Talk:CSS Virginia

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Untitled
If someone wants to undo the redirect from USS Merrimack and give it its own article, the text from the second version of the Virginia article is below. --Carnildo 03:27, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

- A version from http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/v/virginia.htm to be merged.

The ironclad ram CSS Virginia was built at Boston Navy Yard as the frigate USS Merrimack, and commissioned February 20, 1856, Captain G. J. Pendergrast, USN, in command.

Departing Boston she cruised in West Indies and European waters in 1856-57. Following brief repairs she sailed in October 1857 as flagship of the Pacific Squadron, cruising the Pacific coasts of oned at Norfolk, Virginia, [[February 16, 1860. On April 20, 1861, in the confusion following the outbreak of the Civil War, retiring Union forces burned Merrimack to the water line and sank her to preclude capture by the Virginia militia.

The Confederates, in desperate need of ships to challenge the Union Navy's superiority at sea, raised Merrimack and rebuilt the hulk as an ironclad ram, according to a design prepared by naval constructor Lieutenant J. M. Brooke, CSN. Commissioned as CSS Virginia on February 17, 1862, the ironclad was one of a series of efforts -- including blockade runners and submersibles -- intended to whittle away at the effectiveness of the Union Navy's blockade of the Confederacy.

Despite an all-out effort to complete her, Virginia still had workmen on board when she sailed out into Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862. Supported by CSS Raleigh and Beaufort, and accompanied by Patrick Henry, Jamestown, and Teaser, the Confederate warships challenged the Union forces there. Flag Officer F. Buchanan, CSN, commanding Virginia, singled out as first victim the sailing sloop USS Cumberland, anchored west of Newport News, in part to test Virginia's armor against a 70-pounder (32 kg) rifle. In taking position Virginia passed USS Congress and exchanged broadsides, suffering no injury while causing considerable damage to the Union frigate. She crossed Cumberland's bows, raking her with a lethal fire, and finished off the wooden warship with a thrust of her iron ram to conserve scarce gunpowder. Cumberland sank with colors flying, taking 121 men (one third of her crew), and part of Virginia's ram down with her.

Virginia then turned her attention to Congress, which grounded while attempting to close. Opening fire from a distance, and assisted by the lighter ships of the James River Squadron, Virginia forced Congress to haul down her colors. As Beaufort and CSS Raleigh approached Congress to receive the surrender of her crew, Federal troops ashore, not understanding the situation, opened a withering fire and wounded Buchanan, who retaliated by ordering hot shot and incendiary shell fired into Congress. The latter, ablaze and unable to bring a single gun to bear, hauled down her flag for the last time. She burned far into the night and exploded about midnight.

Virginia did not emerge unscathed. Her riddled stack limited her speed -- and she was already slow to begin with -- two of her large guns were out of order, several armor plates were loose, and her ram had been lost in Cumberland. Nevertheless, the ironclad went on to attack Minnesota, but because of depth of water could not close the range to do that steam frigate serious damage. Virginia then turned back and anchored that night at Sewell's Point for repairs. Flag Officer Buchanan was taken ashore to the hospital and Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones, CSN, who had conned the ironclad after Buchanan had been wounded, assumed command.

On the following morning Virginia returned to battle. During the previous night, however, the Union ironclad Monitor had arrived in Hampton Roads after a hazardous trip from New York. The two warships fought a long, inconclusive battle on March 9 -- the first ever fought between powered ironclads -- and Virginia was forced to retire from the area.

On March 25, Flag Officer J. Tattnall, CSN, took command of Virginia and, with the ironclad as his flagship, sought to deny the James River to Union forces. Although the ironclad helped checkmate Union forces for the next several weeks, the Confederates eventually failed to prevent Federal landings at Yorktown or Union operations on the Peninsula. Forced to evacuate Norfolk, Virginia, the Confederates tried to take Virginia up the James River but her draft was too deep. The crew ran her ashore near Craney Island, fired and destroyed her on May 11, 1862.

