Posted on 08/05/2003 5:47:29 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - The museum conserving artifacts from the wreckage of the USS Monitor also is trying to tell the story of the Union ship's Confederate opponent in the historic first clash of ironclads.
So when a private collector recently offered to sell the drawing that guided the construction of the CSS Virginia, The Mariners' Museum snapped it up.
"It's a spectacularly valuable historic document," said John Hightower, the museum's president and chief executive officer, because it was instrumental in convincing the Confederate navy to build a ship covered in iron plates to repel cannon balls.
However, whether the drawing will end a 140-year-plus argument over who deserves primary credit for the Virginia's design is, well, debatable.
In 1861, John L. Porter, a shipbuilder in Portsmouth, and naval constructor John Mercer Brooke shared project management responsibilities as they finalized the conversion of the USS Merrimack, an abandoned Union steam frigate, into the CSS Virginia.
While it's clear that Porter did the construction drawing - it carries his signature - there has been some disagreement as to who developed the concept for the ship, said Craig L. Symonds, a Civil War historian with the U.S. Naval Academy.
"For a long time we didn't have really good hard evidence to demonstrate this one way or the other," Symonds said in a telephone interview.
The 6-by-2-foot pen-and-ink drawing tilts the argument in Brooke's favor, Symonds said.
"The design features of that plan more accurately reflect the concept that Brooke had originally proposed," Symonds said. "You can even see on this plan some of the changes that Brooke made Porter add to it."
Hightower, however, thinks the drawing supports Porter's claim to the credit.
"Porter did the drawing, and that should be that," Hightower said.
The Monitor and the Merrimack fought to a draw on March 9, 1862, near Newport News. The battle revolutionized naval warfare, effectively ending the era of wooden battleships.
The Monitor later sank in a storm off the North Carolina coast. The Mariners' Museum has more than 1,100 artifacts recovered from the wreckage in recent years.
The Virginia's own crew blew it up to prevent the ship from falling into Union hands.
Don Tharpe, a collector of Americana and Virginia military items who lives in Fauquier County, acquired the drawing from the Porter family a few years ago. He said he decided to sell it because he thought it would enhance the museum's planned USS Monitor Center.
"I felt it was such a key focal point to the Confederate side of the ironclad construction," Tharpe said by telephone.
Hightower and Tharpe declined to disclose the price of the construction drawing. The museum verified the price with Sotheby's, which wanted to auction it for at least $500,000, Hightower said, adding: "We didn't pay quite that much, but we paid a lot."
Last year, the museum paid the Porter family $300,000 for two rare architectural drawings of the Virginia done by Porter.
Several decades ago, the family gave the museum small black-and-white photocopies of the construction drawing. But interesting details show up much more clearly on the original.
Erasure marks show how the stern pilothouse was removed at Brooke's direction, archivist Lester Weber said as he pointed to the drawing.
Other changes include the added bow and stern pivot gun ports, a redesign of the port shutters, hatches, armor added for steering chains and a bulkhead for a submerged bow.
"A lot of it was just working as they went along," Weber said.
Hash marks in the lower corners of the stained and creased document probably were made by Porter as he cleaned his pencil and pen.
The drawing also has some pencil doodles on it. Museum officials aren't sure what the doodles are, and whether they were done by Porter or perhaps by some child in the family, even years later.
"It makes you wonder if a young Porter was bored one afternoon and got this out," said Susan Berg, vice president and director of the museum's library.
Museum officials hope more people will step forward with other drawings and items related to the Virginia and the Monitor that can be housed in its USS Monitor Center, which is expected to open in 2007.
ON THE NET
Mariners' Museum: http://www.mariner.org
A place where a lot of ships have gone down over the years.
That's an understatement!
We haven't had any wrecks since the early 1900's though. Thanks to the 4 light houses that beam the coast on the outerbanks. After the civil war, the light houses were in shambles.
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