The Scene Of The Late Naval Fight

There is talk about blocking up the entrance to Norfolk with a stone fleet, which can be easily done, as the channel is narrow, and so rendering the Virginia useless.  Since the fight the Monitor has been improved by making the fronts of the pilot house spherical, so that her balls may glance from it as from the deck.  Her crew oppose the stone blockade project, as they want another chance at the Virginia, and are confident that they can sink her.  Charles Ellet, Jr., civil engineer, republishes a paragraph from his pamphlet of February 5, on “Military Incapacity,” in which he pointed out the danger threatened by the naval batteries of the rebels as follows:

It is not generally known that the rebels now have five steam rams nearly ready for use.  Of these, five, two are on the lower Mississippi, two are at Mobile, and one is at Norfolk.  The last of the five, the one at Norfolk, is doubtless the most formidable, being the United States steam frigate Merrimac, which has been so strengthened, that in the opinion of the rebels it may be used as a ram.  But we have not as yet a single vessel at sea, nor, as far as I know, in course of construction, able to cope at all with a well built ram.  If the Merrimac is expected to escape from Elizabeth river, she will be almost certain to commit great depredations on our armed and unarmed vessels in Hampton Roads; and may even be expected to pass out under the guns of Fortress Monroe, and prey upon our commerce in Chesapeake bay.  Indeed, if the alterations have been skillfully made, and she succeeds in getting to sea, she will not only be a terrible scourge to our commerce, but may prove also to be a most dangerous visitor to our blockading squadrons off the harbors of the southern coasts.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 3