nine o'clock
All orders issued to the Army of the Potomac were now made contingent on the destruction of the iron monster lying in Hampton Roads . By one of the strangest coincidences in history the United States Navy had completed an experiment in floating iron at precisely the same moment . While the guns of the battle were yet echoing over the waters of the harbor , this strange little craft , a floating iron cheese box , was slowly steaming into the Virginia capes . At nine o'clock that night Ericsson 's _ Monitor _ was beside the panic-stricken _ Roanoke _ . When C. S. Bushnell took the model of this strange craft to Washington , he was referred to Commander C. H. Davis by the Naval Board . When Davis had examined it he handed it back to Bushnell with a pitying smile : `` Take the little thing home , and worship it . It would not be idolatry , because it 's made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth . ''