Prior to the Civil War,
ironclad ships had shelled land fortifications but none had ever fought
each other. The world witnessed in awe the historic battle between
the two Civil War ironclads, the Virginia and the Monitor.
Just two days after the
news of the battle arrived in England, the British admiralty declared that
no more wooden war ships would be built. England, they declared,
would have an ironclad navy.
When war between the States
broke out in April 1861, Stephen R. Mallor, Secretary of the Confederate
Navy, was convinced that the rebel navy could offset the mush superior
strength of the Union Navy through the construction and employment of "floating
batteries" (the ironclad warships).
Although Confederate President
Jefferson Davis, a former Army officer, showed very little interest in
the Navy or its operations. Mallory managed to put together a "formidable"
ship building program, much of it eventually centering around the construction
of ironclads.
The French at Sevastopool
originated the concept of "floating batteries" in 1854, when they introduced
the idea of shielding their wooden ships with thick metal plated attached
on an incline to all areas exposed above the water line.
French naval architect
Stanislas Dupuy de Lome, who divised a method that was later used by both
France and England in converting sailing ships to steamers, built the first
seagoing ironclad warship in 1858. Christened the "Gloire,"
her hull was plated above water from stem to stern with iron backed by
wood.
The advantage of "inclined"
armor was that it would deflect enemy shells, directing their kinetic energy
upward rather than fully against the side of the ship. Nearly all
the ironclads of the Civil War were built following this pattern.
In some cases, the armor
on the ironclads was coated with lard or tallow grease in an attempt to
further deflect shot. The effectiveness of the practice was never
clearly determined.
In the Civil War sense,
ironclads could be defined as armor plated steam-propelled vessels fitted
with heavy guns and built to sail low in the water offering as small
a target as possible.
In some cases, the bows
of the ironclads were reinforced to serve as rams capable of crashing through
the wooden hulls of enemy ships.
At the beginning of the
war, the Confederacy's ironclads were built near large ports such as Portsmouth,
New Orleans or Mobile. After the spring of 1862, four out of five
ships built in the Confederacy fell into the category of ironclad.
As the Union began to retake
the ports along the coast of the Confederate states, rebel shipbuilders
were forced to construct their ironclads inland along navigable streams
and rivers.
For the South, raw materials
such as iron became scarce after the federal's occupied the rich ore fields
in Tennessee and Kentucky. This severely hampered Mallory's shipbuilding
efforts. Construction was also hindered because what little iron
was available for the ironclads was often delayed in transport by Southern
railroads tied up moving troops and supplies for the Army.
Interestingly, the South's
first ironclad to see action was not the Virginia, but an odd little turtleback
christened as the Manassas. She went into action on October
12, 1861 below New Orleans. The Manassas was a powerful steam
tug which some say was an icebreaker that had been concerted by a private
concern for use as a privateer. The Confederate Navy confiscated
the little turtleback in 1861.
Sporting a powerful ran,
the Manassas successfully attacked Union ships blockading New Orleans
and was finally destroyed while attacking Farragut's Fleet as it ran up
toward New Orleans.
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