CIVIL WAR HISTORY
U.S.S. MONITOR BATTLES
C.S.S. VIRGINIA
9 MARCH 1862
One of the most famous
naval battles in American history occurred off Hampton Roads,
Virginia, when the two
'ironclads' the Monitor and the Virginia pounded each other
to a draw, their heavy
armor deflecting cannon shots, signing in a new era of naval
warfare and steam powered
iron ships.
The C.S.S. Virginia was
originally the U.S.S. Merrimack, captured by the Confederates,
covering it with armor
plate and set out with powerful guns, in 1862. March 8th
the
C.S.S. Virginia sank two
Union ships and ran one aground off Hampton Roads.
The next day the U.S.S.
Monitor steamed into the Chesapeake Bay . She had been
designed by John Ericsson,
a Swedish engineer with a low profile, only 18 inches
showed above the water.
In the middle of her flat iron deck was a twenty foot turret
which housed two 11 inch
Dahlgren guns, With her draft of less than eleven feet
it could operate in shallow
harbors and rivers down south. The monitor was
commissioned 25th
February, 1862 and arrived at Chesapeake just in time to take on
the Virginia.
The four hour battle
began morning of March 9th and the vessels circled
one another
jockeying for good position
as they fired their guns. The cannon ball simply bounced off
the iron ships. Early
afternoon the C.S.S. Virginia pulled back into Norfolk. Neither
ship was seriously damaged
but the U.S.S. Monitor had effectively ended the short reign
of terror the C.S.S.
Virginia had brought to the Union's shipping.
Both ships met shameful
ends. The Confererates scuttled their ironclad when the Union
invaded James peninsula,
the Monitor went down in bad weather off Cape Hatteras.
Nevertheless, both ushered
in a new era of naval warfare.
Source:
www.historytoday.com
Abstract: March 9, 2018 Harrison H. for www.iinniblog.
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