Ironclads and Gunboats
Mallory’s role took on increased urgency when Davis approved
a bill on May 3 that proclaimed a formal state of war existing between the
Confederacy and the United States. Forced to act by this declaration, European
nations officially recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent, though not as a
nation in its own right. Britain’s Queen Victoria declared her nation a neutral
in the conflict, though the world knew that the day’s greatest maritime and
industrial state’s definition of “neutrality” could be somewhat flexible.
Mallory’s decisive actions in the first weeks of his tenure
began to bear fruit during May. At Gretna, Louisiana, the first naval cannon
was cast on May 4, while 2-inch wrought iron plates followed by the end of the
month from a new mill in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. These fruits of hard Southern
labor wended their way to New Orleans and the rapidly expanding naval yard in
that city. There, two private shipbuilding firms would be authorized to build
the first ironclads in the western Confederacy, the Louisiana and the
Mississippi.
Slowly, but steadily, naval squadrons began to emerge from
the initial chaos in Southern ports. By the end of May, some 20 gunboats,
equipped with one or two guns each, patrolled the Mississippi, supported by a
transport squadron of six fast steamers. Squadrons of six to ten steam vessels
of varying sizes, configurations, and capabilities trained at each of the major
Southern ports. Additionally, state navies such as the “Mosquito Fleet” of
North Carolina patrolled coastal estuaries and sounds. The command situation
improved dramatically with the secession of Virginia when over 100 officers and
nearly as many enlisted ranks decided to “go South.” Several former Union
officers would quickly prove worthy of the task at hand.
On June 9, lookouts aboard the U.S.S. Massachusetts, part of
the small squadron supporting Fort Pickens and the blockade of Pensacola,
spotted a plume of smoke on the horizon. Investigation revealed it to be the
British registered steamship Perthshire, its holds laden with cotton. After
seizing the neutral ship (the first such seizure of the war) for carriage of
contraband, an examination of its log and manifests shocked the American
captain. The ship had unloaded six steam engines, six screws and shafts, and sundry
machine parts at New Orleans a week earlier. Worse, a copy of the New Orleans
Picayune dated June 6 revealed that a Confederate squadron of three steamers
under the command of Commodore Franklin Buchanan had sunk or captured the two
small Union warships blockading the mouth of the Mississippi.
Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the Union Navy was
growing by leaps and bounds. Welles purchased or purloined anything that
floated, from trans-Atlantic steamers to ferryboats to private yachts, and the
yards of the North quickly converted them to warships with the addition of
weapons and naval officers. Within weeks, New Orleans was again blockaded, and
the interdiction of the Southern coast as a whole stiffened day by day as the
war progressed. Twice, once at Charleston and once at Mobile, small Confederate
squadrons challenged the blockaders. In both cases, lives were lost and ships
damaged, but the blockade remained. Until ironclads could be completed, the
blockade would only strengthen.
On July 11, plans and money for conversion to ironclads of
the captured Merrimack as well as the United States and the Pennsylvania were
approved by the Confederate Congress, though modifications to the Merrimack had
been underway since June 10, the day that it was renamed C.S.S. Virginia. The
two larger ships would have the upper decks cut away and replaced by iron
casemates amidships. Angled so as to deflect enemy shells and meant to extend
below the waterline to protect vital machinery, the casemates featured two
layers of 2-inch wrought iron plate backed by over a foot of oaken timbers. The
hulls, armored by a layer of 2-inch plate extending six feet below the
waterline, showed only a foot of freeboard. The Virginia would mount six 9-inch
Dahlgren smoothbores, three to each broadside, and four heavy rifled guns as
bow and stern chasers. Pennsylvania, now known as Alabama, would carry two
fewer broadside guns. Both vessels would be fitted with heavy iron rams.
