Thirty years and more passed after that epoch-making contest between the Monitor and the Merrimac before the world witnessed another battle to the death between ironclads. Theoretically, wood had long since been displaced by iron, iron by steel, and steel by specially-forged armor-plate, battleship designers struggling always to build a vessel which could withstand modern projectiles. But as to the actual results in warfare, there was nothing but theory to go upon until that first day of May, 1898, when George Dewey steamed into the harbor of Manila, at the head of his squadron, and opened fire upon the Spanish fleet. Dewey had received his training under the best of masters, Farragut. Graduating from Annapolis in 1858, he served as lieutenant on the Mississippi, when that vessel, as part of Farragut's fleet, ran past the forts below New Orleans. A short time later, in trying to pass the Confederate batteries at Port Hudson, the Mississippi ran hard and fast aground. Half an hour was spent, under a terrific fire, in trying to get her off; then Dewey, after spiking her guns, assisted in scuttling her and escaped with her captain in a small boat. He saw other active service, and got his first command in 1870. He was commissioned commodore in 1896, and on January 1, 1898, took command of the Asiatic squadron. Few people in the world beside himself suspected, even in the dimmest manner, the task which lay before him; but with a rare sagacity, he had foreseen that, in the event of war with Spain, the far East would be the scene of operations of the first importance. He thereupon applied for the command of the Asiatic squadron, and his application was granted. Dewey proceeded immediately to Hong Kong, and began to concentrate his forces there and to get them into first-class condition. He spent much of his time studying the charts of the Pacific, and his officers noticed that the maps of the Philippine Islands soon became worn and marked. On Tuesday, April 26, came the explanation of all this in a cablegram stating that war had been declared between the United States and Spain, and ordering Dewey to proceed at once to the Philippine Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet which was stationed there. Early the next afternoon, the squadron started on its six hundred mile journey. What lay at the end of it, no one on the fleet knew. Of the Spanish force, Dewey knew only that twenty-three Spanish war vessels were somewhere in the Philippines; he knew, too, that they were probably at Manila, and that the defenses of the harbor were of the strongest description. But he remembered one of Farragut's sayings, "The closer you get to your enemy, the harder you can strike," and he lost no time in getting under way. [Illustration: DEWEY]