When the American Civil War broke out, neither side was prepared for it. While huge numbers of enthusiastic volunteers rushed to enlist, neither the Federals nor the Confederates had enough weapons, uniforms, food or gunpowder to equip and sustain them.
But the Northerners quickly realized that they had the superior logistics advantage: most of the country’s industrial capacity was concentrated in the North, as well as most of its transportation network and financial assets. The Federal forces could expect that soon their larger economic resources would come into play, while the Confederates would be forced to rely mostly on importing weapons and supplies from outside sources.
Under those conditions, it became a matter of crucial military importance for the Union to cut off any potential sources of foreign aid to the South. And so the Union Army commander at the beginning of the war, the aging Mexican War veteran General Winfield Scott, proposed a plan that came to be called “The Anaconda”. It was basically an economic blockade: using its more powerful Navy, the North would bottle up all the Confederate ports from South Carolina all the way to Texas and up along the Mississippi River, cutting them off from all foreign trade. Sooner or later, the snake would squeeze the life out of the Southern economy and strangle it into submission.
Although General Scott would shortly be retired and replaced by General George McClellan as Commander, his “Anaconda Plan” became the guiding principle for the overall Federal war strategy. On April 19, 1861, Lincoln declared a full blockade for every major port in the seceded states, later expanding this to include Virginia and North Carolina after they seceded too.
Over the next two years, the blockade was tightened ever further. Federal Navy squadrons were dispatched up and down the coast to bottle up Southern ports—where possible by landing US Marines to either capture existing gun forts or to build new ones—thereby allowing Union forces to control access to Southern harbors. The final piece fell into place with the capture of Vicksburg, which placed the entire Mississippi River under Federal control.
The Confederates, meanwhile, realizing the deadly threat that the blockades imposed and lacking sufficient naval strength to fight their way into the open sea, resorted to desperate measures. An entire fleet of small fast “blockade runners” was hurriedly put into action—they would slip away at night to attempt to sneak past the blockading Union ships and then furtively try to smuggle their badly-needed supplies back in. Although smuggling and blockade-running continued through the entire war, they were never able to bring in sufficient supplies for the Confederacy.
Other Confederate efforts sought out a technological breakthrough that would give the South an advantage and allow her to break the blockade. And the earliest of these attempts would indeed change the course of naval warfare around the world.
The last major naval war fought by the US had been the War of 1812, in which the frigate—a wooden ship powered by canvas sails—was the supreme weapon. In the years since, however, naval technology had begun to change. The first leap was the development of the steam engine and screw propeller. Fueled with wood and later with coal, the steam engine freed vessels from dependence upon the wind (although early steam technology did not have the best reliability, and most ships still carried a full complement of sails as a supplement, a configuration known as a “steam frigate”). By the time of the Civil War, nearly all of the navies of the world, including the US, were using steam-driven engines on their warships.
The next important innovation appeared in 1858. As cannons got bigger and more powerful, wooden ship hulls had to get thicker and heavier to provide protection, but this additional weight also limited speed and mobility. The French therefore built an experimental “ironclad” ship named La Gloire, which had a thin wooden hull that was covered over with flat pieces of iron armor. It was lighter, more maneuverable, and could sail in shallower waters. The British followed with an advance of their own, a warship with a hull made completely from iron plates and covered at the waterline with additional armor, named HMS Warrior. The United States had already experimented with iron hulls but had only deployed them on the Great Lakes, considering them not rugged enough for the open sea. But although all of these tentative designs had shown promise, the idea was not pursued.
In June 1861, however, with its fleet bottled up in port by the Federal Navy, the Confederates in desperation turned to this experimental technology, hoping it would give them enough of an advantage to break the blockade. Work began on a new “ironclad”. As it turned out, the Confederacy had no iron foundry capable of building steam engines for the new ship, and so the engineers had to improvise. When the Union had abandoned the naval port at Norfolk VA after the secession, they had intentionally sunk a number of steam frigates to prevent them from being used by the South. One of these was the USS Merimack, which had been set afire, burned to the waterline, and sunk. The Confederates now raised the wreck of the Merimack, which, crucially, still contained her steam engines, and rebuilt her as an ironclad: her topside superstructure was reconstructed with sloping wooden ramparts that were sheathed with four inches of iron plate, fitted with ten cannons (ranging from 6-inch to 9-inch), and a large triangular iron ram attached to her front end. She displaced 3500 tons. The rebuilt ship, which, the newspapers reported, looked like “a floating barn roof”, was christened the CSS Virginia.
