Slowly she rounded Craney Island, lying like a blue-gray cloud over the water, her batteries turned toward the Norfolk shore. The troops waved their caps and sent up lusty cheers for the strange craft that looked, as some one afterward said, "like a huge terrapin with a large round chimney about the middle of its back." Having passed the island, she turned into the south channel and slowly moved on toward Newport News until, coming within firing range of the United States frigates _Congress_ and _Cumberland_, she was greeted with broadsides from both. A flash of fire, pale against the white day, a puff of smoke, widening, drifting, wreathing around the mouth of the gun and floating off into space, a deep roar of thunder showed us that our _Virginia_ was bearing well her brave old name.
The enthusiasm which had greeted her appearance was as nothing compared with the excitement that thrilled us now. Yells of encouragement and defiance rent the air. Handkerchiefs fluttered; hats were thrown aloft. Some of the men danced; others turned somersaults of enthusiasm. One soldier rushed to Colonel Phillips shouting, "Say, Colonel, say; can't we do something? Can't we help? For God's sake, let us do something to help them!"
Fortunately there was no bridge from the shore to the scene of action. Otherwise every man, woman and child among that seething crowd might have rushed into the fight, to the embarrassment of the plucky little _Virginia_. We could do our part only by going into paroxysms of patriotism, in which we all excelled.
The _Virginia_ went on up the channel, turned and, coming back, ran full against the _Cumberland_, penetrating her side with the sharp prow of the Confederate ironclad. The frigate reeled, shuddered, and began slowly to settle, her guns roaring from her deck. The _Congress_ came to her assistance, but the shots which rained from the two frigates fell harmlessly from the slanting sides of the _Virginia_.
With fascinated eyes I watched the _Cumberland_ tossing upon the waves, gradually sinking, firing another volley as her bow went down, then disappearing under the water, the flag that floated from her masthead still fluttering above the sea.
For days we had seen that frigate with her mate, the _Congress_, threatening us, a blot upon our waters, a monster, a thing of evil, waiting for the moment of fate. But it was pitiful to watch her go down, and I think every heart there felt a pride in that pennant waving defiantly above the water, even while we cheered our victorious _Virginia_. She went on, turned and came back to attack the _Congress_ which, in trying to escape, ran aground. She was soon ablaze, banners of flame flapping out from her rigging. In an hour her flag fell.