Knowing that the casemate-ironclads would be slow and
ponderous, Mallory selected a different design for the conversion of the old
United States. Renamed Hart of the Confederacy, the vessel would be built for
speed. With masts and upper works cut away, the hull would be plated with
2-inch wrought iron over its old (but relatively sound) oaken timbers. Its new
freeboard of eight feet demanded additional armor amidships where its
vulnerable boiler and engine would rest. Thus, the designer added an additional
belt of 2-inch plate extending five feet below the waterline. Six 9-inch
Dahlgrens fired to each broadside, but their gunports were only two feet above
the water in order to lower the vessel’s center of gravity. This limited the
usefulness of the cannons in any but the calmest seas. The true killer for the
Hart would be the spar torpedo—a 20-foot pole, dropped at the last minute
before contact to project from the bow, with a keg of gunpowder triggered by a
percussion cap at its end—and its ram-tipped, heavily reinforced prow.
From its date of approval, numerous problems confronted the
conversion efforts. A shortage of artificers and shipwrights meant that work on
the vessels had to proceed sequentially. Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, slated
to produce the 2-inch wrought iron plate for the ironclads, had to convert its
facilities from 1-inch plate production before it could begin to roll the
required size plates. Then, as plates began to accumulate, Mallory had to
squabble with the army, engaged in its own buildup of supplies and men, for
train engines and cars to move them to Gosport. Most seriously, capture of the
Perthshire by the U.S.S. Massachusetts had led to a diplomatic protest by the
United States to Great Britain, forcing the British government to stop the
shipment of twelve additional steam engines and other materials to the
Confederacy. Fortunately for Mallory, Britain, in immediate response to the
Trent Affair of November 1861, released six of the engines for immediate
delivery to the Confederacy. Escorted by H.M.S. Warrior, the shipment arrived
in Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 24. By Christmas, two of those
engines had arrived at Gosport for installation in Alabama and Hart—a most
acceptable present for Secretary Mallory.
As Mallory wrestled with building a navy to challenge the
blockade, his nation’s fortunes on land and at sea twisted and turned. In the
east, Confederate forces had stopped a premature advance from Fortress Monroe
through the James Peninsula to Richmond at the Battle of Big Bethel on June 10.
At Manassas, Virginia, green Confederate troops had outlasted green Union
soldiers on July 21. The routed Yankees fled to the defenses of Washington
without pursuit by the disorganized Southern army. Success in eastern Virginia
offset losses in the western portion of the state, which eventually allowed the
admittance of West Virginia to the Union.
In August, a U.S. fleet commanded by Flag Officer S.H.
Stringham supported the troops of General Ben Butler in capturing Forts
Hatteras and Clark on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Unable to face an overwhelming
force on the open sea, Rebel naval forces under Flag Officer W.F. Lynch
continued to challenge Union control of the (now closed) Pamlico Sound. On
October 1, C.S.S. Curlew, Raleigh, and Junaluska captured the Union steamer
Fanny (later C.S.S. Fanny) with enemy troops aboard. This Mosquito Fleet
continued to sting the Union until overwhelmed by constantly increasing numbers
of warships. It had, for all practical purposes, ceased to exist by the time
Union forces under Flag Officer L.M. Goldsborough and General Ambrose Burnside
captured Roanoke Island in February 1862, effectively closing Albemarle Sound.
The lack of effective naval opposition then allowed Union forces to establish
themselves on the mainland at New Bern during early March. By that month,
Northern amphibious forces had seized several points along the Southern coasts,
including Port Royal, South Carolina and Fernandina, Florida.
In the western Confederacy, Rebel gunboats and
fortifications had proven no match for their opponents. Union forces repulsed a
Confederate invasion of “neutral” Kentucky, then, spearheaded by seven armored
riverboats commissioned in January 1862 (others would quickly follow), smashed
Confederate defenses along the Tennessee and upper Mississippi Rivers. By the
end of February, Confederate forces had abandoned Nashville, Tennessee, to
consolidate in northern Mississippi. The Trans-Mississippi theater witnessed a
seesaw war for control of Missouri, eventually decided by the Union victory at
Pea Ridge, Arkansas, in March 1862. Forced back on both banks of the Father of
Waters, Confederate defense of that mighty river appeared doomed.
