Ironclads Clash at Hampton Roads: Wooden Ships Obsolete

Two armored warships fired at each other for four hours at close range in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862, and neither could sink the other. The battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (built on the hull of the captured USS Merrimack) was the first engagement between ironclad vessels, and it rendered every wooden warship in every navy on Earth obsolete overnight. The age of sail effectively ended in a single morning. The Virginia had demonstrated the vulnerability of wooden ships the day before. On March 8, the ironclad steamed out of Norfolk and attacked the Union blockade fleet at Hampton Roads. The USS Cumberland, a 24-gun sloop, fired a full broadside at the Virginia. The shots bounced off. The Virginia rammed the Cumberland and sank her, then turned on the USS Congress, which ran aground while trying to escape. The Virginia set the Congress on fire with heated shot, killing over 120 sailors. The wooden frigate USS Minnesota ran aground trying to flee. Two Union warships were destroyed and a third crippled in a single afternoon. The Union's answer arrived that night. The Monitor, designed by Swedish-American engineer John Ericsson and built in just 100 days at the Continental Iron Works in Brooklyn, was towed into Hampton Roads after a harrowing coastal voyage during which it nearly sank. The vessel was radically unconventional: a flat iron raft barely above the waterline with a single revolving gun turret housing two 11-inch Dahlgren smoothbore cannons. The two ironclads engaged at close range on the morning of March 9. The Monitor's turret rotated to fire at the Virginia from various angles; the Virginia attempted to ram and fired repeatedly at the Monitor's armor. Neither vessel could penetrate the other's iron plating. After four hours of fighting, the Virginia withdrew when the tide began falling, and the Monitor did not pursue. The engagement was tactically a draw. Strategically, the battle was a Union victory. The Virginia was contained and never again threatened the blockade fleet. More importantly, the battle electrified naval architects worldwide. Britain and France accelerated their own ironclad programs, and within a decade, wooden warships had vanished from every major navy. The Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras on December 31, 1862, nine months after its famous fight. Its turret was recovered from the ocean floor in 2002.