On the eighth of March, a lovely spring day, the _Merrimac_ made her trial trip by going into action with her wheezy old engines, lubberly crew, and the guns she had never yet fired. She shoveled along at only five knots; but the Confederate garrisons cheered her to the echo. Seven miles north she came upon the astonished fifty-gun _Congress_ and thirty-gun _Cumberland_ swinging drowsily at anchor off Newport News, with their boats alongside and the men's wash drying in the rigging. Yet the surprised frigates opened fire at twelve hundred yards and were joined by the shore batteries, all converging on the _Merrimac_, from whose iron sides the shot glanced up without doing more than hammer her hard and start a few rivets. Closing in at top speed--barely six knots--the _Merrimac_ gave the _Congress_ a broadside before ramming the _Cumberland_ and opening a hole "wide enough to drive in a horse and cart." Backing clear and turning the after-pivot gun, the _Merrimac_ then got in three raking shells against the _Congress_, which grounded when trying to escape. Meanwhile the _Cumberland_ was listing over and rapidly filling, though she kept up the fight to the very last gasp. When she sank with a roar her topmasts still showed above water and her colors waved defiance. An hour later the terribly mauled _Congress_ surrendered; whereupon her crew was rescued and she was set on fire. By this time various smaller craft on both sides had joined the fray. But the big _Minnesota_ still remained, though aground and apparently at the mercy of the _Merrimac_. The great draught of the _Merrimac_ and the setting in of the ebb tide, however, made the Confederates draw off for the night.