In the American Civil War, there were many different technological innovations. Some of which include: more accurate guns, the telegraph, railroads, and more advance battleships such as ironclads and submarines. The advancement in battleships in particular changed how ships were built and what materials it would be constructed out of. When war began, the Union did not want one particular base to fall into Confederate hands, the Gosport Navy Yard, now known as the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. They first blocked it by sinking two light boats at the exit of the channel, and the next day, they burnt everything at the port.
However, when the Confederates got hold of the port, Stephen Mallory ordered the sunken Merrimack to be assessed. When news came back saying the ships hull and machinery were all functioning, he wanted the Merrimack to be converted into an ironclad. At the time of the Civil war, the Union formed a ship blockade along the coast, cutting the south off from the sea, and the ironclad was designed to break the blockade. What is an ironclad? It is a ship that is fully armored with iron plating, and modernized cannons sticking out to shoot. The Merrimack was layered with 2 inch thick iron plates, at a certain angle where cannonballs would deflect off harmlessly. The ship was also equipped with a ram at the bow of the ship and 10 guns, facing outside from a barn roof looking iron structure on the boat. After completion, the Merrimack was christened and renamed C.S.S Virginia.
When the C.S.S Virginia set out on March 8, it sailed to the Hampton Roads to engage the Union blockade. When The Virginia arrived, it first attacked the USS Cumberland, which it rammed and sunk. However, during the process of ramming, The Virginia got it's ram stuck and it snapped off, taking on some water. After the USS Cumberland was sunk, the USS Congress came to fight. It first grounded itself in the shallow waters to prevent being sunk, and traded fire with The Virginia. It finally surrendered after one hour. In a retaliatory attempt to set the USS Congress on fire, the Confederates loaded a fire round and shot it at the Congress. After the battle, The Virginia wanted to engage with the USS Minnesota, but the day was late and Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones decided to return back home, waiting for the next day's rampage.
But when the next day came, the Confederates noticed the Union had an ironclad of their own, called the USS Monitor. The Monitor was a ship built to combat the power of the C.S.S Virginia, on a very short notice. When the Confederates saw the Monitor, many remarked it looked like a cheese box on a raft. The monitor incorporated a rotating turret head and made it more maneuverable than the Virginia. Although the battle between the Monitor and Virginia ended up as a draw as neither could sink each other, it secured the Union the blockade against the south. A few months later, the Union invaded Yorktown and many fled Norfolk for good measure. However, the C.S.S Virginia was located there, and they did not want it to fall into the hands of the Union. A decision was made to blow it up completely, so the north could never get it. A few months after the sinking of the C.S.S Virginia, the Monitor sunk due to a open sea storm on December 31st 1862.
A conclusion drawn from this moment in the Civil war was that wooden battle ships were inferior to the almost invincible ironclads. The wooden ships would be easily broken and sunk, while the ironclad could not be penetrated from the surface above. The only vulnerability it had was the exposed hull under the surface of the water. This new challenge led to greater creations later in the war, including sea mines, which detonated below the hull of ironclads to sink them, submarines, and the big battleships, called dreadnaughts. From this moment in history, wooden ships were becoming less popular for hardcore combat ships and more people were turning to the ironclad and other metal plated ships. And from this new ship type came new ways in defeating it, leading to more innovations in sea warfare.
Sources:
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/steel-steam
https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/c_s_s_hi_rend_italic_virginia_hi
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/ships-us/ships-usn-m/uss-monitor-ironclad.html
I really liked how you described the revolutionary technology of the ironclad by talking about the structure and one of the first encounters with the ships fighting. I think it's interesting how the first ironclad encounter is another example of the North not being able to utilize its superior/greater resources and the South strategizing better. Although the South did not have as many ships, their crude ironclad could take the North (at least until the North built their own).
ReplyDeleteUsually, people talk about the advancements in land warfare, but your blog post really shows in detail how naval battles had drastically changed during the Civil War. What I found interesting was that how late the North was to ironclad warfare--it was merely a response to the South's creation of one. Even though ironclads warships had been around for many years (notably the French and British stocking their navies with them in the decade preceding the Civil War), I find it interesting that the North, even with it's superior industrial economy, wasn't able to create one faster than the South could. This connects back to what was discussed in class on how the North wasn't really able to take advantage of their industrial superiority until the second half of the war.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://www.americancivilwarstory.com/ironclad-warship.html