USS Monitor: A Historic Ship Completes Its Final Voyage

Chapter 3 Story of an Ironclad

28 Chapter Three  STORY OF AN IRONCLAD Throughout history there have been events so powerful that they changed the world in significant ways. Similarly, certain technological innovations have been so remarkable that they created fundamental new ways of doing things. Such changes sometimes come about through the actions of a single individual, or may be the work of many. Occasionally, a technological breakthrough makes possible a watershed event, which adds significance to the event itself. Such was the case when USS Monitor fought CSS Virginia in Hampton Roads in March of 1862. Monitor captivated the nation, and then the Western world’s attention , as the harbinger of a new type of naval warfare , and a new type of ship and tactics to fight at sea. Built in one hundred days by an already famous inventor, Monitor was well publicized, even before its hasty voyage south to join the Union Navy fleet at Hampton Roads. That fleet, assigned to blockade the Virginia coast, came under attack by the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia, which sank and damaged wooden ships with impunity while suffering little damage from an almost constant bombardment by Union warships. That naval action, on March 9, 1862—early in the American Civil War—gave the world its first glimpse of two new and remarkable types of fighting ships. Both ironclads imaginatively combined the best state-of-the-art naval technology , and did so in ways uniquely American. The first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads shockingly and cruelly demonstrated the mortal vulnerability of wooden warships to an iron-armored vessel capable of firing its broadsides at close range without suffering significant damage to its own hull or crew. The second day dramatically established the astounding battle endurance of armored vessels— even when pitted against one another—when Monitor appeared just in time to fight Virginia to a standstill. Immediately afterward, the battle was touted as a resounding victory of iron and steam over wood and sail, as well as an indisputable exhibition of American ingenuity. While those on both sides of the conflict had ample cause for pride, few were aware that the battle, for all its importance, was just one of many significant milestones on the endless path of naval technology. Indeed, ironclad warships were neither first conceived nor invented in America . Iron-armored warships were in service in France and England years before Monitor and Virginia were launched. In order to fully appreciate the global significance of the “clash of ironclads” at Hampton Roads, it is necessary to examine the ships and the battle within the context of the nineteenth-century arms race. s t o r y o f a n i r o n c l a d 29 simplified and sped the construction of wooden warships. Smooth carvel planking also allowed shipbuilders to cut gunports into ships’ sides, ushering in an age of heavily armed warships carrying rows of heavy guns within their hulls along with lighter ones on the open weather deck. That successful warship design persisted, fundamentally unchanged, for three centuries. By the early nineteenth century, those large, sturdy, and heavily armed ships, built of wood and powered by wind, represented the zenith of wooden warship construction. They had reached the maximum size that the strength of wood would allow, the largest measuring over 200 feet on the main gun deck and mounting 120 guns or more. Spain’s Santísima Trinidad , the largest warship in the Battle of Trafalgar, THE EVOLUTION OF NAVAL TECHNOLOGY Warships and Naval Guns By the middle of the fifteenth century both northern and southern Europe were building three-masted, square-rigged ships that were fully capable of venturing into uncharted, deep-water oceans.1 Standardized forms emerged, including seagoing carracks, caravels, and galleons, which made possible the “Age of Exploration” and the global expansion of European capitalism through naval power. In the following century, large vessels with overlapping “clinker ” planking gave way to smooth plank-on-frame “carvel” planking. This significant improvement HMS Victory, a first-rate warship commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Carrying 104 Guns, Victory represented the pinnacle of sailing wooden warship development and can still be visited in its drydock at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, England. Courtesy The Mariners’ Museum 30 c h a p t e r t h r e e drilling at the guns was essential to produce highly trained...