The Battle of Hampton Roads

The encounter of Hampton roadstead had caused an unprecedented disaster to the join States Navy until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. With the events follo get aheadg the difference of horizon, traditional nautical fight had been forever changed. Ironclad struggle displaces had, for the finish upset printing meter, been used in a marine battle and the people involved had purposet its place in the Statesn history.As the juncture form it necessary for a bar of the main ports to weaken the ancillary frugality and win the fightfare with as lower-ranking bloodbath as possible, the Confederate had to maintain a port to foresee federation domi republic of the coastlines. some(prenominal)(prenominal) the mating and Confederate forces had found themselves in the middle of a maritime arms race at the introductory stage of the the Statesn Civil War. Although the kernel nautical supremacy would non be complete until four years later, this maritime arms race would be unflinching at that mo manpowertous battle on March 9, 1862, through the face- off-key amongst the Confederates Virginia and the northerns Monitor. Beginnings of Civil War The tension among North and South states on the oppugn whether to allow unfer custodyted states for the expansion of the sum to be slave or rationalize states caused the com custodycement exercise of the Civil War.After winning the independence, America desire to expand their nation. The issue was a manifestation of the conflict over the next direction of national development Would America move toward a free-labor capitalist frugality and a democratic policy in all regions, or would a slave-labor woodlet economy and a heirarchical society persists in half of the landed estate? When Abraham capital of Nebraska win the election in 1860, he pledged to keep slavery out of the new territories towards the ultimate extinction of slavery everyplace in the United States.This naturally unhinged the South states and caused them to secede and formed a new nation they called the Confederate States of America. The Lincoln administration and the North states, on the opposite hand, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the secession as it would discredit the idea of a majority-rule democracy. two the North and South were willing to exhort despite the risks of casualties of war. Both con rampred the very extract of their respective nations and societies to be at stake. In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln explained the beginning of the civil war All dreaded itall sought to avert it. Both parties deprecated war and unrivalled of them would moderate war rather than let the nation survive and the other would eat up war rather than let it perish. And the war came. The ocean Conflict Before Hampton roads Lincolns prime(prenominal) order for the Navy was to set a hamper of the gray coasts. This was an adoptation of Winfield Scotts Anaconda purpose, to win the war with as weensy bloodshed as possible.The blockade served to dis suitable Souths economy. tameling the Mississippi River would a same(p) effectively counter certain the Southern states in two. The difficulty, however, rests on the get of the nubs war vessels they had simply someer than 90 at that time and on that battery-acid were about 3,500 miles of southern coastlines. The North had to purchase carryping vessels, strengthened their take abacks, loaded them with guns, and sent them to serve on the blockade. Note that the North did non choose a cutting-edge technology or sophisticated warships to serve in the blockade.They did not moderate to worry about retention the Confederate pass confined in their ports for the Confederacy had none to begin with. The blockade finish international shipments to and from the Confederacy which caused shortages in food and other goods for the South and washed-up their economy. Futher much(prenominal), the North had been i ncreasing the size of their fleet through the purchases they make which the Confederacy had no hope of matching. They had relied on commerce attack through the acquisition of raiding vessels that finished more than than 150 coalition merchant ship.But the sexual union Navy would get its way by targeting coastal fortifications. This prompted the confederacy to picture a way of supplementing coastal forts with a hardly a(prenominal) ships that could stand up to a w mass fleet of aggregate battleships and interdict them from dominating the coastlines. For the remainder of the war, the navy would be used to gain advantage to the contend side. The war itself has had made its mark in history, and th battles that were fought within it. One such(prenominal) battles would be in Hampton roads, a battle that was set forth in Craig Symonds book, Decision at sea Five Naval interlockings that regulate American History.The Confederate Plan The CSS Virginia Confederate navy secretar y Stephen R. Mallory hoped to supplement the coastal forts by acquiring a few ships whose defensive characteristics were such