This 1862 Union Civil War patriotic cover commemorates the
Great Naval Battle of the
Monitor and the Merrimac. The significance of the battle is that it introduced a new class
of warship, the
ironclad. The battle was the first in naval history between two ironclads,
the CSS
Virginia and the USS
Monitor.
The Confederacy was determined to break the Union blockade of Chesapeake Bay, which
had cut off Virginia's two largest cities, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade.
The
CSS Virginia was a steam-powered ironclad warship of the Confederate States Navy,
built using the remains of the scuttled USS
Merrimac. The
Virginia was able to easily
destroy two conventional wooden-hulled ships of the Union blockade and threaten a third,
the USS
Minnesota, which had run aground.
The
USS Monitor was the first ironclad warship commissioned by the United States Navy.
On March 9 the
Monitor arrived and took up a position to defend the
Minnesota.
The two ironclads fought for about three hours, with neither being able to inflict
significant damage on the other. The
Virginia eventually retreated and the Union
blockade held.
The battle had immediate effects on warship construction worldwide. Great Britain and
France stopped all further construction of conventional wooden-hulled warships. A new
design, called the monitor, was produced with a small number of very heavy guns, mounted
so that they could fire in all directions, as first demonstrated by the original USS
Monitor.
USS Monitor
Posted 04/01/2009 11:06 pm
