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The
Conversion of the USS Merrimack
to the CSS Virginia
One of the first Southern ports closed
off by the Anaconda Plan was the port of Hampton
Roads. Even though the navy yard at Gosport was in Confederate
hands, the Union forces kept control of Fort Monroe. Located
across the James River from Norfolk, Fort Monroe had been built
to protect Hampton Roads from foreign invasion. It now served
the Union army and navy as a base to close Hampton Roads to
Confederate shipping. Stationed at Fort Monroe was a fleet of
Union warships whose job it was to maintain the blockade.
The Confederate government realized
that the Union blockade would cripple the South's ability to
wage war. If the South was to survive, the blockade had to be
broken. However, the tiny Confederate Navy was no match for
the power of the United States Navy. In seeking a way to break
the blockade of the James River, the Confederate Navy launched
an experimental ship. This ship would be an ironclad-a ship
armored with iron. Because the Union navy was made up of entirely
wooden ships, a single iron vessel could perhaps destroy the
entire Union fleet at Fort Monroe.
Recovering the sunken hull of the old
USS Merrimack that had been abandoned and burned by the
Union navy, the Confederates began reconstructing the ship as
a ironclad. The Confederates built a deck over the hull and
engines and on the deck constructed a casemate.
The walls of the casemate were built of wood 20 inches in thickness
and then armored with four inches of iron plating. To arm the
ship, the Confederates placed ten cannon inside the casemate
and attached a massive iron ram to the bow of the ship. This
armament would allow the ship to attack enemy vessels
either by firing its cannon or by ramming them. The most important
feature of this experimental ship was its iron armor. The armor
would protect the ship from cannon fire, allowing her to attack
and destroy the wooden ships of Union navy.
After some nine months of construction,
the conversion of the Merrimack was complete and the
ship was renamed the CSS Virginia.
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