“The Cumberland”

The Rebel steamer “Merrimac” running down the frigate “Cumberland” off Newport News. (top L. and R.) and The Ericsson Battery “Monitor” drives off the “Merrimac” (bottom L. and R.)

The Cumberland was sunk at Hampton Roads by the South’s new iron ship, the Merrimac. The Merrimac simply bore in on the Cumberland, ignoring her shots, and rammed her so that she sank. Melville’s interest in this event is expressed succinctly by Howard Vincent, who says, “The victory of the Merrimac was the call of Taps for the old wooden fighting ship, as an old sailor like Melville well realized” (The Trying-Out of “Moby-Dick.” Boston: 1949). In “The Cumberland” and later on in “Bridegroom Dick” in his volume of poems John Marr and Other Sailors, Melville expresses an old sailor’s nostalgic regret at the sinking of the Cumberland and what it meant.
Whether it was reading the Baltimore American account (IV, Doc. 273-276) that inspired “The Cumberland” is impossible to say with certainty, but the fact that Melville did read the American report is proven by his use of one detail found therein:

What need to tell how she was fought—
The sinking flaming gun—
The gunner leaping out the port—
Washed back, undone!
Her dead unconquerably manned
The Cumberland.

The unfortunate fate of the gunner in this passage is derived from the following detail in the American account:

This last shot was fired by an active little fellow named Matthew Tenney, whose courage had been conspicuous throughout the action. As his port was left open by the recoil of the gun, he jumped to scramble out, but the water rushed in with so much force that he was washed back and drowned (Doc. 274).