A note on the name of the Merrimac: The CSS Virginia was first commisioned as the USS Merrimac and was burned by the the Union when Portsmouth was abandoned at the start of the Civil War. The ship burned to the waterline but did not sink, so the Confederates rebuilt the ship as an ironclad and rechristened it as the CSS Virginia. What to call the Merrimac, the Merrimack, or the Virginia can get as confusing as what to call Sailor's Creek; I've seen it called by all three names in one sorce or another. Traditionally the name most used has been the Merrimac so that is what I'll call it, but a lot of Southerner will disagree.
The Monitor vs. the Merrimac
Most of the pictures on this page were taken at the park located on the left bank of the creek in the above picture.
The Commanders
USS Monitor
Lt. John Worden
CSS Virginia (Merrimac)
Captian Franklin Buchanan (On the first day, he lost his leg to a mini ball)
Lt. Catesby Jones (Replaced Buchanan for the second day's battle)
The Merrimac had steamed into the Union Blockade on March 8, 1862 and sunk the Union frigates Congress and Cumberland while suffering very little damage to itself. That night a weird looking ship tied up alongside the USS Minnesota. Described as cheese box on a raft, the USS Monitor presented almost no target for a rival gunner to shoot at. All of the exposed surfaces were either rounded or parallel to the water to deflect iron shot. To the modern eye the Monitor looked much like a submarine, in 1862 it just looked strange.
The Merrimac returned the next morning expecting to wreak more havoc on the Union Blockade only to find the Monitor blocking its way. After hours of inconclusive fighting the Merrimac had only succeeded in denting the Monitors armor while the Monitor’s bigger shells had cracked the Merrimack’s armor plate in several places. For the crews of both ships the noise of the battle was a nightmare. The sound of the cannons firing inside the iron hulls and reverberations of the cannonballs hitting the plates was physically damaging to the men inside. Remember, this was before OSHA and ear protection.
The Monitor (top) and the Merrimac
After fighting all day the Merrimac left the field and although the Merrimac returned to challenge the Monitor on several occasions, the Monitor was under orders not to respond so they never fought again. The ships became a class of ships that went on to serve throughout the war for the Union.
Looking out in the river from the Overlook park on a foggy day.
The Monitor and the Merrimac were constructed around two very different ideas, the Merrimac was built as an armored ram and the Monitor was designed to be a gun ship. The Merrimac had rows of cannon along both sides of the ship and cannon fore and aft with the long low bow serving as a ram. The Monitor had two large caliber guns mounted in a revolving turret. The revolving turret gave the Monitor as rapid a rate of fire as the Merrimac on any given target, but with larger, more damaging shells. While the Merrimac had more guns, only those facing the target mattered, and that would be a most three, and it had four obvious, and large, blind spots; the Monitor, on the other hand could keep up a rapid rate of fire over a much large angular field with two smaller blind spots directly fore and aft.
Looking from the park toward Newport News from Overlook Park. The USS Cumberland and the USS Congress were anchored in the channel off Newport News.
Both ships had been rushed into service by governments desperate for any sort of advantage in control of the southern ports; the Monitor had been launched at the Continental Iron Works in Greenport New York on January 30, 1862, while the Merrimac was commissioned February 17th; given that the battle was fought March 8th and 9th, there wasn't much time for either crews to master their new ships. The Merrimac, now the Virginia, was so rushed that it was launched with workmen still on board hammering away as it made its maiden voyage.
Looking out toward Sewel's Point.
I usually is mentioned but the Merrimac didn't attack alone, but as part of the Confederate James River Squadron. While the Merrimac attacked the Congress the rest of the Confederate ships attacked the Minnesota. The Minnesota ran aground and because the tide was going out the Minnesota was saved from further attack as the James River Squadron, including the Merrimac, steamed back up river for the night.
Looking back toward shore from the end of the pier. The spectators were lined up along the shoreline.
The Significance of the Monitor vs. the Merrimac
The epic First Battle of the Ironclads was watched by the people of Hampton and Newport News from the park where these pictures were taken. Hampton Roads off Sewell’s Point is a narrow waterway. The two ships maneuvered back and forth in front of this park in clear view of the watchers on shore.
Looking from the end of the pier back toward Hampton. The little bump on the extream right of the picture is Fort Monroe.
The battle at Hampton Roads made every non-ironclad naval ship in the world obsolete, and second while the Monitor didn’t really defeat the Merrimac it did prevent the Merrimac from breaking the Union blockade. While the Merrimac was technically designed to be an ocean going vessel no one seriously considered her to be a transatlantic ship, her job was to sink the ships blockading the James River. She was not able to perform that mission and for that reason the victory is given to the Monitor.
Fort Monroe off in the distance. The fort fired on the Merrimac on the first day of the battle. The water tower in the left of the photo is in Phoebus, the site of Camp Hamilton. The USS Minnesota, the St, Lawrence and the Roanoke were anchored at Fort Monroe. When the Merrimac was sighted the three ships weighed anchor and set sail.
A point I consider overlooked is that both the Monitor and Merrimac were steam powered ships and did not use sails at all. They could not have effectively manuvered in the confines of Hampton Roads if they had depended upon sails. As it was neither ship had to worry about tacking and could move freely in the dance for position. The Monitor was designed to be a gunboat but the Merrimac was designed to be a ram. For the Merrimac the freedom of movement was critical. I cannot think of another battle before this where both ships had no sails at all. This is what really made the difference between the wooden ships and the iorn clads, in open ocean the wooden ships could have easily outrun the lumbering iorn ships, stood off at a distance and hammered them with their superior firepower; but, stuck in the river channel the smaller Merrimac could get in under the wooden ships guns and there was nothing the bigger ships could do about it.
Big, new iron clads across the way at Sewl's Point in Norfolk.
An interesting side note is that the Monitor was ordered not to engage with the Merrimac again. On several ocasion the Merrimac issued forth to challenge the Monitor but the Monitor retreated to the safety of the big guns at Fort Monroe and Fort Wool.
Most of the fighting between the two iorn clads was in this stretch of water and the next picture.
After the Battle of Hampton Roads the Monitor participated in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff, but other than that she didn't do much; but, she became a class of ships that provided great service to the Union Blockade. The Monitor finally left Hampton Roads and was sunk off Cape Hatteras in a Hurricane on December 31, 1862. 16 of her 62 crewmen drowned.
The battle site, you can see the far shore so the two ships were limited in their movements.
The supposed persepctive of the painting at the top of the page is from the immediate left of the bridge in the background of this photo.
Now There is a sentence.
The Monitor sinks.