that they could stand up to a whole squadron of conventional heart and soul warships. He wrote to his wife K right offing that the wedlock could make water one hundred ships to one of our give, my policy has been to make such ships so strong and invulnerable as would counterbalance for the inequality of numbers. Angus Konstam explained that Mallory realized that it was or so impossible for his Navy to cease the Union blockade by conventional means, so he adopted a more radical approach, placing his faith in brassbounds and reave ordnance. Mallory has urged the Confederate social intercourse to authorize the anatomical structure of an iron out outclad warship as archeozoic as May 1861. He wrote I regard the bullheadedness of an iron-armored warship, as a matter of first neccessity. Such a vessel at this time could go through the undefiled coas t of the United States, prevent all blockades, and encounter, with fair prospect of success, their wide navy. The Confederacys lach of technology to create such a vessel caused a difficulty for Mallorys plan to succeed. He, however, sought a way to consecrate through this and found the Merrimac. It was a steam frigate with a partially burned take leftfield and was raised from the bottom of the Elizabeth River. Mallorys plan was to build an iron casemate atop the woody course of the Merrimac. It was Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke who urged Mallory the construction of an iron- scale of measurementd warship and submitted to him an initial design.Mallory wanted technical propose for the feasibility of the concept and sought the opinion of Naval Constructor John L. Porter, who happened to redeem a design of his own corresponding to Brookes. Mid-July found the reconstruction of Merrimac into the first working(a) brassbound. Porter supervised the refit as carpenters cut away the charred timbers and began to erect a f thruste for the casemate. Williamson focused on repairing the cranky locomotive engines. Brooke designed the rifled guns that would make up the ships armament, and he took charge of procuring the iron plate that would constitute its armor shield. The confederacy renamed it the CSS Virginia. Symonds explained that officially the Virginia was rated as a ram. A fifteen-hundred-pound rate iron prow had been bolted onto the ships subject precisely below the waterline, and though it potruded scarce a few feet from from the ships stem, it made the ship itself, as good as its guns, a potentially lethal weapon. To command Virginia, Mallory chose Captain Franklin Buchanan. Buchanan had been a naval officer well-nigh of his life, hit served in the US Navy for fifty years prior to Hampton Roads.Mallory had chosen him because he believed that Buchanan had the perfect combination of realism and boldness. He had hoped for great things to the obs ervational vessel and evaluate Buchanan to sieze the initiative, of which he was not failed. The Union Plan The USS Monitor The Confederates plan to build an ironclad battleship was no secret to the Union. give-and-take of the rebel activity reached Unions Navy deposit General Gideon Welles. Southern newspaper also kept Welles up to date on the progress of Merrimacs reconstruction. He unyielding that the Union needed to construct a counter-weapon.The social intercourse approved an appropriation of $1. 5 million to construct one-third experimental ironclad warships and created the Ironclad Board. Welles and Mallory began a naval arms race for the control of a strategically critical embody of water. Cornelius Bushnell presented a design of a more or less conventional frigate with iron plating. The Ironclad Board, however, were skeptical such that Bushnell sought the opinion of the nations most gifted maritime engineer. Instead, John Ericsson showed Bushnell a floating elec tric battery that he himself designed.Bushnell reported to Welles that the country was safe because I had found a battery which would make us get the best of the situation as far as the ocean was concerned. A few months later, the Union ironclad battleship construction was underway. They dubbed it the USS Monitor. The key out feature of this ironclad battleship was that it had a novel revolving turret with two high-calibered guns. It was the entire ships armament, scarcely since the turrets could revolve, the guns could be shoot downed in either direction independent of the ships orientation. The competitiveness of Hampton Roads March 8, 1862Union Navy at Newport tidings Point found themselves being approached by what naval soldiers called the thing on the morn of March 8, 1962. The Confederate ironclad Virginia had crept menacingly out of the Elizabeth River to test its potential against the Union battleships. Its approach was not defined with stealth. Indeed, it unscra mble wholly with a speed of vanadium knots in plain view and Union blockade could have easily avoided battle had they wanted to. The Virginia announced its coming with a black smoke emerging from its single stack. Unlike conventional battleships, it had no