Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Further Particulars of the Naval Engagement


BALTIMORE, March 12. – The Old Point boat has arrived.  We learn through Lieut. Hayward that a copy of the Norfolk Day Book has reached Old Point.  It contains a highly colored account of the Merrimac fight and pays a great compliment to the bravery of the crew of the Cumberland.  It admits that some of the shot from the vessel entered the Merrimac.  One shell killed seventeen men in the Merrimac and wounded Capt. Buchanan who subsequently died.

The Monitor is admitted to be formidable but says she appeared like a black, Yankee cheese on a raft.

The Merrimac on Sunday was under command of Capt. Johns.  The account is mainly confined to Saturday’s fight.  Some slight repairs are necessary to the Merrimac.  The reason why the Merrimac did not first attack the Congress was because Capt. Buchanan had a brother on board as paymaster.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 3

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