By late February 1862, Mallory found himself under
considerable pressure from Congress and the public to break the tightening
blockade of Southern ports, free the coasts of North Carolina, and to provide
additional naval support for the upper Mississippi. Mallory promised decisive
action in March and April as his ironclads at New Orleans and Norfolk became
available. Meanwhile he continued to send raiders to sea, hoping to force the
Union Navy to react, thus weakening the blockade. Welles refused to respond,
however, claiming that the losses would be small and those few raiders that
slipped through the tightening cordon would be captured upon their return. This
did little to console Northern businessmen, who claimed some $10,000,000 in
shipping and goods destroyed in the opening months of the war. Quietly but
steadily they began to shift vessels and cargoes to foreign flags. In fact,
some clandestinely supported blockade running into the Confederacy.
Another officer receiving considerable pressure from his
administration was General George McClellan, commanding the Union’s Army of the
Potomac. McClellan had trained his army hard since becoming its commander; now
Abraham Lincoln wanted him to use it to capture Richmond and end the rebellion.
The North’s “Little Napoleon” did not wish to waste his men on a march through
northern Virginia against prepared Confederate defenses. Instead, he proposed to
move his army by sea to the James Peninsula, then, with Fortress Monroe secured
as his base of supply, swiftly advance the 60-odd miles to the Rebel capital.
His flanks protected by naval forces advancing up the York and James Rivers,
McClellan’s outflanking maneuver would nullify the strong defensive positions
in northern Virginia and guarantee a victory. His plan approved by a president
desperate for any form of advance, McClellan began chartering the 400 merchant
ships needed to move and supply his army. Then, at around 12.45 p.m. on March
8, his efforts paused as a strangely shaped vessel approached Union blockaders
in Hampton Roads—the C.S.S. Virginia, supported by the wooden gunboats Beaufort
and Raleigh, also of the Gosport Squadron, was about to place its mark on naval
history.
Mallory had hoped to commit his Gosport Squadron of
ironclads in mass, but delays in acquiring engines, shafts, and armor plates
had slowed the conversions. By early March, only Virginia was ready for combat.
Even it lacked the heavy iron shutters for its gunports, while newly minted
Captain Catesby ap R. Jones (promoted for his fine effort in readying the
vessel) seemed less than happy with the top speed of eight knots that its old
engine could produce. Trials had revealed additional problems: awkward turning
ability (30 minutes to turn through 180 degrees), vulnerability of the hull
armor (covered with readily available 1-inch instead of 2-inch plate due to
shortages) when the vessel rode light, and the Virginia’s deep draft which led
to tricky maneuvering in shallow water. On the other hand, Mallory’s early
recruiting efforts had given Jones time to whip a rather lubberly bunch of men
into something resembling a naval crew.
Lieutenant Lucien W. Carter, late of the Mosquito Squadron’s
Curlew, would captain Alabama, which floated at Gosport on March 8. Only some
three weeks from readiness, the converted two-decker would become the
squadron’s flagship. Filling the slot of commodore had been a difficult choice
for Mallory. He would have preferred shifting the experienced and aggressive
Buchanan from New Orleans for this critical role, but that city was a logical
target for Union assault. Instead, the secretary chose another veteran of North
Carolina’s Mosquito Fleet, Captain W.F. Lynch, for the role. Delayed by the
conflict raging in the Carolina sounds, Lynch would not arrive at Gosport until
March 14.
Raphael Semmes had accepted command of Hart of the
Confederacy in mid-February. Semmes had already gained a reputation for
boldness while commanding the raider C.S.S. Petrel out of Charleston. As a
lieutenant, he had twice ran the blockade of Charleston to capture a total of
15 prizes—including a Union blockader. Unlike other raiders, Semmes had
returned home with his vessel, boarding and capturing the enemy warship that
stood in his way on the last trip. While recovering from a slight wound
received in the action, he had requested a large, heavily armed steamer for his
next raid. Instead, Semmes found himself promoted to captain and hustled to
Gosport to command the vessel he later described as “the fastest, deadliest
little ship in the world.” However, as Virginia steamed into Hampton Roads,
Hart, the most difficult of the three conversions, still lacked most of its
armor. The chief architect had informed Mallory that it could not possibly be
seaworthy, even for trials, before the end of April.
