[Illustration: The _Monitor_ (left) was the creation of Swedish-born John Ericsson, who had difficulty in selling his strange vessel to the Federal navy. The re-christened _Merrimac_ (right) carried more guns, but so difficult was the ship to maneuver that it required 30 minutes to turn it around.] On the following day, however, the North came forward with a revolutionary weapon of its own. This was the _Monitor_, so weird-looking a craft that sailors referred to it as a “tin can on a shingle.” The three-hour battle between the _Monitor_ and the _Virginia_ was a draw. Neither ship could pierce the plating of the other. Yet this indecisive battle caused a revolution in naval craft, for it foreshadowed the day when wooden ships would be obsolete. Two months later, trapped in Hampton Roads, the _Virginia_ was run aground and destroyed. In December, 1862, the _Monitor_ went down in an Atlantic storm near the North Carolina coast. The Confederates made several notable innovations in the field of naval warfare. One was an ironclad ram that had the appearance and characteristics of a monster. This was the _Arkansas_, which the Confederates somehow put together in the summer of 1862 to combat Federal ships on the Mississippi. Constructed of wood, railroad rails, wire, and bits and pieces of iron collected from all over the South, the _Arkansas_ scattered several Federal gunboats, created panic on the Mississippi, and managed to survive a heavy Federal bombardment near Vicksburg. At Baton Rouge, however, the ironclad’s engines failed. The ram’s commander, Lieutenant H. K. Stevens, ordered the helpless ship destroyed. The _Arkansas_ enjoyed only one month of action; yet Federal Admiral David Farragut called the end of the _Arkansas_ “one of the happiest moments of my life.” The Confederacy also had the first submarine of modern design. Built in 1863 at Mobile, the _H. L. Hunley_ was named for its inventor. In the process of its trial runs, the thirty-five-foot vessel sank four times and drowned as many crews. Nevertheless, the _Hunley_ was borne overland to Charleston, S. C., to campaign against a fleet of Federal blockaders. On the night of February 17, 1864, the little submarine torpedoed and sank the Federal warship, _Housatonic_. But the _Hunley_ and its fifth crew of seven men perished in the explosion. [Illustration: This Official U. S. Navy photograph shows the Confederate torpedo boat _David_ aground in Charleston harbor. Semi-submersible, the _David_ is often called a submarine.] In addition to the submarine, Confederates also developed the water mine and the torpedo boat. The latter was a small vessel, propelled by a steam engine. It drifted along the surface of the water and attacked enemy ships with a torpedo suspended from a long spar. The first of these torpedo boats, the _David_, appeared in Charleston harbor early in October, 1863, and seriously damaged the blockading warship, _New Ironsides_.