masts and no sails of any kind.A Union officer described its approach with the water hisses and boils with indignation as like some huge suffering reptile she slowly emerges from her loathsome lair. Symonds historied that to most of the hundreds of observers watching from the shoreline, this smoke-belching, iron-plated thing was neither vessel nor creature but a elevator car a giant, self-propelled, armored engine of war. The Union Navy prep atomic number 18d for an impending battle. Symonds explains that whatever the soldiers felt up internally, outwardly they displayed confidence and unappeasable determination. Even men on the Virginia felt the same, for most of the cabal would only have combat in a ship for the first time. Eugenius diddley, a third assistant engineer alongside Virginia wrote in his memoirs which verbalise a general feeling of men in combat there are few men who do not feel some symptoms of fear when expiration into battle pride has kept many another(prenominal) a mans face to the foe, when his heart would tour it away. The Union had two major battleships The USS Cumberland and the USS sexual relation. These battleships attach a lend of seventy guns, as compared to the Virginias ten.Buchanan had the Virginia approach straightaway at Cumberland, intending to ram his vessel into the enemy battleship. Cumberland had two ten-inch pin tumbler guns which Buchanan feared would be able to penetrate his vessels iron shield. During the Virginias lengthy transit, the Cumberland was able to fire some(prenominal)(prenominal) shots at it, while the Virginia was only able to return fire from one bow seven-inch rifle. The Battle of Hampton Roads on the get about of the mean sola r day of March 8, 1962 marked not only the battle between an ironclad and wooden battleships, but of men on ships and men in a ship.Men inside the Virginia could only imagine what was really happening outside. Jack described the events that come subsequentlyed the suspense was awful the dilatory reports of the enemy artillery, and an occasional crack and microseism of the ship told that we had been struck I heard the sharp reports of our own guns then there came a tremor passim the ship and I was nearly thrown and twisted from the coal bucket upon which I was academic session The cracking and breaking of her timbers told full well how fatal to her that collision was. The Confederate ironclad Virginia had collided with the Union battleship Cumberland with such a force that men on twain ships were knocked off their feet and caused a gaping hole at the side of Cumberland. A young officer aboard Cumberland noted he once clean and beautiful deck was slippery with blood, blackened with powder and looked like a slaughter house. Despite the damage, men in Cumberland continued to fire shots at Virginia while the ship was literally sinking feeling. The crew on Virginia, on the other hand, had little time to celebrate yet.Symonds explained that for a few anxious moments it seemed likely that the Cumberland would take her assassin down with her. The Virginias ram had plunged so late into the Cumberland that, although Buchanan had immediately ordered all astern, the ironclad remained embedded in the side of its sinking victim. Virginia was alarmingly tilted forward. It was saved when the on-going of pile River swung its stern slowly to starboard, and with the resulting tortuousness on the ships ram caused a class of it to break off, allowing it to extricate itself from its mortally wounded foe. One hundred sap of the 376 aboard the Cumberland has been killed outright from the fatal attack. The river current had pushed Virginia downstream, and crewmen aboar d the other battleship, Congress, thought that the Virginia was fleeing. a lot to their dismay, Buchanan was not yet done. His goal was to subvert the entire Federal squadron, as Symonds explained. He managed to turn his ship back to reenter Hampton Roads after forty minutes of terrible manuevering and steadied for a course directly towards the Congress.Having witnessed the destruction of Cumberland, men aboard the Congress no longer doubted the unplayfulness of the curse and saw no hope of standing(a) up against the rebel ironclad. The captain, Lieutenant Joseph Smith, jr. , ordered to raise the anchor and steered the ship into shoal water where Virginia could not follow and was safe from ramming. Virginia, however, had still guns to use. It pounded heavily on the Congress until it was so utterly wreck to render it useless and caused them to surrender. The surrender of USS Congress should have not posed a problem had the traditional naval state of war been observed.Buchanan ordered lieutenant William H. Parker aboard the gunship Beaufort to accept the surrender and burn the ship, of course, after permit the surviving crew escape and harboring the wounded, but when Parker complied, soldiers on shore began firing at them. Symonds explained that forces troops were not inpressed by the traditions of the sea. Brigadier General Joseph K. Mansfield growled I crawl in the d-d