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In Hampton Roads: A Dramatic Romance (1899)
In Hampton Roads A Dramatic Romance - 1899 Author:Charles Eugene Banks, George Cram Cook General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1899 Original Publisher: Rand, McNally Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction / Short Stories History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877) Literary Criticism / General Notes: This is a black and ... more »white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER I. WAVERLEY PLANTATION. Virginia Eggleston, standing on the gallery of Waverley mansion overlooking Hampton Roads on that memorable morning, felt something of the impending tragedy that was to be enacted there. Of the Merrimac she knew no more than others not in the secret of its building. Descriptions of this craft had been so many and conflicting that the imagination, quickened by the sweeping events of the time, could retain no more than their most striking features. These had gradually changed and shifted according to the mind or temperament of the individual, so that both at the North and the South the new ship was as mythical as the ancient dragon -- all the more terrible because of the mystery surrounding it. To the Confederates it held out a hope for instant and lasting victory. To the Federals it was an undefined, intangible force, a wild beast, an animal of unknown dimensions, crouchingfor a spring. That a single ship could live for a moment in Hampton Roads, under the fire of the guns of the whole Union fleet and of the shore batteries, seemed no more than an idle boast. That such a craft could sink all those great ships and sail away unhurt to attack and burn the cities along the New England coast, or steam up the Potomac to throw shells into the Capitol was not within the range of possibilities. Yet all these things were prophesied, and descriptions...« less