Name confusion
The topic in question was mildly wrong in stating that the usage of Merrimack (with the 'K') was before the use of Merrimac (without the 'K'). It was the other way around, and I corrected it that way. For proof of that, I had uploaded period newspapers dated March 10-11, 1862, detailing the Battle of Hampton Roads, which refers to the Confederate vessel as the Merrimac, as well as links to official correspondence from that time. This can be found for viewing at the ironclad warships talk page. Carajou 00:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Retreat confusion
In this article, it states that the monitor retreated, but in the Battle of Hampton Roads article, it states that the virginia retreated. What gives? 134.253.26.10 21:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Both retreated: the Virginia landed a shot on the Monitor's pilot house that wounded the captain of the Monitor. The Monitor then backed off to assess the damage. This was interpreted as a retreat by the captain of the Virginia, who ordered his ship back to dock to restock on coal and gunpowder. Virginia's move was in turn interpreted as a retreat by the acting captain of the Monitor. --Carnildo 09:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I noticed that too - I think that if this can be sourced, this version of events should be included in all three articles - while the Victoria article is a bit more nuanced in its statement, the Monitor article and the Battle article outright contradict each other (I was coming here to post a comment about it!) Observer31 02:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

First ram in a thousand years
The article currently contains the phrase "they equipped her with a ram—the first ship so-equipped in over a thousand years", sourced to deKay, James, "Monitor", p. 131, Ballantine Books, 1997. While I don't doubt that deKay wrote that, it has to be poetic license. Galleys with rams where build and operated in the Mediterranean till long after 850. I would suggest to strike or at least weaken that - it is, of course, true that rams became very rare after the introduction of guns and in particular the full-fledged man of war. --Stephan Schulz 17:22, 9 May 2007 (UTC) To add a source: Björn Landström, "Skepped" (1961), reconstructs 16th century Galleasses (as used at Lepanto and even by the Armada) with massive rams. As for online sources, this shows a 16th century English Galeass with a ram. --Stephan Schulz 18:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Burning the USS Congress
Why would virginia burn the Congress after it surrendered unless crew had not finished disembarking? Also is that retaliation to shoot at people who surrendered? Ben5jaaan (talk) 15:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Answer to Burning the USS Congress
After the USS Congress struck her colors in surrender, Virginia continued to be fired upon from the Union batteries and marksmen ashore. Some accounts say small arms fire continued from aboard the Congress, too. This situation has been blamed by historians on "the fog and confusion of war. There was much bloody carnage and confusion aboard the frigate by that time. But in the heat of battle, this blatant violation of the accepted rules of surrender so infuriated the already wounded Commodore Buchanan, captain of the Virginia, that he immediately ordered hot-shot fired into to USS Congress in retaliation for this apparent deceit, setting her ablaze. No quarter was given and she burned all night as a result.

A similar situation happened to the famous Confederate commerce raider, the sloop-of-war CSS Alabama, following her surrender to the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Cherbourg, France. She had struck her colors in defeat, but as Alabama was slowly sinking, her guns were still run out and so appeared to be coming to bear on the Kearsarge. A half-dozen or more heavy Dahlgren cannon shells were fired into the stricken raider, until a hand-held white flag came fluttering from Alabama's stern spanker boom. That finally stopped the action. Please read my detailed description of this battle under Wiki's CSS Alabama entry for more details of this famous sea battle. --Ken Keller, 4 May, 2009

Design and Construction of the CSS Virginia
This provides a very sketchy and inaccurate description of the Virginia's design.

For one thing, it states that the Virginia's decks were protected by 4 inch thick iron. Not true. That is the armor protection on the sides of the casemate.

As for the decks, this is another key point that has been missed. The decks of the Virginia were unarmored. . . because they were supposed to be submerged under two feet of water. Here's what the Virginia's Chief Engineer had to say about the ship's design:

"Her charred upper works were cut away, and in the center a casement shield 180 feet long was built of pitch pine and oak, two feet thick. This was covered with iron plates, one to two inches thick and eight inches wide, bolted over each other and through and through the woodwork, giving a protective armor four inches in thickness. The shield sloped at an angle of almost thirty-six degrees and was covered with an iron grating that served as an upper deck. For fifty feet forward and aft her decks were submerged below the water, and the prow was shod with an iron beak to receive the impact when ramming." 

