The Battle of Hampton Roads, also referred to as the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack or the Battle of Ironclads, was a naval battle during the American Civil War.
The battle was fought over two days, March 8 and 9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond rivers meet the James River just before it flows into Chesapeake Bay by the city of Norfolk. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginia's largest cities and major industrial centers, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade.Musicant 1995, pp. 134–178; Anderson 1962, pp. 71–77; Tucker 2006, p. 151. This battle was significant in that it was the first combat between ironclad warships, the and . The Confederate fleet consisted of the ironclad ram Virginia (built from remnants of the burned steam frigate ) and several supporting vessels. On the first day of battle, they were opposed by several conventional, wooden-hulled ships of the Union Navy.
On that day, the Virginia was able to destroy two ships of the Union flotilla, and , and was about to attack a third, , which had run aground. However, the action was halted by darkness and falling tide, so Virginia retired to take care of her few wounded—which included her captain, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan—and repair her minimal battle damage.Anderson 1962, pp. 71–75.
Determined to complete the destruction of Minnesota, Catesby ap Roger Jones, acting as captain in Buchanan's absence, returned the ship to the fray the next morning, March 9. During the night, however, the ironclad Monitor had arrived and had taken a position to defend Minnesota. When Virginia approached, Monitor intercepted her. The two ironclads fought for about three hours, with neither able to inflict significant damage on the other. The duel ended indecisively, Virginia returning to her home at the Gosport Navy Yard for repairs and strengthening, and Monitor to her station defending Minnesota. The ships did not fight again, and the blockade remained in place.Anderson 1962, pp. 75–77.
The battle received worldwide attention, having immediate effects on navies around the world. The preeminent naval powers, Great Britain and France, halted further construction of wooden-hulled ships, and others followed suit. Although Britain and France had been engaged in an iron-clad arms race since the 1830s, the Battle of Hampton Roads signaled a new age of naval warfare had arrived for the whole world.Deogracias, Alan J. "The Battle of Hampton Roads: A Revolution in Military Affairs." U.S. Army Command, 6 June 2003. A new type of warship, monitor, was produced on the principle of the original. The use of a small number of very heavy guns, mounted so that they could fire in all directions, was first demonstrated by Monitor but soon became standard in warships of all types. Shipbuilders also incorporated rams into the designs of warship hulls for the rest of the century.Tucker 2006, p. 175; Luraghi 1996, p. 148.
Background
Military situation
The blockade at Norfolk
On April 19, 1861, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities at Charleston Harbor, US President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of ports in the seceded states. On April 27, after Virginia and North Carolina had also passed ordinances of secession, the blockade was extended to include their ports also.Civil War naval chronology, pp. I-9, I-12. Even before the extension, local troops had seized the Norfolk area and threatened the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth. The commandant there, Captain Charles S. McCauley, though loyal to the Union, was immobilized by advice he received from his subordinate officers, most of whom were in favor of secession. Although he had orders from (Union) Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to move his ships to Northern ports, he refused to act until April 20, when he gave orders to scuttle the ships in the yard and destroy its facilities.
At least nine ships were burned, among them the screw frigate . Merrimack burned only to the waterline, however, and her engines were more or less intact. The destruction of the navy yard was mostly ineffective; in particular, the large drydock there was relatively undamaged and soon could be restored.Musicant 1995, pp. 26–40. Without firing a shot, the advocates of secession had gained for the South its largest navy yard, as well as the hull and engines of what would be in time its most famous warship. They had also seized more than a thousand heavy guns, plus gun carriages and large quantities of gunpowder.Luraghi 1996, pp. 34–35, 42.
With Norfolk and its navy yard in Portsmouth, the Confederacy controlled the southern side of Hampton Roads. To prevent Union warships from attacking the yard, the Confederates set up batteries at Sewell's Point and Craney Island, at the juncture of the Elizabeth River with the James. (See map.)ORA I, v. 2, pp. 782–783. The Union retained possession of Fort Monroe, at Old Point Comfort on the Virginia Peninsula.Fort Monroe was one of three major forts in seceded states that were still held by the Union; the others were Fort Zachary Taylor and Fort Pickens, both in Florida. They also held a small man-made island known as the Rip Raps, on the far side of the channel opposite Fort Monroe, and on this island they completed another fort, named Fort Wool.The fort was named Fort Calhoun when construction was started before the outbreak of the war. It was completed only after the war started, and was then renamed for the general who directed the defense of the region. Browning, From Cape Charles to Cape Fear, p. 41. With Fort Monroe went control of the lower Peninsula as far as Newport News.Joseph B. Carr, "Operations of 1861 about Fort Monroe," Battles and leaders, v. 2, pp. 144–152.
