The _Beaufort_ with a single thirty-two-pounder rifle mounted in her bow was steaming alongside the port of the strange craft. A puff of white smoke flared from her single gun and its dull roar waked the still beautiful waters of the Virginia harbor.
The _Merrimac_ flung her big battle flag into the sky and her tiny escorts dropped down stream to give her free play. The _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_ were surprised, but they slipped their anchors in a jiffy, swung their guns in haste and began pouring a storm of shot on the iron sides of the coming foe.
The _Merrimac_ moved forward with slow, steady throb as though the shot that rained on her slanting sides were so many pebbles thrown by school boys. She passed the _Congress_ and pointed her ugly prow for the _Cumberland_. The ship poured her broadside squarely into the face of the Merrimac without damage and the bow gun roared an answer that pierced her bulwarks.
Through the thick cloud of heavy smoke that hung low on the water the throbbing monster bore straight down on the _Cumberland_, struck her amidship and sent her to the bottom.
As the gallant ship sank in sickening lurches her brave crew cheered her to her grave and continued firing her useless guns until the waves engulfed the decks. When her keel touched the bottom her flag was still flying from her masthead. She rolled over on her beam's end and carried the flag beneath the waves.
The Confederate mosquito fleet, consisting of the little gunboats _Patrick Henry_, _Teaser_ and _Jamestown_, swung down from the river now, ran boldly past the flaming shore batteries and joined in the attack on the Federal squadron.
The _Congress_ had set one of her sails and with the aid of a tug was desperately working to reach shoal water before she could be sunk. Her captain succeeded in beaching her directly under the guns of the shore batteries. At four o'clock she gave up the bloody unequal contest and hauled down her colors.
The _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St. Lawrence_, in trying to reach the scene of the battle, had all been grounded. The _Minnesota_ was still lying helpless in the mud as the sun set and the new monarch of the seas slowly withdrew to Sewell's Point to overhaul her machinery and prepare to finish her work next day.