The USS Monitor Versus The CSS Merrimac

This series has three easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: The Merrimac Attacks the Wooden Ships.

Introduction
This is the first battle between ironclads. Thus the history books. Note that word “ironclads”. Not “battleships” – “ironclads”. Thie Age of Steel would get going the next decade for the 1860’s the world was still in the Iron Age as it had been for millenia.

Early in the Civil War the United States Government had iron-clad gunboats built for service on the Mississippi River and its great tributaries. Some of these, all of which were named for Western cities, were launched within a hundred days from the laying of the keel, and they performed efficient service, notably in the capture of Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, in February, 1862, and in assisting the land forces at the Battle of Pittsburg Landing a month later. The Confederates also constructed ironclads, some large ones being produced by putting a sloping roof of railroad iron on a wooden vessel. Such were the Louisiana at New Orleans, the Virginia (popularly known as the Merrimac) at Norfolk, Virginia, and the ram Tennessee in Mobile Bay. But the crowning achievement in this line, which revolutionized naval warfare, was the Monitor, built at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, by John Ericsson, which arrived in Hampton Roads just in time to be of the highest service to the United States forces there. Great as this service was, it was somewhat exaggerated, for the Merrimac was not seaworthy and could not have gone to New York or Philadelphia. Captain Ericsson deserved all the fame that his achievement gave him. But he was not the inventor of the revolving turret for war-ships. That idea was originated by Theodore R. Timby, then a resident of Poughkeepsie, New York, and patented by him in 1842.

In the photo note the dents in the turret, the scars of the battle.

This selection is from Young Folks History of the War for the Union by John Denison Champlin published in 1881. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

John Denison Champlin (1834-1915) was an American writer and editor.

Time: March 9, 1862
Place: Hampton Roads, Virginia

The Merrimac, one of the finest steam-frigates in the United States Navy, had been set on fire and scuttled when the Gosport Navy-Yard was abandoned in April, 1861. The noble vessel sank to the bottom before the flames had injured her much, and the Confederates soon raised her, cut down her upper deck, and built upon her a very strong timber covering, with sloping sides, like the roof of a house. The outside of this was plated with iron thick enough to be proof against shot from the most powerful guns then in use. Her bow and stern were both under water, and her bow was made sharp and fitted with a cast-iron beak, to be used as a ram. This novel war-vessel, which was finished early in March, 1862, and renamed the Virginia (though her new name did not stick to her), was armed with ten heavy guns, four on each side, one in the bow, and one in the stern, and was put under the command of Captain Franklin Buchanan, formerly of the United States Navy.

The Confederates hoped that this vessel would enable them to open Hampton Roads, which the ships of the Union had kept closely blockaded since the beginning of the war, and which had been the starting-place of the naval expeditions that had done so much damage to their coasts. Vague rumors of this new engine of war had found their way North, and created no little fear, for it was suggested that she might easily ascend the Potomac and destroy Washington, or steam into the harbor of New York and fire the city with her shells or force the inhabitants to buy safety with a vast sum of money. These rumors probably had the effect of hastening the Government in building ironclads, several of which had already been planned.

At last, without any warning, the dreaded sea-monster made her appearance in Hampton Roads. About noon of Saturday, March 8, 1862, a large black steamer, accompanied by two smaller vessels, was seen coming down Elizabeth River. It was at once thought to be the long-expected Merrimac, and her approach was signaled to the fleet. The Union vessels then in the Roads were the sailing-vessels Cumberland, 24 guns; Congress, 50 guns; and St. Lawrence, 50 guns; the steamers Roanoke and Minnesota, each of 40 guns; and several small steamers. The Cumberland and the Congress lay off Newport News; the others were off Fort Monroe, about six miles distant. Captain Marston, of the Roanoke, who commanded the fleet, at once started with his steamer and the St. Lawrence for Newport News.

The drums of the Cumberland and the Congress beat to quarters, and the ships were prepared for action. Their crews watched curiously every movement of the Confederate battery, of which they had heard such terrible reports. On she came, steaming slowly toward them, her chimneys belching black smoke, and her flag fluttering defiantly in the breeze, while the two little steamers followed close behind. When she was about a mile distant the Cumberland opened fire upon her but the “house afloat,” as some of the sailors called her, came on without replying. As she passed the Congress, that vessel poured a broadside into her, but the balls bounded from her mailed sides as if they were made of india-rubber. The Merrimac, conscious of her strength, steamed grimly on through the iron storm which would have sunk any common vessel, and steered directly for the Cumberland, which lay with her side toward her so as to bring her broadside to bear.

The Cumberland opened a heavy fire on the monster which she could not escape, and the Merrimac, amid the flash and roar of her guns and enveloped in a pall of smoke that nearly hid her from view, went with a crash through the side of the doomed ship. The Cumberland shivered from end to end, and when the Merrimac drew slowly back it was found that her iron beak had passed through her, making a ragged hole into which the water rushed rapidly. The Merrimac then fired broadside after broadside into her sinking foe; but the gallant men of the Cumberland, never dreaming of surrender, stood by their guns to the last. In three-quarters of an hour after she was struck the noble ship went down in fifty-four feet of water, with her flag flying at the peak. The dead and the wounded sank with her; of the rest of the crew, some swam to the shore and some were picked up by small boats; but of three hundred seventy-six men, one hundred twenty-one were lost.

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