The low freeboard meant it was a small target compared to the casemate design utilized by the CSA. Also, the turret contained 2 huge guns if I remember right 10 or 11 inchers. At Hampton Roads the Monitor was quicker and more agile than the CSA Virginia.
Holy moly! I didn’t realize that they mounted 10 or 11 inch guns on it. It makes more sense now why CSS Atlanta surrender after 5 well placed hits by USS Weehawken.
My great great uncle who was captured was a corporal in the CS Marine Corp and sat out the rest of the war in the federal prison at Elmira, NY.
Well, the fact that the USS Monitor was about 100 feet shorter than the CSS Virginia did help in the manoeuverability department.
YEARS ago there was a series of EC comics about the Civil War. The one on the Monitor/Merrimac had a great quote by an old salt who had seen the Virginia ram and sink the wooden USS Cumberland: “Physiks is unphysicked. Wood sinks and iron floats.” “Physiks is unphysicked” stuck in my mind ever since, for some reason.
A couple of anecdotes I read a while back. The Monitor had a small steel pilot house just forward of the turret. Capt. Worden was there looking through a slit directing fire when a blast from the Virginia partially blinded him. He kept telling the turret officer to “pivot left (or right)”. The officer reported “Pivot left? Hell, I can’t tell up from down in all this smoke”. He was told to “pivot the turret until you don’t see daylight, then fire”. (Evidently when the cannon were retracted for reloading he could see through the port.)
The other was on the Virginia when the skipper noticed that their fire had slackened. “Mr. Eggleston, why aren’t you firing?” Eggleston: “Sir, I find I can do as much damage to the Yankee by snapping my fingers every 2 1/2 seconds.”
Mebbe Urban Legends, but great stories to tell the grandkids.
The Monitor in that one fight, obsoleted all the worlds navies with not only its armor and screw propeller, but with the innovative revolving turret that did away with the need of broadside guns.
Naturally, after the war, we let the Navy go to rot.
Actually, the Monitor had two eleven-inch Dahlgrens. That fired a 166-pound solid shot or a 133 pound shell. Later monitors had either one eleven-inch Dahlgrens and one fifteen-inch Dahlgren or two fifteen-inch Dahlgren.
The fifteen inch Dahlgren fired either a 440-pound solid shot or a 352-pound shell.
The nine-inch Dahlgrens were considered too small for ironclad monitors, although the New Ironsides carried them as I recall.
As to Civil War era submarines, Texas A&M Press has a book out in March about an 1864 submarine that was completed too late for the Civil War that was used for pearl harvesting after the war. (Believe it was a Union sub.) The book is “Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine.” Can’t wait for my copy.