The Rev. J.J. Nicholson, writing from Norfolk on the 28th ult., gives the Mobile Tribune and interesting account of a visit he recently paid to the navy yard at that place. He describes the Merrimac as follows:
I was on the celebrated Merrimac. She is turned into a sort of terrapin, only with a sharper back—or if you will take an old fashioned chicken coop, with angular top, as a type on a small scale, you will have all of this great ship that will appear above water. Bow and stern will be entirely underwater, and so constructed as to puncture anything that falls in the way. The only possible chance for an enemy to do anything with it will be to straddle the sharp cone or comb of the roof, and sing to the sharks as he passes along. To get into it will be impossible, and to make a hole in it with any thing, or any machinery, just the same. It will be covered with oak plank, two-courses, each four inches thick, and then encased in railroad iron. Do you suppose a cannon ball can have the courage to go through all of that? She will carry ten tremendous guns. And when she pokes her fiendish head out of these waters, then may you look for a speedy raising of blockade, &c. I would not be afraid to go anywhere in her; right under the guns of Fortress Monroe would be as safe as anywhere else.
Shreveport Daily News, Shreveport, LA