THE LOSS OF THE -MONITOR."



made fast on the weather quarter filled with men.
Three others were standing on deck trying to get
on board. One man was floating leeward, shout-
ing in vain for help; another, who hurriedly passed
me and jumped down from the turret, was swept
off by a lmreaking wave anI never rose. I was
excited, feeling that it was the only chance to be
saved. I made a loose line fast to one of the
stanchions, and let myself down from the turret,
the ladder having been washed away. The mo-
ment I struck the deck the sea broke over it and
swept me as I had seen it sweep my shipmates. 1
grasped one of the smoke-stack braces and, hand-
over-hand, ascended, to keep my head above water.
It required all my strength to keep the sea from
tearing me away. As it swept from the vessel I
found myself dangling in the air nearly at the top
of the smoke-stack. I let myself fall, and suc-
ceeded in reaching a life-line that encircled the
deck by means of short stanchions, and to which
the boat was attached. The sea again broke over
us, lifting me feet upward as I still clung to the
life-line. I thought I hall nearly measured the
depth of the ocean, when I felt the turn, and as my
head rose above the water I was somewhat dazed
from being so nearly drowned, and spouted up, it
seemed, more than a gallon of water that had
found its way into my lungs. I was then about
twenty feet from the other men, whom I found to
be the captain and one seaman; the other had
been washed overboard and was now struggling in
the water. The men in the boat were pushing
back on their oars to keep the boat from being
washed on to the .11onitor'. deck, so that the boat
had to be hauled in by the painter about ten or
twelve feet. The first lieutenant, S. D. Greene, and
other officers in the boat were shouting, "Is the
captain on board" and, with severe struggles to
have our voices heard above the roar of the wind
and sea, we were shouting, "No," and trying to
haul in the boat, which we at last succeeded in
doing. The captain, ever caring for his men,
requested us to get in, but we both, in the same
voice, told him to get in first. The moment he was
over the bows of the boat Lieutenant Greene
cried, "Cut the painter! cut the painter!" I
thought, "Now or lost," and in less time than I
can explain it, exerting my strength beyond im-
agination, I hauled in the boat, sprang. caught on
the gunwale, was pulled into the boat with a boat-
hook in the hands of one of the men, and took my
seat with one of the oarsmen. The other man,
named Thomas Joice, managed to get into the
boat in some way, I cannot tell how, and he was
the last man saved from that ill-fated ship. As we
were cut loose I saw several men standing on top
of the turret, apparently afraid to venture down
upon deck, and it may have been that they were
deterred by seeing others washed overboard while
I was getting into the boat.)
  After a fearful and dangerous passage over the
frantic seas, we reached the Rhode island, which
still had the tow-line caught in her wheel and had
drifted perhaps two miles to leeward. We came



alongside under the lee bows, where the first boat,
that had left the Monstor nearly an hour before,
had just discharger its men; but we found that
getting on board the Rhodc Isiand was a harder
task than getting from the Monitor. We were car-
ried by the sea from stem to stern, for to have
inade fast would have been fatal; the boat was
hounding against the ship's sides; sometimes it
was below the wheel, and then, on the summit of
a huge wave, far above the decks; then the two
boats would crash together; and once, while Sur-
geon Weeks was holding on to the rail, he lost his
fingers by a collision which swamped the other
boat. Lines were thrown to us from the deck of
the Rhode Island, which were of no assistance, for
not one of us could climb a small rope; and besides,
the men who threw them would immediately let
go their holds, in their excitement, to throw an-
other - which I found to be the case when I kept
hauling in rope instead of climbing.
  It must be understood that two vessels lying side
by side, when there is any motion to the sea, move
alternately; or, in other words, one is constantly
passing the other up or down. At one time, when
our boat was near the bows of the steamer, we
would rise upon the sea until we could touch
her rail; then in an instant, by a very rapid de-
scent, we could touch her keel. While we were
thus rising and falling upon the sea, I caught a
rope, and, rising with the boat, managed to reach
within a foot or two of the rail, when a man, if
there had been one, could easily have hauled me on
board. But they had all followed after the boat,
which at that instant was washed astern, and I
Lung dangling in the air over the bow of the Rhod,
Island, with Ensign Norman Atwater hanging to
the cat-head, three or four feet from me, like my-
self, with both hands clinching a rope and shout-
ing for some one to save him. Our hands grew
painful and all the time weaker, until I saw his
strength give way. He slipped a foot, caught
again, and with his last prayer, " 0 God!" I saw
him fall and sink, to rise no more. The ship rolled,
and rose upon the sea, sometimes with her keel out
of water, so that [ was hanging thirty feet above
the sea, and with the fate in view that had befallen
our much-beloved companion, which no one had
witnessed but myself. I still clung to the rope with
aching hands, calling in v ain for help. But I could
not be heard, for the wind shrieked far above my
voice. My heart here, for the only timein my life,
gave up hope, and home and friends were most
tenderly thought of. While I was in this state,
within a few seconds of giving up, the sea rolled
forward, bringing with it the boat, and when I would
have fallen into the sea, it was there. I can only
recollect hearing an old sailor say, as I fell into
the bottom of the boat. "Where in -  did he
come fromt"
  When I became aware of what was going on, no
one had succeeded in getting out of the boat, which
then lay just forward of the wheel-hoise. Our
captain ordered them to throw bow-lines, which
was immediately done. The second one I caught,



 Comumander Bankhead reports Tlmoma Juoice among the mIssing- EDgORs.



747