[Illustration: LIEUTENANT S. DANA GREENE. Executive Officer of the "Monitor."] The significance of the battle was not so much in its immediate result as in its effect upon all naval armaments, and because of this it attracted world-wide attention. The London _Times_ declared: "There is not now a ship in the English navy, apart from these two [the _Warrior_ and the _Ironside_], that it would not be madness to trust to an engagement with that little _Monitor_." The United States Government ordered the building of more monitors, some with two turrets, and they did excellent service, notably in the battle of Mobile Bay. In May, when Norfolk was captured, an attempt was made to take the _Merrimac_ up the James River; but she got aground, and was finally abandoned and blown up. When the Confederates refitted her they rechristened her _Virginia_, but the original name sticks to her in history. In December of that year the _Monitor_ attempted to go to Beaufort, N. C., towed by a steamer; but she foundered in a gale off Cape Hatteras and went to the bottom, carrying with her a dozen of the crew. [Illustration] {88} [Illustration: LOSS OF THE "MONITOR" IN A STORM OFF CAPE HATTERAS, DECEMBER 30, 1862.--GALLANT EFFORTS TO RESCUE THE CREW.] CHAPTER X. THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. NEW ORLEANS THE LARGEST SOUTHERN CITY--FORTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI--CAPT. DAVID G. FARRAGUT CHOSEN COMMANDER--GEN. BENJAMIN F. BUTLER IN COMMAND OF LAND FORCES--TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT OF THE FORTS--CUTTING THE CHAIN ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI--THE GREAT NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NIGHT--ALL THE FORTS AND THE CONFEDERATE FLEET CAPTURED BY FARRAGUT--SURRENDER OF NEW ORLEANS--GENERAL BUTLER'S CELEBRATED "WOMAN ORDER." The Crescent City was by far the largest and richest in the Confederacy. In 1860 it had a population of nearly one hundred and seventy thousand, while Richmond, Mobile, and Charleston together had fewer than two-thirds as many. In 1860-61 it shipped twenty-five million dollars' worth of sugar and ninety-two million dollars' worth of cotton, its export trade in these articles being larger than that of any other city in the world. Moreover, its strategic value in that war was greater than that of any other point in the Southern States. The many mouths of the Mississippi, and the frequency of violent gales in the Gulf, rendered it difficult to blockade commerce between that great river and the ocean; but the possession of this lowest commercial point on the stream would shut it off effectively, and would go far toward securing possession all the way to Cairo. This would cut the Confederacy in two, and make it difficult to bring supplies from Texas and Arkansas to feed the armies in Tennessee and Virginia. Moreover, a great city is in itself a serious loss to one belligerent and a capital prize to the other.