The Battle of Hampton Roads: The Monitor Meets The Merrimack (CSS Virginia)

Civil War Daily Gazette ^ | March 9, 2012 | Eric

[Upstate NY Guy]

Washington was replete with panic as word of the previous day’s destruction reached its doorstep. The ravaging and ruin wrought by the ironclad CSS Virginia (once the USS Merrimack) at Hampton Roads was utterly astonishing. After nightfall, as the USS Congress smoldered, fixing its thick black smoke to the Hampton Roads horizon, and as several other ships were run aground, General Wool at Fortress Monroe reported the travesty to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

The note had to first travel to Baltimore before being telegraphed to Washington, leaving the citizens the entire night to be peacefully passed. But at 9:30am, the clacking of the wire reached Secretary Stanton in his office. With transcription in hand, he hurried to the White House and ruined Lincoln’s otherwise fine day with the news. Soon, Secretary of State Seward, Senator Orville Browning and General McClellan joined them.

During the meetings, Stanton paced the floor “like a caged lion,” and made brash, yet somehow believable, predictions of the terror to come. The fleet would be destroyed; Fortress Monroe laid under siege; McClellan’s Richmond Campaign delayed; the supply vessels traveling the Atlantic sunk; Washington and even New York bombarded sending the government officials running.

Stanton was frantic, running from room to room, looking out windows towards the Potomac, seemingly to see if the Virginia was steaming up the river.

[fso301]

Monitor had massive gun port shutters.

Ok. Thanks. this actually cause a problem as they hadn't bothered to cut vision slits for the turret commander. So he eventually resorted to turning the turret away from the Virginia, opening the ports the rotating the turret and firing on the fly as the Virginia passed in front of the guns.

Thank you for that operating detail.

As for getting to Washington, I once argued that same view and my brother who lives on the Potomac near Point Lookout set be straight fast. She could only get over the bar at high tide. But that meant she has to almost immediately fight the current as the tide starts to run out. Remember CSS Virginia had a top speed of a whopping great three knots! When the tide is running the Potomac river at Point Lookout has a current of 2 knots. Where it joins the St. Mary's river the current is close to 3 knots. So the Virginia would have had to run at full speed to make 1 knot, and at some points would have been hard pressed not to go backwards. All the while presenting an essentially stationary target to Union guns on both shores. She would have run out of coal, ammo or her decrepit engines would have broken down long before she got to Washington DC.

It's always been a good day when I learned something new.