USS Merrimac (1864-1865) & Confederate Ironclad

    Naval history was made on March 8, 1862, when the first Confederate ironclad steamed down the Elizabeth River into Hampton Roads to attack the woodensided U.S. blockading fleet anchored there. Built on the hull of the U.S.S. Merrimac (which had been scuttled and burned when the Federals abandoned the Gosport Navy Yard in April, 1861), the new warship had been christened C.S.S. Virginia, but in common usage retained its original name. After ramming and sinking the twenty-four-gun woodenhulled steam-sailing sloop Cumberland, the Merrimac headed for the fifty-gun frigate Congress. An awestruck Union officer watched the one-sided fight as the Merrimac fired "shot and shell into her with terrific effect, while the shot from the Congress glanced from her iron-plated sloping sides, without doing any apparent injury."
       The results of the first day's fighting at Hampton Roads proved the superiority of iron over wood, but on the next day iron was pitted against iron as the U.S.S. Monitor arrived on the scene. It was just in time to challenge the Merrimac, which was returning to finish off the U.S. blockading squadron. The Confederate ironclad carried more guns than the Union Monitor, but it was slow, clumsy, and prone to engine trouble. The Union prototype, as designed by John Ericsson, was the faster and more maneuverable ironclad, but it lacked the Rebel vessel's brutish size and power. The Merrimac's officers had heard rumors about a Union ironclad, yet, according to Lieutenant Wood: "She could not possibly have made her appearance at a more inopportune time for us...... Lieutenant S. Dana Greene, an officer aboard the Monitor, described the first exchange of gunfire: "The turrets and other parts of the ship were heavily struck, but the shots did not penetrate; the tower was intact, and it continued to revolve. A look of confidence passed over the men's faces, and we believed the Merrimac would not repeat the work she had accomplished the day before." Neither ironclad seriously damaged the other in their one day of fighting, March 9, 1862 though the Merrimac was indeed prevented from attacking any more of the Union's wooden ships. A new age of naval warfare had dawned.

   This portion of the Home of the Civil War website is designed to provide the reader with a brief insight into a little known aspect of the late Rebellion, The Naval War. While this portion of the Rebellion is little discussed, both the Federal and the Confederate Navies played a vital part in the war. The early establishment of the blockade and Farragut's capture of New Orleans not only brought about the economic strangulation of the South but also killed any hope the Confederates had of French intervention . The Navy also had a critical role in the strategy that split the Confederacy by capturing the line of the Mississippi.
        In 1861 the US Navy was in a demoralized condition with its 1,457 officers and 7,600 men scattered all over the globe.  Less than half of its 90 ships were ready for active service. Of its meager officer personnel, the following defected to the South: 16 captains, 34 commanders, 76 lieutenants, and 111 regular and acting midshipmen (Miller, VI, 78). Abandonment of the Norfolk Navy Yard, 20-21 Apr.'61, resulted in the loss of 11 ships and 3,000 pieces of ordnance. After Gideon Welles was appointed Sec. of the Navy, he and his assistant Sec., Gustavus V. Fox, built the US Navy in four years from 23 to 641 ships of all types.

For the Unfortunate Civil War soldier, whether he came from the North or from the South, not only got into the army just when the killing power of weapons was being brought to a brand-new peak of efficiency; he enlisted in the closing years of an era when the science of medicine was woefully, incredibly imperfect, so that he go the worst of it in two ways. When he fought, he was likely to be hurt pretty badly; when he stayed in camp, he lived under conditions that were very likely to make him sick; and in either case he had almost no chance to get the kind of medical treatment which a generation or so later would be routine.
       Both the Federal and Confederate governments did their best to provide proper medical care for their soldiers, but even the best was not very good. This was nobody's fault. There simply was no such thing as good medical care in that age -- at least as the modern era understands the expression.
       This portion of the "Home of the American Civil War" website attempts to put into perspective some of the medical aspects of the war.

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