The Monitor and Merrimac by (BROADSIDE BALLAD -- CIVIL WAR). CLARK, Charles A - n.y.

New York: H. De Marsan, n.y.. Broadside. Small 4to (6¼" X 10"). Very good. Faint age toning; old mounting strip on verso along top edge. This clean and quite attractive patriotic poem is a lively and colorful (if inaccurate) Union version of this famed ironclad encounter of March 9, 1862 that resulted in a draw. Thick decorative border consists of boilerplate graphics that include putti, an Elizabethan lute-playing minstrel serenading a blushing, buxom maiden, etc. Another version of this broadside exists, also published by De Marsan, with different ornamental border featuring a black banjo player and other black characters, but no priority has been determined. Both are undated, but likely printed between late 1862 and 1864. "Hip a Dooden Do, Jeff Davis, how are you? / Our Monitor beat your Merrimac quite handy, O!" -- not quite accurate, since this naval duel proved inconclusive and the Monitor withdrew first. An interesting if fanciful narrative of this noted battle. "Slip ballads," "broadside ballads" or "penny ballads" were hawked by street vendors and were popular throughout much of the 19th century, reaching their height during the Civil War; most, such as this example, were crudely printed on thin, delicate stock -- which means that relatively few copies such choice condition as this one survive.