Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[602] high, her fire was extremely uncertain. Only one missile reached the Minnesota; another struck the St. Lawrence: it was the last shot fired on that memorable day. It was seven o'clock in the evening; the Confederate squadron retired for the night to the vicinity of Norfolk, to prepare for a renewal of the work of destruction as soon as daylight should appear.

It seemed as if no human precaution could snatch the prey from the grasp of the Virginia, and spare from the fate of the Cumberland and the Congress the three frigates which night alone had saved from her attack. The high tide would, in fact, enable her to approach them much nearer the following morning than she had done the day previous. The Federal fleet once annihilated, Buchanan could proceed to bombard Fort Monroe, drive all the enemy's transports from Old Point Comfort, thus obliging the troops to evacuate the peninsula, and, after freeing the James River, himself blockade the whole of the Chesapeake. The Virginia was not enough of a sea vessel and carried too little coal to venture upon the high sea, and, as it was then thought, to carry dismay even into the port of New York; but she could take advantage of a calm to go and recapture Pamlico Sound from Goldsborough's fleet; or, better still, she could ascend the Potomac as far as in front of Washington and throw bomb-shells into the capital of the Union. The parts would then have been reversed; it would no longer have been the part of the Federals to attack Richmond by resting on the sea, but the turn of the Confederates, who, once masters of the inland waters, would have had the powerful co-operation of naval forces in resuming the offensive. All the previsions of the Federals, founded upon the superiority of their magnificent fleet of wooden vessels, would have disappeared with the Cumberland and the Congress. The war would have changed front, and the Confederate flag, opening a new era in maritime warfare, would easily have raised the blockade which prevented the slave States from freely procuring supplies in Europe. This was enough to excite the lively imaginations of Southern people. The Federals, on the contrary, were filled with consternation and dismay. The Congress was burning slowly, casting a lurid glare upon the tranquil waters of Newport News, while her guns, which were still loaded, went off in