allows the greatest possible thickness of armor, and, consequently, the greatest possible impregnability. The ability to carry armor is proportionable to the tunnage, but the Monitor of 844 tuns has actually thicker plating than the Ironsides of 3,480 tuns, and than the Warrior of 6,000; and yet the Ironsides and Warrior have only the middle portion of their hulls plated, their ends being merely of wood without armor.

"The guns of the Monitors, near the center of motion, are supported upon the keel and kelsons, upborne by the depth of water under them, and carried by the whole strength of the hull.

"In Monitors heavier guns are, therefore, practicable than can ever be carried in broadside out upon the ribs of a ship.

"In the Monitors, concentration of guns and armor is the object sought.

"In them the plating is compressed into inches of elevation; while in the Ironsides class it is extended over feet; and the comparatively numerous guns distributed over the decks of the Ironsides class are molded into a few larger ones in the turrets of the Monitors."

In speaking of the principle upon which the Monitors are armed, he says:

"When power enough is required in the individual guns to crush and pierce the side of an adversary at a single blow, the most formidable artillery must be employedand fifteen-inch guns are the most formidable which, so far, we have tried; but no vessel of the Ironsides class can carry these guns, and the Monitors actually do carry them. If target experiments are reliable, a shot from a fifteeninch gun will crush in the side of any vessel of the Ironsides class in Europe or America. A single well-planted blow would sink either the Warrior, La Gloire, Magenta, Minotaur, or the Bellerophon."

Commodore Porter says, also, that the Monitors roll very little in a seaway, and relates the following incident to show their steadiness. A bottle of claret, he says, remained standing for an hour on the dinner-table of the Weehawken at a time when no one could stand on the deck of her convoy, the Iroquois, a fine sea-boat, without holding on to the life-lines.

Admiral Dahlgren declares that, to meet the wants of the government in this war, the Monitors are far better than the broadside models adopted by France and England; and that, if contractors had met the government demand, every Southern port would, ere this, have been in our possession.

Commodore Porter says that, with one of our Monitors, he could begin at Cairo, and, going down the Mississippi, destroy every vessel we have on the Western waters, unless they should escape by flight.

Commodore Rodgers states his conclusions as follows:

"To sum up my conclusions, I think that the Monitor class and the Ironsides class are different weapons, each having its peculiar advantages-both needed to an ironclad navy-both needed in war; but that, when the Monitor class measures its strength against the Ironsides class, then, with vessels of equal size, the Monitor class will overpower the Ironsides class; and, indeed, a single Monitor will capture many casemated vessels of no greater individual size or speed: and as vessels find their natural antagonists in forts, it must be considered that upon the whole the Monitor principle contains the most successful elements for plating vessels for war purposes.

"I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

"JOHN RODGERS, Commodore U. S. N.

"Hon. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy."

The importance of these statements from experienced

naval officers, who have been eye-witnesses of the performance of the Monitors, and the effect of the shot of the fifteen-inch guns, can not be overrated. They seem to insure our nation from foreign attack, at least, until great changes are made in naval war. No ship of the broadside class, Commodore Rodgers thinks, can carry a fifteeninch gun safely, while the Monitors do carry them; and one well-directed shot from one of these guns, he says, would sink any broadside vessel, even the last and most powerful ones of England or France.

Every American should reflect upon the bearing which these facts have upon the future of our nation. It is proved, beyond dispute, that we can build vessels of the Monitor class which can traverse, safely, the whole American coast, which no artillery carried on a broadside ship can penetrate, while the cannon which a Monitor can carry, and with which even our small Monitors are armed, can sink any broadside ship that floats.

The fleets of France and England can not, therefore, approach our coasts without almost certain destruction. Such a ship as the Dictator, or the Puritan, according to the opinions stated by these eminent officers, would be able to destroy the whole iron-clad navies of France and England, if their ships could be encountered singly, and the only danger from a squadron would be that of being run down. The solution of a mathematical problem is not more certain than that even such a Monitor as the Catawba, now lately launched at Cincinnati, would destroy any ship in the British or French navy, unless (a thing most improbable) she could be run down before she could use her guns. The side-armor of the Catawba, a ship of about eleven hundred tuns, is equal to ten inches of solid iron on the hull above the water-line, while her turret is eleven inches thick, and she is, therefore, absolutely invulnerable to any artillery which a broadside ship can carry.

The government, then, has acted most wisely in adopting the Monitors for its present need. They have secured he nation against foreign attack, and rendered it certain

that, within the lines defended by these impregnable floating batteries, we can safely develop our national life, free from all external danger.

In the mean time the two finest broadside iron-clads in the world have been built in America-the Ironsides and the Italian frigate; and we are able to produce any form of vessel which the nation may need, and to any extent that may be required.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA.

THE reported numerical strength of the armies of the four great powers which are under discussion, is, in round numbers, as follows:

These figures, though obtained mainly from official sources, do not, of course, express the exact truth. They merely present, in a general way, the relative military strength of these nations. Each of them could command a far greater number to resist an invasion of its territory, while neither could send from home, on distant service, one-fourth of the number here set down. France and Russia could maintain large armies on the fields of Europe, but neither they, nor any other power, could send a formidable force to operate here.

Still, with France controlling Mexico and Central America, it might be possible, at any time, with a French army as a nucleus, to assemble a very formidable force upon our Southern borders.

The character of the Russians, as soldiers, has been already considered, because Americans should know the quality of those who, alone, among all nations, can now