon, they were
lost, and the Monitor, whose history is familiar to us all, was
seen no more.
The Rhode Island cruised about the scene of the disaster for the
remainder of the night and the next forenoon in hope of finding
the boat that had been lost; then she returned direct to Fort
Monroe, where we arrived the next day with our melancholy news.
Francis B. Butts.
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Monitor
* The method of communication from the Monitor
was by writing in chalk on a black-board which was held up to
view; the Monitor had no mast on which to hoist the regular
naval code used by the Rhode Island. As night approached, the
captain of the Monitor wrote, while we could yet see, that if
they were forced to abandon their ship, they would burn a red
light as a signal. About ten o'clock the signal was given. When
the steamer stopped to allow the hawsers to be cast off the
Monitor forged ahead under the impetus of her headway, and came
so close up under the steamer's stern, that there was great
danger of her running into and cutting the steamer down. When
the engines of the Rhode Island were started to go ahead to get
out of the way it was discovered that the hawser had got afoul
of the paddle-wheel, and when they were put in motion, instead
of getting clear of her, the rope wound up on the wheel and drew
the vessels together. This was an extremely dangerous position,
for they were being pitched and tossed about so much by the
heavy seas, that if the iron-clad had once struck the steamer
they must both have gone down together. However, a fireman went
into the wheel at the risk of his life, and with an ax cut the
hawser away so that the steamer was enabled to get away at a
safe distance. -- From a letter to the Editor from H.R. Smith,
then of the Rhode Island.
**After making two trips there were still four officers and
twelve men on the Monitor, and the gallant boat's crew, although
well-nigh exhausted by their labors, started for the third time
on its perilous trip, but it never reached them, for while all
on board the steamer were anxiously watching the light in the
turret and vainly peering into the darkness for a glimpse of the
rescuing boat, the light suddenly disappeared and forever, for
after watching for a long time to try and find it again they
were forced to the conclusion that the Monitor had gone to the
bottom with all that remained on board. The position of the
Rhode Island at this time was about eight or ten miles off the
coast directly east of Cape Hatteras. -- H.R.S.
Taken from Century Magazine, p. 299, 1885.
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