Civil War Today, 150 Years Ago — CSS Virginia Strikes!

[Patrick Degan]

Today is the day, 150 years ago, that the former steam-frigate USS Merrimack, radically altered into a casement ironclad warship and recommissioned as CSS Virginia, steamed into Hampton Roads and attacked the Federal Navy squadron at anchorage there. Targeting first the sail-sloop Cumberland, having the largest calibre guns in the force, the Virginia rammed into her starboard side at six knots, gutting the vessel below the waterline. Federal cannon-shot proved ineffective against this new slope-sided iron monster. The Virginia then reversed engines to pull out, but in doing so would lose her iron ramming prow, which caused a weakness in the bow seams that would prove troublesome the next day.

Leaving the Cumberland to settle, the Confederate ironclad then turned her full attentions on the steam frigate USS Congress, whose crew scrambled to get the ship underway and in combat readiness when the Virginia began to bombard her. Initially surrendering to the Confederates, gunfire from shore positions which resulted in the wounding of Commodore Franklin Buchanan caused the Virginia's executive officer, Lt. Catsby ap Jones, to cancel the truce and order his gun crews to pour heated shot into the frigate until she burned. The steam-frigates St. Lawrence and Roanoke ran aground trying to escape but were pulled off the sandbars by tugs. The Minnesota, however, could not be immediately rescued, but as the Virginia drew twenty feet, the ironclad could not approach the helpless vessel and her narrow gun ports prevented the crews from raising them for better long-range firing. And with damage to her stack and bow and casualties to tend to, the Virginia drew off to anchor at Sewell's Point, intending to finish the Minnesota in the morning. The Roads were lit up that night by the flames from the still-burning hulk of the Congress and, for the moment, the Confederate Navy ruled the waves.

But a nasty surprise for Buchanan's crew was already steaming down to meet them.

[Vehrec]

Steaming down to meet them? You can't mean that cracker with a tin-can on it, can you? I mean, it barely floats, one good voley and it will go straight to the bottom, never mind what a WAVE would do to it. Don't they have to take that monstrostity under tow to get it where it needs to be? The Federal government should have invested in a proper Ironclad, and not a joke like that thing.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The Cumberland the Merrimac;



And The Cumberland Crew.

Truly, the most glorious defeat in the history of the United States Navy, filled with courage and bravery to rival the similar stand of the Chilean screw frigate Esmerelda at Iquique 17 years later.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Federal government should have invested in a proper Ironclad, and not a joke like that thing.

Well... joke aside...they kind of should have. The best feature of Monitor was that she could be built so quickly, but it was clearly a mistake to build so many follow on hulls which proved painfully inadequate against Confederate coastal defenses and drew more and more water as they got bigger. Also in hindsight, Virginia was so unseaworthy and drew so much water she could have never threatened Washington or broken the blockade at Hampton Roads, but one can't blame people for fearing her like mad at the time. A later attack by two confederate ironclads at Charleston would prove this, when Chicora and Palmetto State damaged two Union steamers, and then everyone else just stood out to sea to wait for the Confederates to get bored and return to port. Blockaders then closed back in and the Confederates never came back out again least they actually loose one of the ironclads and render the harbor more vulnerable to assault. It would have been better to reduce monitor construction by avoiding the double turret monitors and instead building two or three more versions of New Ironsides. Completing Dunderberg would have also been handy even in view of her great draft. Sometimes rewarding success isn't the best idea.

The union casemate ironclads on the Mississippi were highly effective precisely because they could generate large volumes of fire, and in spite of fairly weak armoring. Less said about those Casco class river monitors the better.