Articles

Death of the Wooden Warship: The Monitor vs The Merrimack

It was March 8, 1862, a Saturday. On the waters of Hampton Roads off Newport News, Virginia – where the Chesapeake Bay empties into the Atlantic Ocean – the Federal warships Cumberland and Congress bobbed easily on a light chop. The sky was blue, the day warming, the morning uneventful. Drying wash flapped on a light breeze, harmonicas offered-up pleasant tunes, as sailors went about their usual duties. Then, abruptly, around 12:30 in the afternoon, everything changed.

Across the Bay, far to the south, emerging from the Elizabeth River at Norfolk, something odd, something never seen before, had just been spotted. Heads turned, fingers pointed, as binoculars and telescopic glasses were quickly yanked from their cases. A trail of black smoke could be seen rising from a smokestack, below that what appeared to be an enormous hull moving very slowly, bearing WNW. “I wish you would take the glass and have a look over there, sir,” said the quartermaster of the watch. “I believe that thing is a-comin’ down at last.”

One of the Most Daring and Romantic Naval Feats of History

Rain began falling in sheets as the small steamer known as picketboat No. 1 puffed its way through the choppy surf toward the mouth of the river, now just minutes away. Directly astern, the boat tugged an open cutter full of sailors, all hand-picked, good with “revolvers, cutlasses, and hand-grenades.” The two boats had departed the Shamrock river almost three hours earlier, and now, as the mouth of the river loomed ever-nearer, their sense of casual confidence gave way to grim determination, for they had all volunteered for a mission many senior officers in Washington considered suicidal.

It was October 27, 1864, and the cold, rain-drenched men were slowly departing Albemarle Sound for the Roanoke River. They were still about ten miles from Plymouth, North Carolina, where their objective – the Confederate ironclad ram, CSS Albemarle – was berthed among various elaborate defensive measures. Every man realized he was in for a long, dangerous night, and that many would not be returning. Their task was to either cut the ironclad out or if that proved unfeasible, torpedo the Albemarle in its berth. Not one man had the slightest notion that within days the New York Times would hail their mission as “one of the most daring and romantic naval feats of history.”