April 15, 1863, The New York Herald
The extraordinary combat maintained last week by eight small iron-clads, carrying sixteen guns, with the innumerable batteries and powerful forts by which the entrance to Charleston harbor is defended, is one of the most remarkable events of the great rebellion, prolific as it has been in prodigies of various kinds. Nothing like it is to be found in the whole history of naval warfare; and the fact that the attack was repulsed, and that the pigmy assailants were forced to haul off, does not detract from the marvellousness of the enterprise, but only adds to the lessons which may be learned from the experiment, and which may be profited by in our future operations.
Let us look for a moment at the facts. Seven little turreted Monitors, each carrying two guns; another equally diminutive vessels, built on a different model – the Keokuk – and an armored vessel-of-war – the New Ironsides – carrying as many guns as all the rest combined, moved from their anchorage within the bar of Charleston on Tuesday, the 7th inst., and headed directly toward the city, with instructions to get into a good position to engage Fort Sumter. In endeavoring to get into the desired position the propeller screw of the foremost of them became entangled in a rope netting which the defenders had placed across the channel. This rendered the vessel entirely unmanageable, and for some time she drifted, without any motive power of her own, till at last she got extricated. The other vessels avoided being caught in the same trap. They looked about for another opening, but in vain. They could not get to the north of Fort Sumter without penetrating this network barricade; and to attempt that would have been to render the whole fleet powerless. In this dilemma they drew up against Fort Sumter at distances ranging from three hundred to six hundred yards, and for half an hour maintained a most unequal contest against it. From Sumter, Moultrie and three other powerful defensive works they were subjected to a concentric fire which would have sent to the bottom any wooden fleet that every breasted the waves of ocean. No less than three thousand five hundred rounds were fired at them, which they could only return at the rate of one to twenty. They fired in all just one hundred and fifty-one rounds of ammunition, each vessel counting as follows: –
Rounds.
New Ironsides 8
Passaic 9
Catskill 25
Nahant 21
Keokuk 3
Weehawken 26
Montauk 26
Patapsco 18
Nantucket 15
_____
Total 151
The effect of their guns on Fort Sumter was so destructive that if they could have kept up the fight for an hour or two longer the rebel fortress would have been rendered untenable.
Now let us examine the result of the half hour’s firing on them. The guns of the forts were of the heaviest calibre and most approved patterns – the English allies of the rebels having supplied them with some of their best ordnance. The artillery practice was excellent, as is proved by the fact that our nine vessels were struck five hundred and twenty times, the favors being distributed as follows:–
received of shots
New Ironsides 65
Keokuk 90
Weehawken 60
Montauk 20
Passaic 58
Nantucket 51
Catskill 51
Patapsco 45
Nahant 80
All this at point blank range. And yet the Keokuk was the only vessel that was fatally damaged by this terrific fire; and even she, pierced and torn as she was, with nineteen shots on the water line, had enough vitality left to obey the signal to retire and rejoin the flagship, and it was not till next morning that she sank in the waves. The New Ironsides was unmanageable all the day, refusing to answer her helm, and therefore she took no active part in the fight, discharging only one solitary broadside at Fort Moultrie. But the seven vessels of the Monitor pattern came out of the fiery ordeal almost unscathed. The only injury sustained by them was by the indenting of the turrets of some of them to such an extent as to prevent their revolving.
What chance would a fleet of wooden war vessels have stood in such a belt of fire and under such a weight of artillery, delivered at close quarters? Why, half a hundred ships-of-war, subjected to such a test, would have gone to the bottom or been blown up. And, therefore, for all such purposes of offence, the wooden walls of England are of no more value than so many Roman galleys. The fight off Charleston harbor has sounded the knell of wooden war ships.
That fight is pregnant with other lessons. It teaches us that vessels of the Monitor pattern are comparatively impregnable, and that no forts of defensive works can prevent their passage, if the channels remain unobstructed. If they could have been kept moving in a circle, as were the gunboats that captured the forts at Hilton Head, delivering their fire as they passed, they would not have been exposed to one tithe the risks they incurred while stationary under the concentrated fire of three hundred guns. But there was no space for any such manœuvre before Fort Sumter. Still, profiting by that lesson, they should in any future attack be kept moving up and down.
Looking over the whole field, what was the pivotal point on which the failure or success of the attack depended? Clearly it was the channel obstructions. Against the guns of the forts the armor of the iron-clads might have been a complete defence; but, like Achilles, they were vulnerable in the heel. We do not see, however, why the same inventive genius that devised the Monitors cannot overcome the new difficulty. We suppose it would not require any great exercise of mechanical skill to construct a machine by which grappling irons might be thrown out from the mouth of a mortar one or two hundred yards ahead of a vessel, and then drawn in by the capstan, thus getting rid of torpedoes and all similar obstructions. We have no doubt that some such plan will be devised and put into execution so that our Monitor may have another chance at Charleston and her defences.
We may sum up the practical and scientific lessons imparted by this extraordinary contest thus: – The attack on Charleston should not have been delayed until the rebels had time to render the city as impregnable as nature and art could make it. When it was made not less than a score of Monitors should have been employed. Fortifications are of no avail against Monitors if the channel is clear. In future operations there must be means employed for clearing out obstructions. The harbor of New York may, with the aid of half a dozen Monitors at Sandy Hook, be made absolutely unapproachable to all hostile fleets. And, finally, wooden war ships, except intended for piratical purposes, like the Alabama, or to overtake such fleet-footed corsairs, are entirely behind the age. These are the leading principles, practical and scientific, to be deduced from the conflict off the harbor of Charleston.