The ensuing battle began one of the greatest naval dramas of the century which later became known as "The Battle of Hampton Roads." It ended in a duel between two of the first Civil War ironclads ever built and changed forever the nature of naval warfare.
On the Virginia. tensions ran high as the ironclad neared the Union blockade. It was the crew's first fight aboard an ironclad, and no one knew what to expect.
The Virginia's captain, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, singled out the 24-gun USS Cumberland for the ironclad's first attack. He opened fire on the Cumberland from less than a mile. Firing grew more intense as he maneuvered the Virginia on a course set to ram the Cumberland.
Morale soared and tension dissipated aboard the Virginia once her crew realized that the ironclad's thick metal plates were easily deflecting every projectile that hit their ship.
Union sailors aboard the Cumberland stared in astonishment as cannonballs, which should have knocked gaping holes in the Virginia, ricocheted harmlessly off her slanted casement. Astonishment quickly turned to terror as the Cumberland's crew realized that the Confederate ironclad was about to ram them, and there was nothing they could do. Splinters flew as the Virginia's iron ram crashed through the thick wooden hull of the Cumberland, splitting the Union warship below the water line. When Buchanan ordered the Virginia to reverse to extract her ram, it broke off, and water began leaking into the ironclad. Water rushed through the hole in the hull of the Cumberland. She immediately began to sink. Although sinking rapidly, the Cumberland's crew heroically continued firing their big guns at the Virginia, abandoning ship only when the water reached their cannons.
By the end of the day, the Confederate ironclad had reeked havoc on the blockade's. She had rammed and destroyed the 24-gun USS Cumberland and had sunk the 50-gun USS Congress. Several other federal vessels, including the USS Roanake and USS Minnesota, had suffered severe damage after running aground in efforts to avoid the Virginia.
At sunset, Buchanan extracted the victorious Virginia from the fight and set course to Sewell's Point. It was his intention to return the next morning and finish off the grounded Minnesota. As the Virginia was retiring, another strange shaped ironclad made an appearance on the horizon. This one was described as looking like a "cheese box on a raft." It was the USS Monitor.
Chaos greeted the Monitor and her crew as she arrived on the scene of the Hampton Roads engagement. The evening sky was a patchwork of crimson and black created by the exploding magazines and burning hull of the USS Congress.
The Monitor had been hastily built as a Union response to news that the Confederates were developing an ironclad warship at Norfolk from the salvaged hull of the scuttled USS Merrimack. A 3,200-ton steam frigate, the Merrimack had been partially burned and sunk by the Union forces on April 12, 1861 as they were evacuating Grosport Navy Yard (modern-day Portsmouth) near Norfolk, Virginia. Confederates raised the Merrimack the following month and placed her in dry dock. They began work on converting her into an ironclad in July based on a design of John M. Brooke and John L. Porter. The conversion of the USS Merrimack was completed on February 13, 1862. She was commissioned the CSS Virginia on February 17, 1862. Although christened the Virginia, Northerners not knowing her new name continued to call her the Merrimack as did many Southern Naval officers who remembered her from her days as an old wooden frigate.
Throughout conversion, the Virginia suffered many production problems, one of which was severe shortage of resources. Right up until night before the Virginia's first battle on March 8, 1862, her officers found themselves desperately trying to secure enough powder for her guns.
No such problems existed for the Monitor. The federal government had plenty of resources. The Monitor had steamed out of the Brooklyn Naval Yard in New York under command of U.S. Navy Lt. John L. Worden, whose specific orders were to find and destroy the Virginia.
Early the next morning (March 9), Buchanan ordered the Virginia back to Hampton Roads. His intentions were to finish off the grounded USS Minnesota and then to take on any other Union ship he could catch. Buchanan's plans were spoiled, however, when he found the ironclad Monitor waiting for him near the Minnesota. The two gunboats met, cannons blazing in the first duel ever between ironclads. Circling the Virginia, the much smaller and more maneuverable Monitor moved about at will peppering the Confederate ironclad with shot. Buchanan was having trouble steering the Virginia. Leaks caused by the loss of her ram made the ironclad respond sluggishly. Her smokestacks were so perforated with holes that it was difficult to get the draft needed to keep up sufficient steam. She was also having trouble hitting the Monitor because of the Unions ironclad's smaller size and maneuverability.
After several hours of ineffectual fighting, one of the Virginia's guns finally hit the Monitor's pilothouse squarely. Shrapnel from the exploding shell blinded the Monitor's captain, who had been squinting through the peephole in the pilothouse. He had to be carried below deck. The exploding shell had effectively disoriented the crew of the Monitor, throwing then into chaos. The federal ironclad drifted without pilot into shallow shoals for over a half hour before the second in command could reorganize the crew and get the ironclad back into action.
Buchanan, unable to follow the Monitor into the shallow water and thinking that the Monitor was retreating from the fight, set the Virginia on a course back to Norfolk. As the Virginia turned to leave, the Monitor's new captain maneuvered the Union ironclad out of the shallows to reenter the fight. When the Monitor's crew saw the Virginia steaming away, they cheered thinking they had won the battle.
As fate would have it, the first fight ever between two ironclads ended with the crews of both ships thinking they had won. This misunderstanding led to what historians have categorized as "one of history's curious cases of mutual misrepresentations."
The Virginia and the Monitor never met in combat again. The Monitor returned north to Washington, D.C. for repairs. Her crew was given a hero's welcome, and she became a brief tourist attraction where the curious gathered to see this legendary ironclad. She returned to the Norfolk-Portsmouth area and continued to participate in the blockade, effectively keeping the ironclad Virginia in check.
On May 11, 1862, the Confederates were forced to scuttle the Virginia near Craney Island to prevent the ironclad from being captured by Union troops advancing on Norfolk and Portsmouth. Rebel naval officials had been for weeks anticipating the federal attack on Grosport Navy Yard and had already secretly removed all of Gosport's shipbuilding material and essential machinery to a newly established inland naval yard at Charlotte, North Carolina..
A few days after the Virginia was scuttled, the Monitor played a small role in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff on the James River between federal ships and Confederate shore batteries.
On December 29, 1862, the Monitor left under orders to proceed south to Beaufort, N.C. for blockade duty. On her second night out, she encountered a fierce storm off Cape Hatteras, N.C. and sank in 230 feet of water. Sixteen crew members drowned while trying to get into lifeboats.
Although neither the Virginia nor Monitor went down as a result of battle, they both proved something to the world. The Virginia had clearly demonstrated that no wooden ship could stand a chance against an iron ship, and the Monitor proved that only an iron ship could stop and iron ship.
