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Lincoln Story Book, The

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<h3>LITTLE DAVID AND THE STONE FOR GOLIATH.</h3> In the spring, 1862, spies and foreign officers who had seen the rebel ram Merrimac being built at Norfolk, reported her as formidable. The United States Galena, our first ironclad, was a failure. There was no vessel of the kind to deal with the monster save Ericsson's floating battery, ready for sea in March, called the Monitor, as a warning to Great Britain, expected to interfere on behalf of the South and raise the blockade over the cotton ports. This craft with a revolving turret was just as much of a new idea as its prototype. On March 8, the Merrimac came out of Norfolk and ran down the Cumberland sloop of war; blew the Congress to splinters, and compelled her being blown up to save her from the enemy; the Minnesota was run aground to prevent being rammed. The victor returned to her dock to make ready for a fresh onslaught. The effect was profound; it seemed no exaggeration to suppose that the irresistible conqueror would pass through the United States fleet at Hampton Roads and, speeding along the coast, reduce New York to the most onerous terms or to ashes. On Sunday, the ninth, the Monitor arrived after a sea passage, showing she rode too low for ocean navigation. Though in no fit state for battle, no time was allowed her, as the Merrimac ran out to exult over the ruins of the encounter. The Monitor threw herself in her way, bore her broadside without injury, and her shock with impunity, but on the other hand hurled her extremely heavy ball in, under her water-line. The ram backed out, and, wheeling and putting on full steam, returned to her haven. She was, it appears, too low to cross the bar to go up to Richmond, and was not ocean-going; she was blown up when Yorktown was evacuated by the Confederates in May, 1862. The President had said of her defeater, to some naval officers: "I think she will be the veritable sling with the stone to smite the Philistine Merrimac." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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