Monitor and Merrimack, Battle of

MONITOR AND MERRIMACK, BATTLE OF

MONITOR AND MERRIMACK, BATTLE OF. The French introduced the principle of the ironclad ship during the Crimean War, and about a hundred ironclads were built or projected—none in the United States—before the American Civil War. When Stephen Mallory, chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs since 1851, became Confederate secretary of the navy, he saw ironclads as the Confederacy's only chance of beating the North. Although his program was initially subordinated to the greater needs of equipping the Confederate army, Mallory commissioned thirty-two ironclads, of which fewer than a dozen were ever fully ready.

The Confederates salvaged the U.S.S. Merrimack, which had been scuttled in the Union evacuation of Norfolk. Upon its sound hull the Confederates built a sloping iron casemate to house an artillery battery. The conversion dragged on for months, time that allowed the Union to recognize the danger and begin its own program. The Merrimack was rechristened the C.S.S. Virginia, a name that did not gain contemporary usage. It had no captain, inasmuch as Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan preferred to have it commanded by its able young executive officer, Lt. Catesby Jones.

On 8 March 1862 the Merrimack sortied from Norfolk to gain control of Hampton Roads and the James River, which would aid Maj. Gen. John Magruder in expelling Union forces from the lower Yorktown peninsula. The wooden warships Cumberland and Congress protected the water flanks of the Union position at Newport News, and Buchanan sank them easily, although he was wounded by imprudent exposure during the fight with the Congress. After driving back a Union squadron on duty at the blockading station outside the Roads, Jones brought the iron-clad to anchor for the night off Sewell's Point. Buchanan resolved to finish off the Minnesota, stranded in shallow water and helpless, in the morning.

During the night, the U.S.S. Monitor arrived after a dramatic dash from New York. When Jones got up steam on 9 March to destroy the Minnesota, it was no longer

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alone. The Monitor, under Lt. John Worden, successfully engaged the Merrimack until tide and cumulative damage required Jones to head for Norfolk. Worden was blinded by a shell explosion.

Union claims of victory were founded on the misconception that the Merrimack was trying to break the blockade. Buchanan aimed only to clear Hampton Roads and did so. By naval semantics, both antagonists won: the Monitor tactically because Worden kept the Merrimack from destroying the Minnesota, and the Merrimack strategically because it frightened the Union navy away from the Roads. Gen. George B. McClellan, who had initially planned using the Roads and the James River for a swift stab at Richmond, was compelled to rely on the limited wharfage of Fort Monroe, safely outside the Roads, to mount his famously unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign.

The career of the Merrimack is an example of a successful strategic deterrent. A hugely exaggerated notion of its power was responsible for McClellan's self-defeating decision to use the Union-controlled York River for his supplies. The Merrimack was destroyed by its own crew when the Confederates evacuated Norfolk on 11 May 1862.

Nine months after its famous clash with the Merrimack, the Monitor sank in a violent storm while under tow off Cape Hatteras. In 1973 scientists discovered its remains lying 230 feet deep off the Cape Hatteras coast. Sporadic salvage efforts began in 1975 and were later brought under the supervision of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The propeller was raised in 1998 and a ten-foot section of the shaft in 2000. In the summer of 2002, the salvage team was close to raising the ship's 160-ton gun turret. All the recovered artifacts of the Monitor will go on display in a planned $30 million museum.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Broad, William J. "Retrieval Efforts Aim to Bring Monitor Back to Life." New York Times, 30 July 2002 (www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/science/30MONI.html).

Davis, William C. Duel between the First Ironclads. Mechanics-burg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1994.

De Kay, James T. Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History. New York: Walker, 1997.

Hoehling, Adolph A. Thunder at Hampton Roads. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976.

Still, William N., Jr. "Confederate Naval Strategy: The Iron-clad." The Journal of Southern History 27 (1961): 330–343.

R. W. Daly / a. r.

See also Ironclad Warships ; Monroe, Fortress ; Navy, Confederate ; Navy, United States ; Peninsular Campaign .