First Battle of Hampton Roads
Lincoln’s North Atlantic Blockading Squadron mustered over
50 vessels, and five floated in Hampton Roads on March 8. Closest to the
Elizabeth River and Gosport anchored Cumberland, a 24-gun sailing sloop, and
the 44-gun sailing frigate Congress. The 50-gun screw frigates Roanoke and
Minnesota, as well as the 44-gun sailing frigate St Lawrence were in positions
to support the two vessels that would be the first target of the untested
Confederate ironclad. It took the slow-moving Virginia more than an hour to
reach gunnery range. Confident in their ability and without knowledge of the
capabilities of the enemy, the Union officers of the Cumberland and Congress
beat to quarters, but remained at anchor (powered only by sails, their
maneuvering would have been severely limited in the tight confines of the Roads
at any rate).
Shortly after 2.00 p.m., the ships exchanged their first
shots. Jones, determined to destroy the more dangerous of his enemies first
(though smaller than its mate, Jones knew that Cumberland carried the heavier
battery), used his under-gunned wooden consorts to distract Congress. As
Virginia closed the range, the superiority of its iron-plated casemate became
evident. The heaviest Union shells failed to penetrate its thick hide, while
Confederate artillery wrecked the sloop’s hull and created carnage among its
crew. Finally, the Rebel ram pierced the side of the doomed ship. Splintered
beams and suction pinned the Rebel ship in place as Cumberland rapidly settled
to the bottom. At the last moment, as water sluiced across the ironclad’s deck,
Jones’s straining engines managed to pull Virginia free. Its ram remained
embedded in the wreckage of its victim. Even as their vessel settled beneath
them, frustrated Union gunners continued to exchange fire with the Rebel
cannoneers. Still unable to penetrate Virginia’s armor, they did manage to
disable one of its broadside guns before, around 3.30 p.m., Cumberland slid
beneath the waves.
Reinforced by the wooden gunboats Teaser, Jamestown, and
Patrick Henry of the James River Squadron, Jones turned his attention to
Congress, whose captain, endeavoring to gain the cover of Union shore
batteries, had deliberately grounded his vessel. Taking position a mere hundred
yards from the stern of the grounded frigate, Jones pounded it into submission
in little over an hour. Unable to take possession of the surrendered craft as shore
batteries and Union marksmen continued to target his ships, Jones ordered shot
heated in his boilers. Around 5.00 p.m., Jones signaled his squadron to make
for his next target, leaving the once proud Congress in flames.
The three remaining Union vessels in and near Hampton roads
had rushed to join the fracas—perhaps a bit too quickly, as all three had run
aground. Once freed, the outclassed Roanoke and St Lawrence had scurried for
the safety of Fortress Monroe’s massive batteries, but Minnesota remained firmly
aground. Jones aimed his command at that vessel, but a falling tide and shoal
water prevented him from closing the range. Instead he retired to an anchorage
beneath the Confederate guns at Sewell’s Point. For the price of some 60 dead
and wounded, two cannons damaged, a few iron plates buckled, and an iron ram
lost, Virginia and its wooden consorts had destroyed two Union warships with
heavy casualties to their crews. Despite a pesky leak in the bows, munitions
and coal remained to destroy the last three Yankee blockaders on the morrow.
Then, perhaps, there would be time to test his vessel in the wider waters of
the Chesapeake before returning to Gosport.
At 6.00 the next morning, Virginia and the five gunboats of
the James River Squadron upped anchors and steamed through the mists to destroy
the still grounded Minnesota. There they found a tiny vessel, a mere “cheesebox
on a raft,” awaiting them. It was another ironclad, the U.S.S. Monitor. Welles
had not stood idle at the threat of Mallory’s conversion of Rebel ironclads.
