Virginia (ship, 1856)
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The Virginia , in the literature regularly as CSS Virginia called, was a battleship of the Confederate States Navy in the American Civil War . It was built from the hull of the captured frigate Merrimack and was the first southern design for an armored warship.
General and tactical-technical data
After the conquest of Norfolk , Virginia , and the Gosport naval shipyard , the Confederates had the 4636 tn.l., which had burned to the waterline there. displacing US screw frigate Merrimack lifted. The hull of this ship launched on June 15, 1855 at the Boston Navy Yard, they now used as the basis for their ironclad , which was named Virginia after its completion . The frigate's superstructure, which was already badly damaged, was removed almost down to the waterline. On the 10 cm thick upper deck formed here, a 52 m long and 2.13 m high casemate with sides inclined at 45 ° was built. This structure consisted of 50 cm thick spruce planks and 10 cm oak planks on top. The Confederates did not have enough iron plates as armor, which is why two layers (horizontal and vertical) of bolted railroad tracks were applied instead.
A total of ten guns were set up in the structure, one in front and one aft and four on each side. These were two of the caliber 17.8 cm and 16.2 cm with rifled barrel and six 22.8-cm Dahlgren smooth-bore cannon ; In addition, two mobile 7.5 cm howitzers were placed on the roof of the casemate. Since the southern designers had also learned that the northern states were also building armored warships - namely the USS Monitor - they also provided the Virginia with an iron ram. The Confederates were working on the Virginia in a hurry , but their drive was the main problem. Their speed dropped from 8.7 to 7.5 knots, and it took them half an hour to turn. Overall, it turned out to be extremely clumsy and difficult to maneuver.
Battle of Hampton Roads
When she drove towards her first battle on March 8, 1862, the two-day Battle of Hampton Roads , the Virginia had not carried out any sea trials and there were still workers on board.
On March 8, the Virginia initially succeeded in sinking the frigates USS Cumberland and USS Congress of the Union blockade fleet in the mouth of the Elizabeth River . With this she heralded the end of the wooden, unarmored warships. The skirmish with the screw frigate USS Minnesota , which ran aground on a sandbank while escaping , was canceled because of dark.
When the Virginia left again the next day (March 9th) to finish her work, the monitor that had just arrived was waiting for her. The battle with the much more weakly armed, but more agile monitor was the first sea battle between ironclad ships. It ended in a tactical draw because the projectiles could not penetrate the armor of the enemy. Nevertheless, both ships spied on each other at Hampton Roads for several weeks .
Whereabouts
In the course of McClellan's peninsula campaign , the Confederates were finally forced to evacuate Norfolk and the surrounding area in May 1862. Because of her draft, the Virginia could not flee up the James to Richmond . Since there was hardly any prospect of escaping across the open sea and past the waiting Union fleet, it was set aground on May 11, 1862 on Craney Island, set on fire and destroyed by captain Catesby Jones by blowing up the powder chamber.
In 2002, a ship's bell was identified as an authentic Merrimack / Virginia ship's bell by the chief curator of the United States Navy Historical Center in Washington, DC . The privately owned bell was donated to the US Navy Museum.
The ship name
To the north, the Confederate ironclad was still known as the Merrimack , from which it took its hull. That is why the Virginia is often referred to as CSS Merrimack today. For the Merrimack there is also the spelling without k, which is not correct. It comes from the fact that many contemporaries believed that the Merrimack was named after the Merrimac landscape in New Hampshire . In fact, the Merrimack River in New England gave the ship its name.
In memory of the Battle of Hampton Roads, one of the road tunnels in the Hampton Roads area was named the Monitor-Merrimack Tunnel .
Web links
- Detailed page about the first Confederate ironclad
- Marc von Lüpke: USS "Monitor" vs. CSS "Virginia". Duel of the indestructible. In: one day . Spiegel Online , July 15, 2013, accessed January 27, 2019 .