Greene accepts the burden of command (part 2)
Note: This is the second part in a three-part series about Samuel Dana Greene and Cumberland (MD)’s connections to in the epic battle between the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia.
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Officers on the deck of the U.S.S. Monitor. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The crew of the U.S.S. Monitor wasn’t sure what they would find when they steamed into Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862. The sounds of thunder they had heard were now believed to be the sounds of cannon booming during a great battle.
The crew suspected what the C.S.S. Virginia could do, but the report sounded like tall tales. An iron hull that the largest cannonball only bounced off of? A ram that would sink a warship in a single blow?
Impossible. Yet this was a new age, an age in which iron could float and, as the crew was about to discover, fable could become fact.
“As we approached Hampton Roads we could see the fine old Congress burning brightly, and soon a pilot came on board and told of the arrival of the Merrimac, the disaster to the Cumberland and the Congress, and the dismay of the Union forces,” Monitor Executive Officer Samuel Dana Greene wrote in an article in The Century Magazine in 1885.
Born in Cumberland, Greene had entered the navy as an “acting midshipman” in 1855 at the age of 15. He volunteered for duty on the Monitor and because of the shortage of junior officers in the navy, he was made executive officer. Greene’s assigned crewmen to their watches and quarters. He was also gunnery officer and trained the crew on the two Dahlgren guns in the turret.
The U.S.S. Minnesota had been headed to assist the U.S.S. Cumberland and the U.S.S. Congress in their losing battles against the ironclad Virginia, resurrected from the sunken U.S.S. Merrimack. The Monitor dropped anchor beside the Minnesota to give the wooden ship the protection of the Union’s hastily built ironclad.
In August 1861, the Navy Department had solicited ideas for ironclad vessels and selected John Ericsson‘s unique design. The ship had been built in less than 100 days. When in the water, the ship’s deck rode only a foot above the water. One Confederate naval officer described the Monitor as a cheese box on a shingle.
Early tests of the ship’s abilities hadn’t been heartening, but it was the Union’s only hope to stand against the Virginia which had so easily proved victorious over two wooden ships on March 8.
“Between 1 and 2 A. M. the Congress blew up, not instantaneously, but successively; her powder-tanks seemed to explode, each shower of sparks rivaling the other in its height, until they appeared to reach the zenith — a grand but mournful sight. Near us, too, lay the Cumberland at the bottom of the river, with her silent crew of brave men, who died while fighting their guns to the water’s edge, and whose colors were still flying at the peak,” Greene wrote.
The Confederate sailors celebrated their victory throughout the night and in the morning, headed toward the Minnesota to sink it as well. The Virginia came within a mile of the Minnesota and opened fire.
The Monitor moved alongside the Virginia, swiveled its turret so the twin guns faced the Virginia and Captain John Worden ordered, “Commence firing!”
“I triced up the port, ran out the gun, and, taking deliberate aim, pulled the lockstring. The Merrimac was quick to reply, returning a rattling broadside (for she had ten guns to our two), and the battle fairly began. The turret and other parts of the ship were heavily struck, but the shots did not penetrate; the tower was intact, and it continued to revolve. A look of confidence passed over the men’s faces, and we believed the Merrimac would not repeat the work she had accomplished the day before,” Greene wrote.
As the gunnery officer, he personally chose the target and fired each shot from the Monitor.
The Virginia wasn’t prepared to fight another ironclad. Its guns were loaded with grapeshot and explosive shells, which had no effect on an ironclad. Meanwhile, the Monitor was firing 168-pound balls from 17,000-pound guns.
Captain Henry Van Brunt of the Minnesota wrote, “Gun after gun was fired by the Monitor, which was returned by whole broadsides from the rebels with no more effect, apparently, than so many pebble stones thrown by a child.”
The intense firing caused so much smoke that spectators couldn’t see the battle at times. The smaller Monitor would move in close to the Virginia, sometimes even touching the other ship, and fire both guns. Then the Monitor could quickly move to a new location, swivel the turret to redirect the guns and fire again.
Inside the turret, the men, including Greene, were black with powder and nearly deaf from the sound of hits against the iron skin of turret. The turret took at least nine direct hits with the worst damage being dents.
At one point, the Monitor tried to ram the Virginia, but a steering malfunction caused the Monitor to barely miss it. In the pilot house, Worden was looking out when the Virginia fired on the passing Monitor and hit the pilot house.
Blinded, the captain was carried to a sofa and Greene was called from the turret. Greene arrived and saw the captain. “He was a ghastly sight, with his eyes closed and the blood apparently rushing from every pore in the upper part of his face. He told me that he was seriously wounded, and directed me to take command. I assisted in leading him to a sofa in his cabin, where he was tenderly cared for by Doctor Logue, and then I assumed command,” Greene wrote.
Uncertain of how badly the steering gear had been damaged, Greene ordered the Monitor to break off the fighting. When Greene found the damage was not so serious that the Monitor couldn’t fight, the ship reentered the engagement. However, the Virginia was itself retreating from the battlefield in order to keep from being trapped by a low tide.
“We of the Monitor thought, and still think, that we had gained a great victory. This the Confederates have denied. But it has never been denied that the object of the Merrimac on the 9th of March was to complete the destruction of the Union fleet in Hampton Roads, and that in this she was completely foiled and driven off by the Monitor nor has it been denied that at the close of the engagement the Merrimac retreated to Norfolk, leaving the Monitor in possession of the field,” Greene wrote.
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