100 



Our Retrospect. 



revolving turreted monitor, expressly disclaims having originated the 

 revolving turret battery, which, on the iron clads of his design, gave 

 such strength to our navy in the last war. 



" Ericsson, after mentioning several designs for floating batteries, 

 gives to Abraham Bloodgood of Albany the credit of having laid before 

 • The Society for the Promotion of the Useful Arts '—the first de- 

 partment of the Albany Institute — an illustration and description of a 

 floating, revolving circular-tower battery, for naval warfare and har- 

 bor defense. This* was in 1807. A Scotchman, Mr. Gillespie, in 

 1805 modeled a movable castle or battery, but we are not able to say, 

 in default of any drawing, accessible now, that his device represented 

 in any way the modern monitor turret. 



"Toa member of the Albany Institute, therefore, is to be attributed 

 the first idealization of the monitor iron-clad turret, which, perfected 

 by Ericsson, formed the invulnerable defense of our coasts during the 

 rebellion." 



As we read this, our thoughts must inevitably turn back more than 

 twenty years to a most critical period in our national existence. When 

 forever hidden beneath the smooth surface of Hampton Roads lay 

 the Cumberland, the tomb of many hundred men who had died hero- 

 ically at their guns, — near by, grounded and wrapped in flames, the 

 Congress, — and at a little distance, her guns still projecting and her 

 fires all aglow for instant renewal of the conflict, the fateful Merrimac. 

 When, as the tidings of the great disaster went forth throughout all 

 the land, from north to south respectively arose the wail of distress 

 and the shout of triumph, and the flag of the Union began to droop 

 and northern anarchy again to lift its head. And when, more danger- 

 ous than all else, in Washington the agents of St. James and the 

 Tuilleries were writing their dispatches to the purport that our defense 

 was drawing to an end, and that now a dishonoring peace could be 

 forced upon us. Could it really be that after less than a century of 

 trial, the experiment of the new civilization must come to an igno- 

 minious conclusion? 



And then we recall how, in that darkest hour, sunlight began to fall 

 upon the picture, when toward morning from behind a sandy point, a 

 queerly-shaped craft emerged, a mere flat raft, as it were, with only 

 an uncouth erection upon its low deck, the circular turret that had 

 had its suggestion in our Transactions. When, with the confidence of 

 some ship that had already won its score of victories instead of having 

 just slipped from off its stocks, the strange craft rnshed to the con- 

 flict, its two guns projected from its turret, its iron bolts flying fast 

 and unrelenting, until after four hours of conflict the firing ceased 



