. . . but few of its heroic incidents find a chronicler. In our interest in each new battle we forget
the last; and, it is to be feared, too often seem to forget men who deserve the
highest honors. The name of Lieut.
Morris, for example, the commander of the Cumberland, who, with a heroism, for
a parallel of which we must search far, fought the Merrimac so long as a gun
remained above water, and keeps is flag flying still, is not, as it should be,
a household word wherever true courage is honored. He has been thanked by the secretary of the
Navy and by Congress, but that is all.
Another incident of that gallant fight has never so far as we have
noticed, appeared in print. When Gen.
Mansfield saw the Cumberland sinking, he ordered the captain of a tug to put
off from Newport News and go to the assistance of her crew. The poor creature refused, pleading fear of losing
his life. Mansfield cocked his pistol
and assured him that death was nearer him if he refused than if he went. The captain was convinced by this
reasoning. No sooner had the noble tars,
thus saved from a watery grave, touched land than, dripping and half-drowned as
they were, they ran to the cannon which were lying upon the beach and not
reflecting that six pounders are useless against an iron-mailed vessel of war,
turned them upon the enemy. Reading the
future by the light of such noble spirits, can we doubt the issue of the
war? All our soldiers and sailors ask is
an opportunity to show what manner of men they are. – N. Y. Tribune.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 2
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