the day before. Undoubtedly the advantages of the day's fighting were with the Monitor, as she saved the fleet of wooden ships from destruction and utterly checked the course of Confederate victory.
During the next two months the Monitor lay in Hampton Roads carefully guarding the entrance of Chesapeake Bay, or rather preserving it against any raid of the Merrimac. Twice in these two months the Merrimac came out of Elizabeth River in the evident hope of provoking a battle, but she did not venture as far as the Monitor's anchorage.
The commander of the Monitor had positive orders not to venture into the shoal water above Hampton Roads where the Union fleet could not support her, and the Merrimac had equally positive orders from the Confederate Navy Department not to go beyond a certain point, through fear that she might be disabled by the fire of the forts where no aid could reach her.
Norfolk was evacuated early in May, 1862, and as the Merrimac drew too much water to ascend the James River, her commander ordered her destruction; the crew escaped to the shore and the vessel was burned and blown up. And so ended the Merrimac.
The Monitor afterwards had a brief engagement with the fortifications at Drewry's Bluffs. She was unable to silence the guns or destroy the earthworks, but on her part she suffered no damage. In December, 1862, she was thoroughly repaired and ordered to Beaufort, North Carolina, in tow of the steamer Rhode Island. On the night of December 30th she went down at sea in a gale; forty-nine officers and men were saved by the boats of the steamer, but four officers and twelve men were drowned. Lieut. Greene said it was impossible to keep her clear of water, and the officers thought that the two hulls had become separated by the bumping of the heavy sea.
Though the Monitor was the design of Capt. Ericsson,