Forts Monroe and Wool gave the Union forces control of the entrance to Hampton Roads. The blockade, initiated on April 30, 1861, cut off Norfolk and Richmond from the sea almost completely.Wise 1988, p. 25. To further the blockade, the Union Navy stationed some of its most powerful warships in the roadstead. There, they were under the shelter of the shore-based guns of Fort Monroe and the batteries at Hampton and Newport News and out of the range of the guns at Sewell's Point and Craney Island. For most of the first year of the war, the Confederacy could do little to oppose or dislodge them.Davis 1975, pp. 69, 71.
Birth of the ironclads When steam propulsion began to be applied to warships, naval constructors renewed their interest in armor for their vessels. Experiments had been tried with armor during the Crimean War (1853–1856), just prior to the American Civil War,Gibbon 1983, p. 13. and the British and French navies had each built armored ships and were planning to build others. In 1860 the French Navy commissioned , the world's first ocean-going ironclad warship. Great Britain followed a year later with , the world's first armor-plated iron-hulled warship.Gibbon 1983, pp. 28–31.Contemplation of armor was not confined to Europe. The United States had spent a lot of money supporting the development of the Stevens Battery, with nothing to show for it. (Davis, Duel between the first two ironclads, p. 5.) Also, a river boatman at New Orleans, John A. Stevenson, early in the war had converted a tugboat into an armored vessel. As , she was actually the first armored vessel to go into combat in the war. (Still, Iron afloat, pp. 46–51.) The use of armor remained controversial, however, and the United States Navy was generally reluctant to embrace the new technology.Anderson 1962, p. 67.
CSS Virginia
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory was an early enthusiast for the advantages of armor. As he looked upon it, the Confederacy could not match the industrial North in numbers of ships at sea, so they would have to compete by building vessels that individually outclassed those of the Union. Armor would provide the edge.Still 1985, p. 10. Mallory gathered about himself a group of men who could put his vision into practice, among them John M. Brooke, John L. Porter, and William P. Williamson.After the war, Brooke and Porter engaged in an unseemly fight for recognition as the originator of the Virginia design. In the wake of the controversy, the contributions of the engineer Williamson have often been overlooked. Still 1985, pp. 11–13; Davis 1975, p. 141.
When Mallory's men searched the South for factories that could build engines to drive the heavy ships that he wanted, they found no place to do it immediately. At the best facility, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, building engines from scratch would take at least a year. Upon learning this, Williamson suggested taking the engines from the hulk of Merrimack, recently raised from the bed of the Elizabeth River.This is a more telling comment on the handicaps faced by the South than it may appear. The reason that Merrimack was in the Gosport yard was to repair her notably balky engines. His colleagues promptly accepted his suggestion and expanded it, proposing that the design of their projected ironclad be adapted to the hull. Porter produced the revised plans, which were submitted to Mallory for approval.
On July 11, 1861, the new design was accepted, and work began almost immediately.Still 1985, p. 15. The burned-out hull was towed into a graving dock that the Union Navy had failed to destroy. During the subsequent conversion process, the plans developed further, incorporating an iron ram fitted to the prow. The remodeled ship's weaponry, in addition to the ram, consisted of 10 guns: six smooth-bore Dahlgrens, two and two Brooke rifles.Still 1985, p. 22. Trials showed that these rifles firing solid shot would pierce up to eight inches of armor plating.
The Tredegar Iron works could produce both solid shot and shell, and since it was believed that Virginia would face only wooden ships, she was given only the explosive shell.Nelson, Reign of Iron, 2004 The armor plating, originally meant to be thick, was replaced by double plates, each thick, backed by of iron and pine. The armor was pierced for 14 gunports: four on each broadside, three forward, and three aft.Anderson 1962, pp. 36, 71. The revisions, together with the usual problems associated with the transportation system of the South, resulted in delays that pushed out the launch date until February 3, 1862, and she was not commissioned until February 17, bearing the name .Still 1985, pp. 19–23.
USS Monitor
Intelligence that the Confederates were working to develop an ironclad caused consternation for the Union, but Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles waited for Congress to meet to request permission to consider building armored vessels; Congress gave this permission on August 3, 1861. Welles appointed a commission, which became known as the Ironclad Board, of three senior naval officers to choose among the designs that were submitted for consideration. The three men were Captains Joseph Smith,Smith's son, Joseph Smith, Jr., who was also a naval officer, would be killed at Hampton Roads. Hiram Paulding, and Commander Charles Henry Davis.Anderson 1962, pp. 67–68. The board considered seventeen designs, and chose to support three. The first of the three to be completed, even though she was by far the most radical in design, was Swedish engineer and inventor John Ericsson's .The other two ships were the rather conventional and the experimental . Anderson 1962, p. 68.