Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1342

grounded conclusion that it is in the model of the Virginia that modern naval architects have found the germ principles of the splendid armored vessels that now compose the navies of the world. It was her leisurely movements, indifferent to the broadsides of the great wooden ships that opposed her on March 8th, and her easy destruction that day of the Congress and the Cumberland that terrified the United States government and rendered useless the then existing war navies of England or any other power that might lay claim to the title of mistress of the seas. In her encounter with the Monitor on the following day, the honors of shot and shell were well balanced, but if the Virginia had not, on the previous day, lost her ram in the sides of the Cumberland, the moment when she succeeded in striking Ericsson's invention would probably have been its last afloat. As it was, the Monitor drew away after that shock, and sought shallow water where the Virginia could not follow, and though often thereafter given an opportunity to meet the Virginia, never again offered or accepted battle with her. Captain White remained on his vessel, whose very presence effectually guarded the James river from the Federal fleet, until the evacuation of Norfolk in 1862, when, despite the entreaties of her officers and men for permission to attack some Northern port, she was ordered abandoned and it became necessary to destroy the historic vessel, which was effectually accomplished, as was fitting, by her own men, on May 12, 1862, near Craney's island. Captain White, who held the candle for the gunner whose duty it was to uncap the powder in the magazine after the vessel was fired, was one of the last to leave the fated Virginia. He then joined the crew in their defense of the James river, at Drewry's bluff, where they again encountered the Monitor and the rest of the Federal fleet, and defeated the attempted landing of troops. Subsequently he was assigned to the gunboat Baltic, and participated in several minor actions about Mobile bay, assisting the Florida when she ran the blockade under command of Captain Moffat with a fever-stricken crew. Then resigning from the navy he returned to Columbus, Ga., where he invented and put in operation the machinery with which nearly all the buttons and buckles used in the army were subsequently manufactured. Becoming a member of the Georgia reserves, he served with them when called to Atlanta, and took part under General Hood in the important battles of June 20th, 21st and 22, 1864. After the fall of Atlanta he was ordered to return to Columbus, where he encountered the Federal forces of General Wilson, and was compelled to surrender. Thus ended a military record of which he may justly be proud, and which is still of great value to the South in that it enables him to eloquently present throughout the land the true story of the great historic event of which he was a part, and call attention to that remarkable war development of mechanical genius in the South which has had such an enormous influence upon the sea powers of the globe. After these events Captain White resided at Portsmouth, and then making his home at Baltimore, was occupied for over two years as a traveling salesman. Having by this time, by industrious persistence, accumulated a small capital, he was able to embark in business as a partner of his father-in-law, Nathan Forbes, at Norfolk, and subsequently established an in-