DK - The American Civil War

The Battle of

Hampton Roads

In March 1862, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fought the world’s first battle between steam-powered,

ironclad warships. Their encounter was a stalemate that left the naval balance of power in the Civil War

unchanged, but it marked an epoch-making advance in the technology of naval warfare.

CLASH OF ARMIES 1862

to his ship’s prow. As he steamed toward

the sloop USS Cumberland, the Union

ship’s shells bounced off Virginia’s metal

plates. The ram tore into the

Cumberland’s wooden hull

and sent her to the

bottom—almost taking

the Virginia with her as the

ram stayed locked in the

sloop’s hull. Fortunately for

Buchanan and his crew,

the ram snapped off and

the Virginia was able to

turn her attention

to the frigate USS

Congress. Having

witnessed the

T

he Confederacy was desperate to

break the Union naval blockade

that cut off Richmond’s access to

international trade through the James

River. On March 8, 1862, the ironclad

CSS Virginia steamed out of the Norfolk

Navy Yard to challenge the Union

blockade force in Hampton Roads,

where the James River opens out into

Chesapeake Bay. To the crews of the

Union warships on blockade duty, the

ungainly, slow-moving warship with

her sloped ironplate armor was a sinister

sight. The Virginia’s captain, 61-year-old

Franklin Buchanan, had an array of

guns at his disposal, but his intended

principal weapon was an iron ram fitted

BEFORE

In 1861, when the Civil War began, ironclad
warships were novelties in naval ship
design. Not surprisingly, both the Union
and the Confederates sought to employ this
new technology.

During the Crimean War, the French and British
navies attached iron plates to the wooden
hulls of some of their warships as armor. The
experiment was considered a success and in
1859 France launched the Gloire, an ironclad
battleship. The British responded with their own
armored battleship, Warrior, the following year.

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
The Confederacy saw the possibility of using an
ironclad to challenge Union naval supremacy. In
the first days of the war they captured Norfolk

Navy Yard and with it the burned-out hull
of the steam-and-sail frigate USS Merrimack.
The ship was salvaged and rebuilt as the
steam-driven “ironclad” CSS Virginia,
encased to the waterline in 4in (10cm)
iron plate armor. Meanwhile, the Union
raced to produce the far more radical
all-metal USS Monitor in time to confront
the Virginia on her first sortie.

Cumberland’s fate, the captain of the

Congress ran his ship aground to make it

impossible for the Confederate ironclad

to ram. This left the frigate a sitting

target for the Virginia’s guns and other

vessels of the Confederate squadron.

Helpless under bombardment, the

Congress “struck her colors,” the

time-honored gesture of surrender

in naval warfare, but Union soldiers

on shore were unaware of this

Catesby ap Roger Jones

A Virginian of Welsh ancestry, Catesby ap Roger

Jones resigned from the U.S. Navy to join the

Confederacy. He took over command of

CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads.

The design for USS Monitor was submitted

to the U.S. Navy’s Ironclad Board by

Swedish-born engineer John Ericsson.

This semi-submerged metal raft had an

armored deck that supported a rotating

gun turret and a small pilothouse. It

was armed with two 11-in (280-mm)

smoothbore Dahlgren guns (below). Their

swollen shape allowed the use of larger

amounts of explosive propellant without

the risk of the gun bursting. The steam

engine drove an innovative marine screw,

also designed by Ericsson. The Monitor’s

low profile in the water made it a tough

target but rendered it barely seaworthy.

Built in sections at different foundries, the

vessel was launched on January 30, 1862.

TECHNOLOGY

USS MONITOR

The guns carried by CSS

Virginia—two 7-in rifled

guns, fore and aft, six

9-in smoothbore Dahlgren guns in

broadside, and two 6.4-in rifled guns.

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