CH. XIII. Viele, in "Scribner's Monthly," advance, was probably gratified by the entirely unexpected rôle of being for once in his life the generalissimo of a military campaign. They met only the merest show of resistance and delay at Oct., 1878. a burning bridge, which was overcome by an easy detour. By evening they passed through the strong but abandoned intrenchments and received from the Mayor of Norfolk the official surrender of the city. The navy yard at Gosport was in flames, but the heavy guns which armed the earthworks remained as trophies. A military governor was appointed, and protection promised to peaceful inhabitants, and from that time forward Norfolk remained under the authority of the Union flag. The most substantial fruit of the movement soon followed. The officers of the Merrimac observed on Saturday morning, from their moorings in the mouth of Elizabeth River, that the Confederate flag was no longer flying over the Sewall's Point batteries; and investigation during the day proved the landing and march of the Union forces, the precipitate retreat of the rebel troops from all points, and the final surrender and occupation of Norfolk. The unwieldy crocodile-back ironclad was thus caught between two fires. "The ship," reports her commander, "was accordingly put on shore, as near the mainland in the vicinity of Craney Island as possible, and the crew landed. She was then fired, and after burning fiercely, fore and aft, for upward of an hour, blew up a little ments, p. 47. before five on the morning of the 11th." The President receiving the welcome news at the moment of departure for Washington, prolonged his stay to accompany the delighted dignitaries Tatnall, Report, May 14, 1862. Moore, Vol. V., CH. XIII. and officers on a flying trip up Elizabeth River to Chase to his daughter, Warden, p. 432. the newly captured town, and then the prow of the Miami, on Sunday evening, plowed past Fort Monroe and up the Potomac. "So," writes Chase in conclusion, "has ended a brilliant week's campaign of the President; for I think it quite certain that if he had not come down Norfolk would still have been in possession of the enemy, and the Merrimac as grim and defiant and as much a terror as ever. The whole coast is now virtually ours."1 Like the Merrimac the Monitor also had a dramatic end. After various services she was, in the following December, sent to sea under sealed orders, and foundered in a gale off Cape Hatteras, nearly all the officers and crew, however, being saved by boats from the Rhode Island, which was towing her. Thus the pioneer ships of the new system of iron armor did not long survive their first famous exploit that so astounded the nations of the earth. Other Union ironclads of a different model had joined the Hampton Roads squadron before the destruction of the Merrimac; and before the Monitor went down she had given her name as a generic term to a whole fleet built after her model, her first successor, the monitor Passaic, having already reached the seat of war for active service. 1 The Secretary claims too much for the expedition, in view of the fact that the evacuation of Norfolk and the destruction of the Merrimac had been ordered by the rebel authorities as a consequence of the evacuation of Yorktown. CHAPTER XIV M ROANOKE ISLAND ENTION has been made of the very peculiar CHAP. XIV. sea-front of the State of North Carolina. Other States on the Atlantic have, like it, the narrow fringe of sand-bank constituting the extreme outer coast within which lies a network of inlets, islands, bayous, and rivers. But North Carolina, unlike the rest, contains behind this false coast a magnificent crescent-shaped inland sea whose sweeping outline covers more than a degree of latitude. This vast water-sheet has two separate names. The upper or northern part, called Albemarle Sound, extends sixty miles west into the mainland, with a width of fifteen miles near the ocean and tapering to a point at the entrance of the Chowan River. The lower or southern part, called Pamlico Sound, is perhaps twice as large, extending eighty miles to the southwest, having a width of from ten to thirty miles and a depth of twenty feet varied by shoals. Both sounds would probably have been combined under a single name were it not that nearly midway of the arc lies Roanoke Island, twelve miles long and three miles wide, indicating a division though by no means separating them; for their waters remain connected CHAP. XIV. by the narrower Croatan Sound on the west and Roanoke Sound on the east of the island. When Forts Hatteras and Clark were captured by the Union forces on the 29th of August, 1861, the Confederates fixed upon Roanoke Island as the nearest defensible point, and began the erection of batteries to hold the narrow channels. While the possession of the forts at Hatteras Inlet was of vast importance to the Union blockading fleet, it soon became evident that other lodgments must be made to afford full control of the interior waters of North Carolina. The Hatteras forts, built on the narrow banks of the outer coast-line, were not very defensible; in high water they were nearly submerged, and there was constant danger that they might be seriously damaged by the severe storms frequent on that coast. Officers of good judgment reported that they formed no suitable base for operations into the interior, and recommended the capture and occupation of Roanoke Island. Its strategic value was so evident that it needed little urging upon the attention of the Government. It would form a safe and useful base of operations; it would render blockade-running in that locality well-nigh impossible; more important than all, the complete occupation of the interior coast would open a practicable back door to Richmond. "Roanoke Island," wrote the local rebel commander, "is the key of one-third of North Carolina, and whose occupancy by the 1861. W. R. enemy would enable him to reach the great railroad from Richmond to New Orleans." Hill to Cooper, Oct. 18, Vol. IV., p. 682. Chance favored the gradual growth of an expedition for this work. During the summer and autumn of 1861, while McClellan was so tediously |