ship has surrenderred, but we havent, when a Federal lieutenant tried to item him from firing at Beaufort. With Buchanans urging, Bob electric shaver volunteered to take the remaining boat aboard Virginia to burn the surrendered ship.To make sure there was no misunderstanding, Minor raised the clean-living iris diaphragm of truce, but no originally was he under way when the army at the shore began firing at him. Enraged, Buchanan ordered to reopen fire on the already disabled and helpless Congress. Symonds wrote that the Virginia dismissed three deliberate rounds of hot shot into the grounded hull of the Congress which caused the sun-baked hull to kindle fire. soon the Congress was burning briskly, the flames running up its rigging and lighting up the roadstead, and at last the firing ceased, though the Congress continued to burn through the spill and into the evening, Symonds continued.A total of 120 of the ships 434 had died that day. Symonds explains that each side felt the fury of violated notice to the events that followed the surrender of the USS Congress. He wrote To the Confederates, the Yankees were the guilty party, since they had shoot on a sporty flag while officers attempted to take possession of a lawful prize. To the Federals, the Confederates were at fault, since they now opened fire on a grounded vessel full of helpless men, a vessel that was flying not only one but two white flags of surrender.This was where the time-honored traditions of the Age of Sail collided with the realities of total war in a fit out age. For the rest of the w ar, and for decades afterward, each side would point an accusing finger at the other to charge that in Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862, the traditional rules of naval warindeed the very ideals of chivalry and cosmoswere sacrificed to a new template of mod war a mechanized war wihout rules, without restraint, without mercy, and without honor. The Virginia exchanged long-ranged shots with the USS Minnesota after transaction with the Congress.Although there were still a few hours of daylight left and there were three more Union warship in the roadstead, it had already been a long day and the crew was exhausted. Buchanan agreed for a break and ordered the Virginia to be anchored at Sewalls Point, from which point it could renew the attack the next day. The Battle of Hampton Roads March 9, 1862 The next first light revealed the devastation caused by Virginias rampage in Newport. It resumed its attack, this time targetting Minnesota. At this time, the Monitor, which arrived shortly a fter the battle the previous day, now made her appearance.William Swinton wrote that it was a moment of anxiety on the little craft, for there had been no time for drilling the men It engaged the Virginia with exchanges of shots, both of which proved to be futile as both ships appeared undamaged and unfazed from the firing. The Confederate array History records that after some time, the Merrimac succeeded in ramming the Monitor, but her prow had been broken off in ramming the Cumberland the day before, and she did no harm. To the surprise of the crew of Virginia, the Monitor run off into shoal water where they could not follow.Having consumed most of its coals, Virginia was forced to retreat. To compare, the Confederate ironclad carried more guns than the Union Monitor, but it was slow, clumsy, and prone to engine trouble. The Union prototype was the faster and more manueverable ironclad but it lacked the Rebel vessels brute size and power. Neither ironclad caused serious dama ge to the other and the battle ended without a decisive victory to either side. However, the timely appearance of the Monitor prevented the Virginia from fight more of the Unions wooden battleships and destry the blockade. ConclusionAlthough the Battle of Hampton Roads ended without a decisive conclusion, it marked a new age of naval warfare. Neither ironclads seriously damaged the other, but for the Union, it was a success because it prevented the Confederate to break the blockade. Having seen the potential of their prototype, the Union made several copies of the Monitor to win the war altogether. Symonds put it in a contest where weapons of war required the application of industrial productivity, the Union states had an overwhelming advantage over their southern counterparts. Bibliography Battle of Hampton Roads. Available from http//www. civilwarhome.com/CMHHampton%20Roads. htm. Internet accessed 29, July 2008. Catton, Bruce and James M. McPherson, The Civil War. Mariner Books , 2004. Hampton Roads Battle of the Ironclad. Available from http//www. civilwarhome. com/ironclad. htm Internet accessed 29, July 2008. Konstam, Angus and turn Hook. Hampton Roads 1862 Clash of the Ironclads Osprey Publishing, 2002. Lincoln, Abraham. hour Inaugural Address Swinton, William. The Twelve critical Battles of the War. Dick & Fitzgerald, 1867. Symonds, Craig L. Decision at Sea Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History. New York Oxford University Press US, 2005.