Hello, my name is Alicia Pullen, educator from the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, and I
am currently standing at the Monitor-Merrimack Overlook Park on the corner of Chesapeake
and Walnut Ave. Behind me is the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge, and directly in front of me is Fort
Monroe. It was at this point that observers came to witness the first ironclad battle
between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia.
On March 8th and 9th, 1862, the Battle of Hampton Roads was fought in this body of water,
at the mouth of the James River, between the ironclads USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia,
formerly known as the USS Merrimack. Hampton Roads, where the James and Elizabeth Rivers
empty into the Chesapeake Bay, was crucial to both the Union and Confederacy in their
war strategy. The Confederacy sought to break the Union blockade of Norfolk and to protect
water access to Richmond, while Union naval forces wanted to maintain the blockade and
the ability to advance towards the Confederate capital.
The opposing ironclads were a strange sight to those who saw them, having different designs
than all the other vessels afloat. Eyewitnesses tried to describe the USS Monitor in terms
like “a cheese box on a raft” and others recalled the CSS Virginia looking like “a
floating barn roof.” The USS Monitor was steam powered, iron plated, and included a
rotating turret allowing for 360 degrees of fire. The CSS Virginia, having an iron covered
casemate built upon the hull of the former USS Merrimack, was steam powered as well.
Unlike the Monitor’s single turret, the Virginia had gun ports on both sides and being
larger, moved much slower in the water.
When the USS Monitor reached Hampton Roads on the evening of March 8th, the ship’s
Paymaster, William Keeler, noticed that civilian boats “were leaving like a covey of frightened
quails.” That day, the CSS Virginia had destroyed two Union ships and prepared to
finish off the USS Minnesota in the morning. But when the Confederate ironclad attacked
on the morning of March 9th, the Monitor appeared from behind the Minnesota and the battle of
the ironclads began.
When the Monitor’s guns fired for the first time, an officer aboard described it as “music
to us all” since the crewmembers of the Union ironclad wanted to challenge their Confederate
counterpart and get revenge for the loss of the Cumberland and the Congress. The two ironclads
closed distance and began their now famous fight. Keeler described the scene, writing,
“The vessels were now sufficiently near to make our fire effective & our two heavy
pieces were worked as rapidly as possible, every shot telling...The men at the guns had
stripped themselves to their waists & were covered with powder & smoke, the perspiration
falling from them like rain.” The ironclads circled each other, firing, trying to gain
the advantage or a weakness in the other’s armor.
On the gundeck of the CSS Virginia, crewmember W.F. Drake described the battle in which “the
monitor would go off and come around us coming to closer quarters and fire her guns, the
turret being immediately turned away so we had a bad target for our guns.” The ironclads
fought for four hours, and, at one point, Virginia attempted to ram the Monitor. Keeler
remembered, “This was the critical moment, one that I had feared from the beginning of
the fight--if she could so easily pierce the heavy oak beams of the Cumberland, she surely
could go through the ½ inch iron plates of our lower hull.” However, although the crew
didn't know it at the time, Virginia’s ram had broken off and so the Monitor did
not suffer damage.
Finally, after a morning of battle, the two ironclads ceased fire and left in opposite
directions, both thinking they had won the day. Although neither ship was able to sink
the other, the clash is remembered as the first battle of the ironclads, thus changing
naval warfare forever. This sign is another representation of our
rich naval history in Hampton Roads. I’m Alicia Pullen from the Hampton Roads Naval
Museum. Thank you for watching.