Rather, he had solicited bids for a number of these vessels for his own navy,
several of which were already performing superbly on western rivers. The most
unique of the designs, however, was the Monitor. Relatively fast and maneuverable,
the shallow draft vessel carried only two heavy guns, but both were protected
by a thickly armored, revolving turret. The only major flaw in the design was
that the deck, mere inches above the waterline, would be continually awash in
any but calm waters. In fact, the warship had almost sunk during heavy seas on
its journey from Long Island to Hampton Roads.
For four hours that morning, the two marvels of the age of
steam and iron fought, with neither gaining an advantage. Once, Jones managed
to ram his enemy, but the only result was increased leakage in Virginia’s
already damaged bow. Then, the Rebel ironclad shuddered to a halt, aground on a
mud bank. For an hour, the two ships pounded away, Monitor working closer and
closer to the immobile behemoth. At the last minute, a shell struck the
pilothouse of the tiny warship, temporarily blinding its commander. For 20
vital minutes, Monitor abandoned the battle while an inexperienced officer took
the con. During that time, Jones managed to ease his battered vessel from the
mud. Listening to the council of his officers that the dropping tide and leaky
condition of Virginia could combine to see the vessel again aground, the
frustrated Confederate captain abandoned the field and returned to his
anchorage at Sewell’s Point. The following day, he steamed for Gosport and a
drydock, temporarily conceding Hampton Roads to the enemy.
Interlude
Though the first day of battle had sown panic in Washington,
it had calmed after the standoff of the second day. McClellan queried Welles as
to the U.S. Navy’s ability to contain the Rebel ships in Hampton Roads.
Receiving a positive response, he began to shift his army to the Peninsula,
knowing that the commitment of Union naval assets to the blockade of the Roads
meant that he would have little support for his flanks along the James and York
Rivers. By April 4, over 100,000 men of the Army of the Potomac were prepared
to advance against weakly held Confederate fortifications stretching from
Yorktown along the Warwick River. The next day, Little Mac, receiving reports
of inflated Confederate strength from his intelligence agents, upset with the
Navy’s refusal to support his advance along the York River, and angry at
President Lincoln for keeping General McDowell’s I Corps in front of Washington
instead of releasing it to the Army of the Potomac, prepared to besiege the
Rebel defensive lines rather than lose men to direct assault. In the weeks it
took McClellan to ready his siege guns, the besiegers became the besieged.
As Welles concentrated 21 warships near the James Peninsula,
including the new ironclad Galena, the iron-hulled Naugatuck, and three fast
steamers converted into rams, dockyard workers and ship crews at Gosport worked
24 hours a day to repair Virginia and to finish the conversion of Alabama and
Hart. On April 1, Alabama began its trials. Its newer engine gave it a top
speed of ten knots, though the same concerns with draft and maneuverability as
plagued Virginia still existed. Three days later, Jones’s command (proudly
bearing many of the scars remaining from its two days of battle) left drydock.
Two additional inches of plate had been added to its hull, the two damaged
cannon had been replaced, its heavy gunport shutters were added at last, and
several damaged plates on its casemate were repaired. With a new ram attached
to its bow, Virginia seemed to tug at its moorings, anxious again to face the
enemy.
Semmes’s Hart, though he had briefly tested its engine and
screw, remained in the hands of the workers. By April 10, the installation of
its hull plating complete, only the armored pilothouse needed to shield its
still exposed wheel and command station on the quarterdeck remained to be
added. Semmes had already ballasted and coaled his vessel, though powder and
spar torpedoes remained to be shipped as soon as workers finished the
wheelhouse.
At 10.00 a.m. that day, Commodore Lynch met with his
captains, including those of the seven wooden gunboats assigned to his support.
