While the guns of the battle were yet echoing over the waters of the
harbor, this strange little craft, a floating iron cheese box, was
slowly steaming into the Virginia capes.
At nine o'clock that night Ericsson's _Monitor_ was beside the
panic-stricken _Roanoke_.
When C. S. Bushnell took the model of this strange craft to Washington,
he was referred to Commander C. H. Davis by the Naval Board. When Davis
had examined it he handed it back to Bushnell with a pitying smile:
"Take the little thing home, and worship it. It would not be idolatry,
because it's made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or the
earth beneath or in the waters under the earth."
Wiser councils had prevailed, and the floating cheese box was completed
and arrived in Hampton Roads in time to put its powers to supreme test.
The _Merrimac's_ crew ate their breakfast at their leisure and prepared
to drive their ugly duckling into the battle line again and finish the
work of destroying the battered Federal squadron.
The _Merrimac_ had fought the battle of the day before under the
constant pounding of more than one hundred guns bearing on her iron
sides. Her armor was intact. Two of her guns were disabled by having
their muzzles shot off.
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