— Ch. 1 · Background And Blockade —
Battle of Hampton Roads.
~9 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
On the 19th of April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of ports in the seceded states. This action cut off Virginia's largest cities and major industrial centers from international trade. Norfolk and Richmond sat on opposite sides of Hampton Roads, a waterway where the Elizabeth and Nansemond rivers meet the James River before flowing into Chesapeake Bay. The Confederacy seized the Norfolk Navy Yard shortly after hostilities began at Charleston Harbor. Captain Charles S. McCauley, the commandant there, was loyal to the Union but immobilized by advice from his subordinate officers who favored secession. He refused to move ships to Northern ports until April 20 when he ordered them scuttled. At least nine ships were burned during this destruction, including the screw frigate Merrimack. Her engines remained more or less intact despite being burned only to the waterline. The large drydock survived relatively undamaged and could be restored quickly. Without firing a shot, advocates of secession gained control of the South's largest navy yard. They also seized over one thousand heavy guns plus gun carriages and large quantities of gunpowder. Fort Monroe held by Union forces gave them control of the lower Peninsula as far as Newport News. The blockade initiated on the 30th of April 1861, effectively cut off Norfolk and Richmond from the sea almost completely. For most of the first year of the war, the Confederacy could do little to oppose these Union warships stationed in the roadstead.
Birth Of Ironclads
Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory gathered a group of men to put his vision into practice after the Civil War broke out in 1861. John M. Brooke, John L. Porter, and William P. Williamson became key figures in developing the ironclad design. When Mallory's team searched for factories capable of building engines, they found no immediate facility at Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Building engines from scratch would take at least a year. Engineer William P. Williamson suggested taking engines from the hulk of Merrimack which had been raised from the bed of the Elizabeth River. This decision proved crucial given the handicaps faced by the South. Porter produced revised plans submitted to Mallory for approval on the 11th of July 1861. Work began almost immediately with the burned-out hull towed into the graving dock that Union forces had failed to destroy. The re-modeled ship incorporated an iron ram fitted to the prow along with ten guns including six smooth-bore Dahlgrens and two Brooke rifles. Trials showed these rifles firing solid shot could pierce up to eight inches of armor plating. The armor originally meant to be thick was replaced by double plates each inch thick backed by twelve inches of iron and pine. The revisions pushed the launch date until the 3rd of February 1862, and she was not commissioned until February 17 bearing the name Virginia. Meanwhile Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed a commission known as the Ironclad Board consisting of Captains Joseph Smith, Hiram Paulding, and Commander Charles Henry Davis. They considered seventeen designs and chose three including Swedish engineer John Ericsson's Monitor. Ericsson's design featured only two large caliber guns mounted in a cylindrical turret thirty feet in diameter covered with iron five inches thick. The whole rotated on a central spindle moved by a steam engine controlled by one man.