As the Monitor entered the Roads, Lieutenant Worden ordered the ship cleared for action. Although the crew had had little sleep or warm food during the past forty-eight hours, they quickly disassembled the ventilators and smoke stack, the deck stanchions and canvas awning, and “keyed” the turret up off its brass ring making it ready to rotate. At 9:00 P.M. she anchored near the frigate Roanoke. Worden went on board that vessel for orders, observing as he was rowed to it that a large ship was burning in the background. This was the frigate Congress set afire by the Virginia. On board the Roanoke Worden was ordered to move his ship next to the Minnesota, which had grounded during the day’s battle. So at one o’clock in the morning the Monitor came alongside the stranded frigate and anchored. Shortly afterward the Congress blew up in “a grand but mournful sight,” wrote Lieutenant Greene. The Monitor’s disturbed crew then tried to get some rest, although “no one slept,” Paymaster Keeler told his wife.

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