Study Begins on Confederate Warship

Herald Tribune ^ | November 01. 2002 | The Associated Press

[Non-Sequitur]

It's hard to say because I haven't found any timeline for the Virginia. I know it was commissioned on February 17, 1862, so sometime between April 1861 (when the Merrimack was burned) and February 1862 when she was commissioned the work was done. The Eads ironclads were begun in September of 1861. So if the Eads ships were first or if the Virginia was first it was only by a matter of days in either case. Fair enough?

[WhiskeyPapa]

may i gently remind you that the VIRGINIA (built/designed by those same amatuers that built the Georgia) fought the Monitor to a standstill. and the Virginia was raised/re-built/designed/equipped FIRST.

The ship in question was the U.S.S. Merrimack, stolen by the rebels. And it was certainly not designed by the so-called CSA. The CSA couldn't even keep the engines operating properly.

Walt

[SCDogPapa]

CSS Georgia (Cruiser, 1863-1864)

CSS Georgia, a 1150-ton iron screw steam cruiser, was built Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1862 as the merchant ship Japan. Purchased secretly by the Confederate Government in March 1863, she was converted to a warship at sea in April.

Placed in formal commission under the command of Lieutenant William L. Maury, CSN, Georgia cruised in the North and South Atlantic, capturing 9 United States' merchant vessels. She put into Cherbourg, France, in late October 1863 with her iron hull badly fouled by marine growth and was decommissioned as being unsuited for further use as a warship. Plans to transfer her armament to the Confederate cruiser Rappahannock fell through, and Georgia was sold to commercial interests.

In August 1864, while at sea off Portugal, the ship was seized at sea by the USS Niagara and condemned as a lawful prize. She became the U.S. flag merchant steamer Georgia in August 1865, was reregistered in Canada in 1870 and was wrecked on the Maine coast in January 1875.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/csa-sh/csash-ag/georgia.htm

[BlueLancer]

"The ship in question was the U.S.S. Merrimack, stolen by the rebels."

Well, I would say that "stolen" was the wrong word. She was burned at her moorings by the Federal Navy, along with most of the rest of the Norfolk Yard, to prevent her capture by Confederate Forces. She was abandoned and burned at the drydock BECAUSE her engines were so poor (designed and operated by the Federal Navy) that they weren't able to even consistently move her as a wooden vessel.

The remains of the MERRIMACK were captured and salvaged by Confederate Forces. The actual design and construction of the rechristened VIRGINIA was done by the CSA. Unfortunately, they had to use the now-salt water ruined engines of the MERRIMACK to propel a much heavier vessel and they just weren't up to it.

MERRIMACK was captured, not stolen, as many naval vessels have been, both before and since. She wouldn't have been captured if her FEDERAL-BUILT engines hadn't been so crappy that she was in drydock trying to have them repaired.

[SCDogPapa]

Well,,one of these posts is wrong. I'm not sure which one or where she lies.

The CSS Georgia is a Confederate Ironclad that was scuttled during General Sherman's Union army advance into the City of Savannah. The time capsule, that has laid mostly dormant for over 115 years at the bottom of the Savannah River, processes cultural memorabilia and other relics of The War between the States, particularly the Confederacy. Originally built by the citizens of Savannah, it was designed to defend the city from the Union Navy and is thought to have delayed the captured of Savannah.

It is today one of the most significant shipwrecks of the Civil War. Recovery of significant portions of the CSS Georgia and its contents is proposed in the Savannah harbor deepening plan.

http://www.chsgeorgia.org/IronClad.cfm

[BlueLancer]

Nope .. there were, simply, two vessels named CSS GEORGIA. Remember, a lot of ships were built in Confederate States by the States themselves and, only later, sometimes, were the ships turned or taken over by the CSA government. That may have been why there were two ships with the same names; or, more likely, the first GEORGIA had already been captured by the NIAGARA and so the CSA named another newly-built ship GEORGIA.

[strela]

Speaking as an old Navy man they're all ships. Except submarines. Those are boats.

Speaking as an old Navy man whose brother was an airedale, they're all targets (including submarines).

[BlueLancer]

Speaking as a two-year Middie from the Naval Academy, they're all great ...

Speaking as a 20-year Army vet, they're all taxis.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Unfortunately, they had to use the now-salt water ruined engines of the MERRIMACK to propel a much heavier vessel and they just weren't up to it.

They had to use the engines of the Merrimack because there was no place in the so-called CSA to build engines.

But is not rocket science to say that if a ship's engines are inadequate to propel her as designed (by the USN) they are certainly going to be inadequate if you add 4" steel plate topside. It's just more clownish buffoonery from the so-called CSA.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

MERRIMACK was captured, not stolen, as many naval vessels have been, both before and since.

To say the Merrimack was captured gives the rebels legitimacy they neither deserved nor could conquer. Those that took up arms for the so-called CSA were no better than common thieves.

Walt

[BlueLancer]

They had to use the engines of the Merrimack because there was no place in the so-called CSA to build engines.

Well, I guess you make do with what you can get. It certainly beats trying to row the big heavy b@stard.

[BlueLancer]

"Those that took up arms for the so-called CSA were no better than common thieves."

And you are entitled to your opinion. I would go so far as calling CSA forces as "rebels", in much the same light as the British called Colonial forces "rebels". But "thieves"? Not hardly.

[Seydlitz]

Actually, folks, the first ironclads for which we have definite records were built back in the 16th Century. These were the ironclad "turtle ships" of Kora's famed admiral Yi-Sun Shin. Admrial Yi used them to win a succession of stunning victories against the Japanese invasion fleet of the shogun Hideyoshi.

The literary evidence for ironclad warships goes back to late Roman times. Edward Gibbon makes mention of them in his forbidding tome "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".

[WhiskeyPapa]

They had to use the engines of the Merrimack because there was no place in the so-called CSA to build engines.

Well, I guess you make do with what you can get. It certainly beats trying to row the big heavy b@stard.

LOL

Well, they had house slaves and field slaves in plenty. Surely some of them could have been converted to galley slaves.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

"Those that took up arms for the so-called CSA were no better than common thieves."

And you are entitled to your opinion. I would go so far as calling CSA forces as "rebels", in much the same light as the British called Colonial forces "rebels". But "thieves"? Not hardly.

Were the courts operating in the United States in 1860-61?

They were thieves.

Walt

[BlueLancer]

You are completely correct, sir. We've been arguing here and were probably just assuming that we were talking about motorized armoured vessels.

I bought a solid-brass footlong replica of one of the Turtle ships on my second tour to Korea. Fantastic looking things ...

But, as I said earlier, rowing one of those big b@stards must have been a b***h.

[SCDogPapa]

They were thieves.

Long time no see Walt. I see you are sill up to name calling. :-)

[SCDogPapa]

I had not thought of that.

Thanks

[Who is John Galt?]

To say the Merrimack was captured gives the rebels legitimacy they neither deserved nor could conquer.

Really? Many Americans who were alive at the time apparently disagreed with you - if we are to believe their official documents:

"Resolved, That the government, formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each [State as a] party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

"Resolved, That the principle and construction contended for by the party which now rules in the councils of the nation, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism, since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers; that the several states which formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a positive defiance of those sovereignties, of all Unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy."

The year was 1859: care to tell us which State produced the above quoted resolutions, and who they were quoting? (Feel free to employ a search engine... ;>)

[WhiskeyPapa]

To say the Merrimack was captured gives the rebels legitimacy they neither deserved nor could conquer.

Really?

Really.

Walt