not disable her antagonist. Each boat tried to ram the other, but neither was successful. When the Merrimac approached close to the Monitor with the intention of sinking her by ramming, the latter fired twice, and partially forced in the side of the Merrimac's shield, knocking down several of her crew; her executive officer said that another shot at the same point would have penetrated the side. The Monitor was hit repeatedly on the turret, but with no other effect than to make several indentations. Finding that no impression could be made in this way, the commander of the Merrimac ordered her fire to be concentrated on the Monitor's pilot house, and with very good effect. One shot partially destroyed the pilot house and disabled Captain Worden. He was blinded by the force of the blow, and blood poured from his face. He was thought at the time to be fatally injured, but he recovered in a few weeks and returned to duty. After Captain Worden was disabled, Lieutenant Greene took command and held it through the rest of the fight.
The position of the pilot house was found inconvenient, for the reason that the guns in the turret could not be fired directly ahead without the risk of hitting the pilot house and knocking it to pieces. Subsequently it was placed directly over the turret, and this was the position of the pilot house in all the later ships of the Monitor pattern. Lieutenant Greene, in an article in the Century magazine, said that it was very difificult to maintain communications with the pilot house, as the speaking-tube between it and the turret was broken early in the battle. Word was passed by the assistant paymaster and the captain's clerk, but as both were landsmen, the nautical phrases transmitted through them often became unintelligible before reaching their destination.
In the turret it was difficult to make out the position of the Merrimac; marks had been placed on the deck, before the action, to indicate the direction of bow and
