Jooguu; (Juck mYEARS
b fii?st Bathe $p,
Chiron-clad shirs a
B KtTAIN, Japan, France and Ger
many are preparing to add new
dreadnaughts to their Beets.
America is expected to start con
struction of two 35.000-ton monsters
this year. Floating fortresses, protected
with hundreds of tons of tempered steel
armor and armed with guns that can
hit a foe beyond the borizoo. the great
est of all lighting ships are starting a
grim new race in naval armaments
Now the ancestry of navies is a very
long one. dating far back to the rude
war canoes of pre-history. But the an
cestry of the modern battleship is very
short—only three quarters of a century
to be exact.
“Exact" is the word. For it was just
75 years ago—on March 9. 1862—that
the first of all sea-fights between iron
clad ships tdok place.
On that date, in the enclosed waters
of Hampton'Roads, Virginia, the Merri
mac and the Monitor fought one of the
most fateful engagements in naval his
tory. The clang of shot on their iron
sides sounded the knell of the wooden
navies of the world and made every
fleet on earth obsolete.
In the early summer of 1861, both the
Confederate and Union governments or
dered experiments in the construction
of iron-clad warships.
The Federals had evacuated the Gos
port navy yard at Norfolk. Va., in the
spring of 1861. burning and scuttling
such ships as they were unable to take
away Among these was the fine steam
frigate Merrimac. a ship-rigged vessel
of 3500 tons mounting 40 guns. A Con
federate naval officer, Lieut. John M.
Brooke, suggested. that she might be
raised and rebuilt with armor. His sug
gestion was adopted.
Sq the Merrimac was brought to the
surface. She was cut down to what
had been the berth-deck. On the mid
ship section, for a length of 170 feet, a
raised superstructure was built, with
sides slanting at a 45-degree angle, ris
ing from the waterline to a height over
the gun deck of 7 feet These sides
were made of pitch-pine and oak 24
inches thick, sheathed in four inches at
ire plating. ■
The pilot house, rising at the forward
end of this superstructure, was simi
larly armored. The ship was designed
to lie so low in the water that the decks
forward and aft to the raised portion
would be just awash. A four-foot iron
beak was fastened to the bow.
Rechristened the Virginia, the weird
looking vessel was given an armament
of 10 guns, equipped with a crew of 300
men. placed under the command of
Commodore Franklin Buchanan, and
ordered into active service.
'T'HERE was no time for a trial trip;
1 no time even to fire the guns in
target practice. On March 8. 1862.
when the ship cast oft from the dock
and headed out Uito the roads on ber
first cruise, she ha<j to engage the
enemy before her officers and men had
a chance to find out how she would
handle.
She - handled, they learned, very
badly. Di awing 22 feet of water, she
was confined to the deepest parts of the
channel. Her maximum speed was five
knots. She steered so badly that it
took her a good half hour to turn
around. Nevertheless —- ugly, cranky,
uiktried. powered by condemned en
gines and manned by a green crew
most of whose members had never been
to sea at all—she was the mightiest
warship in Chesapeake Bay that sunny
March day.
The Northern fleet was moored off
Newport News, across the channel. The
Merrimac (that name will be used here,
as it is the one most people are fa
miliar with) went lurching and lum
bering across, heading for the big
wooden warships Congress and Cum
berland.
As the Merrimac came within range,
both ships opened fire. So did the shore
batteries. The solid shot bounced harm
lessly off the slanting armor; the shells
burst without having the slightest
effect. Waiting until be was within
close range. Commodore Buchanan
slammed a destructive broadside into
the Congress and drove the beak-like
prow of his ship straight into the star
board side of the Cumberland—making
a hole, as a member of the crew said,
big enough to drive a wagon through.
The Cumberland promptly sank, her
crew heroically firing their guns to the
last without making any impression at
alL The Congress tried to flee, ran
aground, and then exchanged broad
sides with the Merrimac for an hour—
at the end of which time the Congress
was a wreck, her decks covered with
dead and wounded, while the Merrimac
was practically unscathed.
The Merrimac’s armor was undam
aged. although for a time she bad been
under the fire of 100 heavy guns. She
had 21 men killed or wounded, due
principally to projectiles coming in
through the gunports. Commodore Bu
chanan was among the wounded, and
the command passed to Lieut Cates by
ap R. Jones (spelling correct).
'T'HE day’s events had thrown the
1 Federals into a panic. The South
had an irresistible ship. Could she not
at her leisure, raise the blockade, de
stroy the Northern fleet piecemeal,
steam up the bay and shell Washington,
and bring final triumph to the Con
federacy?
Wheezy and cranky as she was. the
Merrimac might have done those things
—had it not been for an equally cranky
and uncouth warship which, while that
day’s fighting was going on. was steam
ing in past the Virginia capes from the
open sea. This ship was the Federal
warship Monitor.
The Northern government bad begun
For four boon (he two
■hip* Ur la (he duaael
and hammered a war at
each other witboot do
ing aaj real damage.
its own Iron-clad experiments at about
the time the Confederates were raising
the Merrimac. Capt John Ericsson had
contracted to build ah armored vessel'
and it was his vessel, the Monitor, built
at New York, which—providentially—
was nearing the end of its trip M
Hampton Roads while the Merrimac
was in its first fight
The Monitor was even less like pre
vious warships than the Merrimac. She
was 172 feet long, and as low in the
water as a raft her sides rising hardly
two feet above the surface. Near the
bow was a low pilot bouse Amidships
was a huge cylindrical turret Aft of it
were two stubby smokestacks.
All of this—hull, pilothouse and tur
ret—was heavily armored with iron.
The turret fitted to revolve on a bronze
ring set in the deck, contained two 11
inch guns, which were loaded inside
and then run out through gun ports.
So, when March 9 dawned, it was
this strange ship, commanded by Lieut
J. L Worden, that Steamed out into
Hampton Roads to meet the Merrimac.
coming out to continue its havoc of the
day before. \
The battle itself«was a draw. For four
hours the two ships lay in the chan
nel and hammered away at each other
without doing any real damage. Each
tried to ram the other and failed. Each
took a terrific pounding at close range
without being badly harmed. Each one,
too, operated under difficulties.
In the end. the battle was broken ofl
as if by mutual consent, the Monitor re
tiring to shallow water where the Mer
rimac could not float, and the Merri
mas returning to her base.
Eventually, the Confederates evacuat
ing Norfolk, the Merrimac was de
stroyed to prevent her falling Into
Northern hapds. In the fall of that
year the Monitor foundered in a gale
off Cape Hatteras, N. C.