Aboard the Cumberland, Lt. George Morris saw the devastation inflicted on the Congress and knew his turn was next. His ship was a favorite among the federal fleet, an old frigate that had been cut down to create a fast-sailing corvette of 24 guns. Without wind she was a sitting duck, but Morris was confident that his larger cannon —particularly the new rifled pivot gun at the stern—would crush the Virginia's iron shield. His forward guns roared, scoring direct hits, yet the deadly shells ricocheted off the ironclad, exploding harmlessly in the air.

The Virginia steamed on toward the Cumberland, firing as she came. The first strike smashed the starboard rail, killing or maiming nine marines. The next shot exploded among the 16 men of the forward gun crew, killing all but two. Shot after shot mowed down the Cumberland's men, leaving a trail of body parts and blood. The dead were hauled to the port side; the wounded carried below. As each gunner fell, another stepped up to take his place.

Making a steady approach, Buchanan blasted the Cumberland for 15 minutes, then plowed his iron monster straight into the wooden ship. Sailors on both vessels felt a terrific crash as iron ram hit solid oak, punching a hole at the waterline some said was big enough for a horse and cart to pass through. The ram worked almost too well. The Cumberland began sinking so fast it threatened to take the ironclad down with it. At the last moment the ram wrenched off, freeing the Virginia from its victim.

Buchanan hailed the sinking ship, demanding its surrender. A defiant Morris yelled back, "No, damn you! I will never surrender!" The Virginia now lay parallel to the sinking Cumberland and fewer than a hundred yards away. The Cumberland's crew, some in water to their knees, took their revenge, pouring round after round into the ironclad at close range. Gunners aboard the ironclad, their bodies black with powder and streaked with sweat, returned fire with devastating effect. "The way was slippery with blood, and the mutilated humanity was a sight too awful for description," recalled acting master William Pritchard Randall, who ordered the last shot fired from the Cumberland. Of the 376 men on board, 121 were dead or missing and perhaps another 80 or more were wounded.

"The normal practice at that time was to fight until you had 10 percent casualties; then you could honorably surrender," says Craig Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy. "The 55 percent casualty rate on the Cumberland was phenomenal. Some of that was because the wounded were carried below, but the numbers show how heroically they fought."

At last the Cumberland, her colors still flying, lurched to port and sank to the river bottom, the screams of the men trapped below decks silenced by the black water. Though the Navy would use wooden sailing vessels for another decade or two, many historians point to March 8, 1862, as the day the wooden warship died. That same afternoon, the fate of the U.S.S. Congress would signal an even more ominous turn—away from the traditional rules of naval battle and toward no-holds-barred, mechanized war.