The Monitor and the Merrimac

This is Don Holland back for CBS News in Washington. It will soon be dawn this morning of March 9, 1862 off the Atlantic coast of Hampton Roads, Virginia, 150 miles southeast of the Capitol. The next few moments will see the return of daylight to that pivotal point in the North's naval blockade of the South, and according to all experience, federal observers here in

Washington, the coming moments may also see the return to Hampton Roads of the Confederate and clad merrimack. If the merrimack can break out into the open sea, round old point of the southernmost tip of merrimack, proceed northward to attach the northern ports from the Atlantic seaboard, the most more large- South coast, Twenty-six are reaching...

... supplemented... ... your either Washington, on the dawn of the day that will see the decisive naval battle between the North and the South, between the Federals and the Confederats. CBS takes you back eighty-six years to the surprise engagement that ushered in a new era of seawater.

All things are, as they were then, except for one thing. When CBS is there, YOU are there! You are there, produced and directed by Robert Louis Cheon, is based on authentic historical facts and quotations.

And now, CBS News is in part with him, and down the hall is there. So heavy with foreboding and impending calamities. Here in Washington there are grim faces at the White House, tight-lipped comments from officers at the northern department of the Navy.

When reports first reached the Navy Department, stating that the Merrimack was venturing forth out of Norfolk to challenge the federal fleet, there were expressions of amusement and cynicism. Northern Navy officers laughingly imagined the ironclad as a humpback turtle grotesquely waddling her ineffective way through the rough waters.