armor broken and damaged, her steam-pipe and smoke-stack riddled, the muzzles of two of her guns shot away, while water made its way into her through more than one crevice.

Back to Norfolk went the injured Merrimac. Here she was put into the dry-dock and hastily repaired. After that had been done, she steamed down to the cld fighting-ground on two or three occasions and challenged her small antagonist. The Monitor did not accept the challenge. If any accident had happened to her the rest of the fleet would have been lost, and it was deemed wisest to hold her back for emergencies.

On the 10th of May the Confederates marched out of Norfolk. On the 11th the Merrimac was blown up, and only her disabled hull remained as a trophy to the victors. As to her condition and fighting powers, one of the engineers who had charge of the repairs upon her said,

"A shot from the Monitor entered one of her ports, lodged in the backing of the other side, and so shivered her timbers that she never afterwards could be made seaworthy. She could not have been kept afloat for twelve hours, and her officers knew it when they went out and dared the Monitor to fight her. It was a case of pure bluff; we didn't hold a single pair."

The combat we have recorded was perhaps the most important in the history of naval warfare. It marked a turning-point in the construction of the monarchs of the deep, by proving that the future battles of the sea must be fought behind iron walls.

STEALING A LOCOMOTIVE.

ON a fine day in April, 1862, a passenger-train drew out from Marietta, Georgia, bound north. Those were not days of abundant passenger travel in the South, except for those who wore the butternut uniform and carried muskets, but this train was well filled, and at Marietta a score of men in civilian dress had boarded the cars. Soldierly-looking fellows these were too, not the kind that were likely to escape long the clutch of the Confederate conscription.

Eight miles north of Marietta the train stopped at the station of Big Shanty, with the welcome announcement of "Ten minutes for breakfast." Out from the train, like bees from the hive, swarmed the hungry passengers, and made their way with all speed to the lunch-counter, followed more deliberately by conductor, engineer, and brakesmen. The demands of the lunch-counter are of universal potency; few have the hardihood to resist them; that particular train was emptied in the first of its ten minutes of grace.

Yet breakfast did not seem to appeal to all upon the train. The Marietta group of civilians left the train with the others, but instead of seeking the refreshment-room, turned their steps towards the locomotive. No one noticed them, though there was a

Confederate camp hard by the station, well filled with raw recruits, and hardly a dozen steps from the engine a sentinel steadily walked his beat, rifle on shoulder.

One of the men climbed into the engine. The sentinel paid no heed to him. Another slipped ir between two cars, and pulled out a coupling-pin. The sentinel failed to observe him. A group of others climbed quickly into an open box-car. The sentinel looked at them, and walked serenely on. The last man of the party now strode rapidly up the platform, nodded to the one in the locomotive, and swung himself lightly into the cab. The sentinel turned at the end of his beat and walked back, just beginning to wonder what all this meant. Meanwhile famine was being rapidly appeased at the lunch-counter within, and the not very luxurious display of food was vanishing like a field of wheat before an army of locusts.

Suddenly the sharp report of a rifle rung with warning sound through the air. The drowsy tenants of the camp sprang to their feet. The conductor

hurried out to the platform. He had heard something besides the rifle-shot,-the grind of wheels on the track,—and his eyes opened widely in alarm and astonishment as he saw that the train was broken in two, and half of it running away. The passengercars stood where he had left them. The locomotive, with three box-cars, was flying rapidly up the track. The sentinel, roused to a sense of the situation only when he saw the train in actual flight, had somewhat late given the alarm.

The conductor's eyes opened very wide. The

engine, under a full head of steam, was driving up the road. The locomotive had been stolen ! Out from the refreshment-room poured passengers and trainmen, filled with surprise and chagrin. What did it mean? What was to be done? There was no other engine within miles. How should these daring thieves ever be overtaken? Their capture seemed a forlorn hope.

The conductor, wild with alarm and dreading reprimand, started up the track on foot, running as fast as his legs could carry him. A railroad mechanic named Murphy kept him company. To one with a love of humor it would have been an amusing sight to see two men on foot chasing a locomotive, but just then Conductor Fuller was not troubled about the opinion of men of humor; his one thought was to overtake his runaway locomotive, and he would have crawled after it if no better way appeared.

Fortune comes to him who pursues her, not to him who waits her coming. The brace of locomotive chasers had not run down their strength before they were lucky enough to spy a hand-car, standing beside the track. Here was a gleam of hope. In a minute or two they had lifted it upon the rails. Springing within it, they applied themselves to the levers, and away they went at a more promising rate of speed.

For a mile or two all went on swimmingly. Then sudden disaster came. The car struck a broken rail and was hurled headlong from the track, sending its occupants flying into the muddy roadside ditch. This was enough to discourage anybody with less go in him than Conductor Fuller. But in a moment he

was on his feet, trying his limbs. No bones were broken. A mud-bath was the full measure of his misfortune. Murphy was equally sound. The car was none the worse. With scarce a minute's delay they sprang to it, righted it, and with some strong tugging lifted it upon the track. With very few minutes' delay they were away again, somewhat more cautiously than before, and sharply on the lookout for further gifts of broken rails from the runaways ahead.

Leaving the pair of pursuers to their seemingly hopeless task, we must return to the score of locomotive pirates. These men who had done such strange work at Big Shanty were by no means what they seemed. They were clad in the butternut gray and the slouch hats of the Confederacy, but their ordinary attire was the blue uniform of the Union army. They were, in truth, a party of daring scouts, who had stealthily made their way south in disguise, their purpose being to steal a train, burn the bridges behind them as they fled, and thus make useless for a time the only railroad by which the Confederate authorities could send troops to Chattanooga, then threatened by the Union forces under General Mitchel.

They had been remarkably successful, as we have seen, at the beginning of their enterprise. Making their way, by devious routes, to Marietta, they had gathered at that place, boarded a train, and started north. The rush of passengers and trainmen into the refreshment-room at Big Shanty had been calculated upon. The presence of a Confederate camp