The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac was hardly a side show in the Civil War. Even contemporaries knew that no matter the outcome it would potentially change nearly every accepted idea of naval warfare.
For the Confederate government, the Merrimac was a salvage operation. A 4,000 pound screw frigate with forty guns, the Merrimac was even in its wooden state a dangerous ship, and the Union Navy did everything they could to keep its commission from being used against them. They scuttled it and sank it in Norfolk, and began their blockade of the mouth of the James River.
But the Confederate Navy succeeded in rescuing its remains, and in less than a year completed its iron plating, and re-commissioned it as the CSS Virginia, armed with ten guns and an iron ‘beak’ for ramming its opponents. When the Union received intelligence that Confederates had begun building its ironclad, they realized its dangerous potential to their fleet and became equally determined to defend against it. The only way of doing that was with an ironclad of their own.
The idea of ironclad warships was not new to the Americans. Since the advent of steam propulsion, it became clearer and clearer to defense strategists that navies needn’t be restricted to timbers. The French and the British had already built theirs, but they had never been tested in battle.
The Confederate government, forced into frugality due to their comparative lack of naval-grade timber, realized they could not match the Union’s navy ship-for-ship; but they did have a geographical advantage with deep and wide rivers, natural boundaries of defense. An ironclad vessel, while slower than a steam-powered wooden vessel, could still maneuver and defend southern hydrography and transportation routes.
On March 8, 1862, the Virginia waded through the James River from the Southside and met two Union vessels, the Cumberland and the Congress. Rather than weighing fasts and anchor, the Union ships proceeded to fire from a stationary position on the Virginia.
Direct hits. No damage.
The Virginia returned fire on the cabled ships, splintering Union timbers, and powered directly toward the Cumberland. Sitting ducks. The beak of the Virginia dealt a finishing blow to her target, sending the Cumberland gasping for breath while drowning in its own port. The Congress surrendered. Wood was no match for iron.
Only the Monitor prevented the entire Union fleet from being completely incapacitated, sunken, or reclaimed by Confederate forces. Rushed from New York for the specific purpose of engaging and defending against the Virginia, the Monitor entered the James River on March 9, and “the two ugliest monsters that ever defaced the deep” met for battle.
The battle between the two (and each vessel’s accompanying wooden frigates), lasted for hours, neither side decisively outgunning nor outmaneuvering the other. In the end, both ships were severely damaged; both inflicted severe damage; and both understandably claimed victory. In short, both ships had more than proven their worth.
While the outcome of the battle was somewhat ambiguous, the consequences were not.
Europe had been watching, from near and afar, especially Great Britain. In 1864, the British Quarterly Review noted,
“England…was much impressed; and the advantage having appeared to rest with the Monitor, since the Merrimac had retreated from the field of battle, England cried out for Monitors likewise.”
Captain Ericcson, the designer and constructor of the Monitor, seized on this momentum and published numerous articles and letters in New York touting the capabilities of his ship. Both sides realized early the advantage of a British alliance, and both North and South were seizing any opportunity to initiate one.
“Only provide me,” he said, “with the necessary resources, and in a short time we shall be able to say to those powers who seek to destroy Republican liberty, ‘Leave the Gulf with your frail vessels, or perish.'” Ericcson was writing about the French Navy’s intervention in Mexico, but his words could be applied to any scenario. The French themselves already had La Gloire, its own iron ship, and had rattled its cannons towards competitors, saying, “One [iron ship] pushed into the middle of a whole fleet of your wooden ships, would there…be like a lion among a flock of sheep.”
The CSS Virginia had vindicated this statement for the first time, and the triumph of iron had come.
