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CSS Virginia (1862-1862), ex-USS Merrimack
On 20 April 1861, when Virginia authorities took over the Norfolk Navy Yard after its evacuatuion by Federal
forces, they found, among other valuable items, the hulk of the steam frigate USS Merrimack. Though burned to the waterline and sunk, the big ship's lower hull and machinery were intact. During the remainder
of 1861 and the first two months of 1862, the Confederate States Navy raised, drydocked and converted her into a casemate
ironclad ram, a new warship type that promised to overcome the Union's great superiority in conventional warships. Placed
in commission as CSS Virginia in mid-February 1862, the ship's iron armor made her virtually invulnerable to contemporary
gunfire. She carried ten guns of her own, a seven-inch pivot-mounted rifle at each end and a broadside battery of two six-inch
rifles and six nine-inch smoothbores. Affixed to her bow was an iron ram, allowing the ship herself to be employed as a deadly
weapon.
| CSS Virginia (1862-1862) |
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| U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C. |
Virginia made her first combat sortie on 8 March 1862, steaming
down the Elizabeth River from Norfolk and into Hampton Roads. In a historic action that dramatically demonstrated the superiority
of armored steam-powered warships over their wooden sailing counterparts, she rammed and sank the big U.S. Navy sloop of war
Cumberland and shelled the frigate Congress into submission (CSS Virginia destroys USS Cumberland and USS Congress). In Washington, D.C., many of the Federal Government's senior officials panicked, convinced that Virginia posed a
grave threat to Union seapower and coastal cities. They were unaware that her serious operational limitations, caused by her
deep draft, weak powerplant and extremely poor seakeeping, essentially restricted her use to deep channels in calm, inland
waterways.
However, their worries were relieved the next day. When Virginia returned
to Hampton Roads to attack the grounded steam frigate Minnesota, she found the Union's own pioneer ironclad, USS Monitor, waiting. A second historic battle ensued, with the two opponents firing away, without mortal effect, until the action ended
in a tactical draw in the early afternoon of 9 March 1862.
Over the next two months, the two ironclads kept each other in check. Virginia,
repaired and strengthened at the Norfolk Navy Yard, reentered the Hampton Roads area on 11 April and 8 May, but no further
combat with the Monitor resulted. As the Confederates abandoned their positions in the Norfolk area, Virginia
was threatened with the loss of her base. After a futile effort to lighten the ship enough to allow her to move up the James
River, on 11 May the South's formidable ironclad was destroyed by her crew off Craney Island, some six miles from where she
had electrified the World through her battles of 8 and 9 March. CSS Virginia's wreck was largely removed between 1866
and 1876.
Reference: Department of the Navy, Naval History & Heritage Command,
805 Kidder Breese SE, Washington Navy Yard, Washington D.C., 20374-5060
Recommended
Reading: Ironclad Down: USS Merrimack-CSS Virginia from Design to Destruction (Hardcover). Description: The result of more than fifteen years
of research, Ironclad Down is a treasure trove of detailed information about one of history s most famous vessels. Describing
the fascinating people--Stephen Russell Mallory, John Mercer Brooke, John Luke Porter, et al.--who conceived, designed and
built one of the world's first ironclads as well as describing the ship itself, Carl Park offers both the most thoroughly
detailed, in-depth analysis to date of the actual architecture of the Virginia
and a fascinating, colorful chapter of Civil War history.
Recommended
Reading: The Battle of Hampton
Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (Mariner's Museum). Description: On March 8 and 9, 1862, a sea battle off the Virginia coast changed naval warfare forever. It began when the Confederate States Navy’s
CSS Virginia led a task force to break the Union blockade of Hampton Roads. The Virginia
sank the USS Cumberland and forced the frigate Congress to surrender. Damaged by shore batteries, the Virginia retreated, returning the next day to find her way blocked by the newly arrived
USS Monitor. The clash of ironclads was underway. Continued below…
After fighting
for nine hours, both ships withdrew, neither seriously damaged, with both sides claiming victory. Although the battle may
have been a draw and the Monitor sank in a storm later that year, this first encounter between powered, ironclad warships
spelled the end of wooden warships—and the dawn of a new navy. This book takes a new look at this historic battle. The
ten original essays, written by leading historians, explore every aspect of the battle—from the building of the warships
and life aboard these “iron coffins” to tactics, strategy, and the debates about who really won the battle of
Hampton Roads. Co-published with The Mariners’ Museum, home to the USS Monitor Center, this authoritative guide to the
military, political, technological, and cultural dimensions of this historic battle also features a portfolio of classic lithographs,
drawings, and paintings. Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading experts on the Civil War.