Glancing at a telegram from Mallory, the commodore informed his officers that
the situation did not look good on the James Peninsula. Though the army was
being concentrated as rapidly as possible opposite the Yankees, they would be
outnumbered almost two to one, and any hard push could well reach Richmond.
Unless the pressure could be relieved, the army would be forced to abandon
Norfolk. The abandonment of the Confederacy’s only fully developed naval yard
was not only unpalatable, it was unacceptable; and in the eyes of the Secretary
of the Navy, such a disaster could well mean the loss of the war. The only
possible resolution to the conundrum in Virginia was the defeat of the
blockaders standing off Fortress Monroe and a Confederate naval blockade of
McClellan’s forces in Virginia.
Having been ordered to accomplish that feat, Lynch proposed
to stage his ships immediately to Craney Island at the mouth of the Elizabeth
River. There they would load five companies of militia, split among the vessels
to serve as marines, then steam to engage the enemy on the morning of April 12.
The meeting ended, and one by one ships began to leave the yard. Last in line
was the Hart, its crew dangerously shifting barrels of powder from a hoy towing
alongside while the noise of saws and hammers still echoed from its
quarterdeck. By 6.00 the next morning, workers had completed a makeshift
bulwark of 4-inch wooden beams chest-high around the vulnerable wheel and three-quarters
plated it with poorly fastened 1-inch wrought iron. Most of them then tumbled
into boats as Hart eased from its anchorage, though several sought and gained
Semmes’s permission to remain aboard as crewmen.
Union Commodore Louis M. Goldsborough, Flag Officer of the
North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and personally commanding the fleet off
Hampton Roads from the deck of Minnesota, possessed an excellent defensive
position for his ironclads. The channel between Fortress Monroe and
Confederate-held Willoughby’s Point stretched for less than four miles, flowing
around an island known as the Rip Raps on which he had mounted heavy batteries
of artillery. Shoals further reduced the space for maneuver. Rather than risk
his vulnerable wooden vessels in the channel, Goldsborough had placed only his
strongest hulls—Monitor, Galena, and Naugatuck—there, keeping the bulk of his
fleet two miles to the east. If hard pressed, his first line could withdraw for
a battle of maneuver; if it managed to hold the Rebel ironclads, he could run
down in support.
Second Battle of Hampton Roads
At 8.00 a.m., the Galena’s lookouts spotted the approaching
Confederate ironclads, Alabama and Virginia abreast and Hart of the Confederacy
lingering astern. The vulnerable Rebel gunboats followed, wary of closing the
range too swiftly, though at six knots (the best that Virginia’s struggling
engine could do against a making tide), the range seemed to close slowly
indeed. At 9.00 a.m., Monitor’s big Dahlgrens opened the ball. A few minutes
later, Galena scored first blood, its opening broadside shattering Alabama’s
starboard quarterboat, splinters wounding a Confederate sharpshooter crouched
by the ship’s funnel. By 9.30, the firing was general as shells glanced from
the armor of both sides. Closer and closer crept the casemated leviathans,
obviously intent on ramming the Union vessels. But all three were nimble, and
maneuvered to escape collision while they themselves ineffectually pounded the
enemy. Then, seeming to leap from between the larger Confederate ships,
Semmes’s Hart, black smoke streaming from its stack and the very deck vibrating
with the revolutions of its single shaft, arrowed towards Monitor at the
amazing speed of 17 knots.
Semmes intended to combine his untried spar torpedo with a
ramming attack. As conceived, the spar torpedo was a simple weapon. Mounted on
a pole held upright above the ship’s bow until released seconds before impact,
the pole would fall forward into a slot on the bulwark. Projecting downward to
or immediately below the waterline of the enemy ship, contact would ignite a
percussion cap, thus triggering the barrel of powder and, ideally, opening a
hole in the side of the enemy ship. The weapon’s operators had been trained to
wait until the last minute to drop the infernal device, as the force of the
waves could snap the spar or even trigger the torpedo early. Once fired, it
would be the crew’s job to mount another torpedo as Hart maneuvered for the
next attack.