The Federals had already heard about the new Confederate weapon, and were by now working on a response: in August 1861 the Navy approved a design submitted by Swedish engineer John Ericsson for a Union ironclad and began construction at the shipyard in Brooklyn NY. Christened USS Monitor, it was a revolutionary design that was far more advanced than the Confederate version. The iron-plate hull, containing the steam engines, projected just 18 inches above the water. A system of fans pulled air into the hull and circulated it for ventilation. On the flat deck was a small pilothouse from which the Captain could steer the ship.
Also on deck was the most striking feature of the design: a cylindrical turret, twenty feet wide and nine feet tall, which contained the ship’s two guns. The steam-operated turret, covered with eight inches of steel plate, could be turned in any direction, giving an all-around field of fire (with the exception of the area blocked by the pilothouse). The Monitor was originally intended to be armed with two massive 15-inch cannons, but when these were delayed they were replaced by 11-inch rifled guns. So although the Monitor was relatively small (less than 800 tons), she packed lethal firepower. Contemporary newspapers would dub the strange-looking ship “the cheesebox on a raft”.
Both ships happened to be finished and placed in service within days of each other in March 1862. As the Monitor was being towed down the coast from Brooklyn towards Norfolk, the Virginia (still known to the Federals under her old name Merimack) went into action.
On March 8, 1862, the blockade at Hampton Roads Harbor, just outside Norfolk, was being maintained by three old Federal steamships: the sloop Cumberland and the frigates Congress and Minnesota. At around noon, the Virginia approached. Immediately the Union fleet and shore batteries opened fire—and were shocked to see their cannonballs bouncing harmlessly off the ironclad’s armored hull. Steaming straight at the Cumberland, the Virginia rammed her: the wooden sloop sank in minutes. After briefly becoming entangled with the sinking Cumberland, the Virginia was freed when her iron ram twisted and broke off. Turning to the Congress, the Confederate ship opened fire with her cannons: the frigate was set ablaze and burned all night before sinking. The Minnesota, meanwhile, was desperately trying to maneuver into position to attack when she ran aground. With the tide out, the Virginia could not get into gun range of the stranded Federal frigate, and so turned for home. Flush with victory, her crew intended to return the next morning to finish off the Minnesota, destroy the rest of the Federal ships, and lift the blockade.
But unknown to the Confederates, the Monitor had reached the Union fort at the harbor mouth that night, and by the morning of March 9th was sitting alongside the stranded Minnesota. When the Virginia steamed into sight, her captain did not know what the strange-looking object was—he at first thought it was a boiler being removed from the Minnesota. Then the object shot at him.
For the next four hours, the two ironclads blasted away at each other, sometimes from just yards apart. Neither was able to penetrate the armor of the other. Finally, both scored lucky hits: the Virginia’s engine was damaged, and the Monitor’s captain was temporarily blinded by shell fragments that entered through his viewing slit. Both ships withdrew.
Although the battle had been a draw, it changed the face of naval warfare. Around the world, navies from England to Russia hurried to begin constructing turreted ironclad “monitors” of their own. (These were intended as coastal and river vessels, since the low decks made them unsuited for the open ocean.) The US Navy, with its superior industrial ability, would churn out new and improved monitors for the rest of the war, over 60 in total, overwhelming the Confederates.
Neither the USS Monitor nor the CSS Virginia would survive long after their encounter, though. In May 1862 the Confederates withdrew from Norfolk, and set the Virginia afire so she would not be captured. Seven months later, the Monitor was being towed offshore when she ran into a gale off the coast of North Carolina south of Norfolk and sank.
In 1973, the wreck of the Monitor was discovered lying upside down in some 200 feet of water. To protect the site, Congress established a National Marine Sanctuary around the ship and it was declared an underwater archaeological site.
After years of study, it was decided that the ship was too deteriorated to be raised intact, and attention instead focused on obtaining and preserving the most significant parts of the wreckage, especially her revolutionary gun turret. Most of the work was done by Navy divers in cooperation with NOAA, as a way to train them and to test new equipment. The Monitor’s propeller was raised in 1998, the engine in 2001.
The turret was raised in 2002 and was submerged in a special tank to remove the salt and halt the deterioration of the metal. Today the original turret can be seen still in its restoration tank at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News VA, and an exact cast replica is on display. Also on exhibit are the Monitor’s propeller a sheet of iron armor plate and a number of artifacts from the wreck, and a cannon and piece of armor from the CSS Virginia. Other artifacts from the Monitor are on display at other museums, including the Richmond Battlefield Park in Virginia and the Civil War Naval Museum in Georgia.
Some photos from a visit.