Recommended
Reading: Confederate Ironclad vs Union Ironclad: Hampton Roads
1862 (Duel). Description: The Ironclad
was a revolutionary weapon of war. Although iron was used for protection in the Far East
during the 16th century, it was the 19th century and the American Civil War that heralded the first modern armored self-propelled
warships. With the parallel pressures of civil war and the industrial revolution, technology advanced at a breakneck speed.
It was the South who first utilized ironclads as they attempted to protect their ports from the Northern blockade. Impressed
with their superior resistance to fire and their ability to ram vulnerable wooden ships, the North began to develop its own
rival fleet of ironclads. Eventually these two products of this first modern arms race dueled at the battle of Hampton Roads
in a clash that would change the face of naval warfare. Continued below…
Fully illustrated
with cutting-edge digital artwork, rare photographs and first-person perspective gun sight views, this book allows the reader
to discover the revolutionary and radically different designs of the two rival Ironclads - the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor
- through an analysis of each ship's weaponry, ammunition and steerage. Compare the contrasting training of the crews and
re-live the horrors of the battle at sea in a war which split a nation, communities and even families. About the Author: Ron
Field is Head of History at the Cotswold School in
Bourton-on-the-Water. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1982 and taught history at Piedmont
High School in California
from 1982 to 1983. He was associate editor of the Confederate Historical Society of Great Britain, from 1983 to 1992. He is
an internationally acknowledged expert on US Civil War military history, and was elected a Fellow of the Company of Military
Historians, based in Washington, DC,
in 2005. The author lives in Cheltenham, UK.
Recommended
Reading: A History of
the Confederate Navy (Hardcover). From
Publishers Weekly: One of the most prominent European scholars of the Civil War weighs in with a provocative revisionist study
of the Confederacy's naval policies. For 27 years, University of Genoa history professor Luraghi (The Rise and Fall of the
Plantation South) explored archival and monographic sources on both sides of the Atlantic to develop a convincing argument
that the deadliest maritime threat to the South was not, as commonly thought, the Union's blockade but the North's amphibious
and river operations. Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory, the author shows, thus focused on protecting the Confederacy's
inland waterways and controlling the harbors vital for military imports. Continued below…
As a result,
from Vicksburg
to Savannah to Richmond, major
Confederate ports ultimately were captured from the land and not from the sea, despite the North's overwhelming naval strength.
Luraghi highlights the South's ingenuity in inventing and employing new technologies: the ironclad, the submarine, the torpedo.
He establishes, however, that these innovations were the brainchildren of only a few men, whose work, although brilliant,
couldn't match the resources and might of a major industrial power like the Union. Nor did
the Confederate Navy, weakened through Mallory's administrative inefficiency, compensate with an effective command system.
Enhanced by a translation that retains the verve of the original, Luraghi's study is a notable addition to Civil War maritime
history. Includes numerous photos.
Recommended
Reading: The Confederate Navy in Europe. Description:
The Confederate Navy in Europe is an account of the Confederate officers and officials who went on missions to Britain and France
to buy ships for the CS Navy, and to support CSN operations on the high seas, such as commerce raiding. Spencer tells the
story of how some officers rose to the occasion (some did not) and did a lot with limited resources. Continued below...
The majority of the ships ordered never reached America.
Shipbuilding takes time, and as the war dragged on the European powers were persuaded by Confederate battlefield misfortunes
and US diplomatic pressure that it was
most expedient to deny the sales of such innovative designs as ocean-going ironclads. Like other out-manned and out-gunned
powers, the CSA did have to resort to ingenuity and innovation.
Recommended
Reading: The Rebel Raiders: The Astonishing History of the Confederacy's Secret Navy (American Civil War). From Booklist: DeKay's modest monograph pulls together four
separate stories from the naval aspects of the American Civil War. All have been told before but never integrated as they
are here. The first story is that of James Bulloch, the Confederate agent who carefully and capably set out to have Confederate
commerce raiders built in neutral England.
Continued below...
The second is that of the anti-American attitudes of British politicians, far more extreme than conventional
histories let on, and U.S. Ambassador Charles Francis Adams' heroic fight against them. The third is a thoroughly readable
narrative of the raider Alabama and her capable, quirky captain, Raphael Semmes. The final story is about the Alabama claims--suits for damages done to the U.S.
merchant marine by Confederate raiders, which became the first successful case of international arbitration. Sound and remarkably
free of fury, DeKay's commendable effort nicely expands coverage of the naval aspects of the Civil War.
Recommended
Reading: Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Description: William N. Still's book is rightfully referred to as the standard of Confederate Naval history.
Accurate and objective accounts of the major and even minor engagements with Union forces are combined with extensive background
information. This edition has an enlarged section of historical drawings and sketches. Mr. Still explains the political background
that gave rise to the Confederate Ironclad program and his research is impeccable. An exhaustive literature listing rounds
out this excellent book. While strictly scientific, the inclusion of historical eyewitness accounts and the always fluent
style make this book a joy to read. This book is a great starting point.
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