A much more detailed discussion of the submerged end can be found among the letters concerning the design on the Virginia, as recorded in the Southern Historical Society Papers. 

The submerged decks concept was novel and notable, and should be highlighted in the article. 67.181.60.83 (talk) 06:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Confederate "ironclad batteries"
'Throughout the war, the Confederacy built many ironclad steam-powered batteries'

Uh...maybe my knowledge of Civil War history is more deficient than I thought, but can anyone provide an example of such a vessel OTHER than CSS Virginia?

My understanding is that Virginia was only possible because (a) the hulk of a steam powered warship was available in the form of USS Merimac after the seizure of the Norfolk naval base by Confederate forces (if I'm not mistaken there were NO steam engine manufacturers in the Confederacy) and (b) the construction of a ship capable of challenging the Union blockade justified the diversion of the entire output of the Confederacy's sole iron foundry (in Richmond) to provide iron plate for the ship. It must be obvious that neither of these circumstances was conducive to the construction of "many" such vessels...and as I say, AFAIK the Virginia was one of a kind.

Also, note that the Virginia was intended primarily to defeat the Union blockade, not as a "floating battery". The Confederacy's entire strategy was predicated on exporting cotton to Europe and using the proceeds to purchase European armaments that it was unable to manufacture (see under no steam engine manufacturers and one iron foundry). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lexington50 (talk • contribs) 05:59, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Porter/Brooke's design of Virginia served as a model for Confederate "castemate" type ironclads. No, there was exact copy of CSS Virginia. However, CSS Tennessee, Albemarle, Palmetto State, etc. were all built along the same lines. --Gcal1971 (talk) 14:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * 1.	Battery or batteries most likely refers to, in this case, the “central battery” warship. These warships generally kept their guns in a single central armored box about amidships.  Most casemated ironclads, which is what most of the Confederate ironclads were, fall into this category.  Therefore, the term battery would be applicable to the ships built by the Confederacy


 * 2.	CSS Virginia was unique in the fact that it was built off of the raised hulk of a purpose-built warship, but it was not the only ironclad built by the Confederacy during the war. These were a mix of conversions, which used the engines and propulsion that were installed in the ship during civilian life and were armored and armed with whatever was available, or were purpose-built constructions, such as the Arkansas class, the Tennessee II class and CSS Albemarle.  The purpose-built ships were a mixed bunch, with some having rolled plate and steamship engines and others using railroad track and repurposed locomotive boilers.  But they were built, with about 17 completed during the war and about 10 more that were started but never completed.  IeShima (talk) 16:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Flags
Why is this section even here? It should be merged into whatever article covers Confederate flags.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:37, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm moving this flag stuff off the main page because I can't cite any of it. It really should be incorporated into the article on Confederate flags.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:12, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Jacks and commissioning pennants
Virginia's original seven-star naval jack (illustration, right) would have flown forward of her battle ensign at prescribed times. It could have flown at two possible locations on the ironclad: atop a tall, portable jackstaff located behind the bow's v-shaped cutwater or atop the tall flagstaff directly behind the conical-shaped pilot house on the casemate's upper deck (historic illustrations and accounts vary). Her original jack would have duplicated the circular seven-star arrangement seen on the square canton of Virginia's original battle ensign. (That 7-star ensign still survives today and is located in the flag collection of the Museum of the Confederacy). Her later 11-star naval jack would have also flown atop the ironclad's jackstaff, matching the circular star arrangement of Virginia's 11-star battle ensign. (That 11-star battle ensign also survives, less four of its stars, and today resides in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society).

All pre-1863 Confederate jacks were of a rectangular shape, rather than square, because the Confederate Navy emulated the overall designs being used by their U. S. Navy counterparts. There is one piece of evidence—the still surviving seven-star naval jack of the captured ironclad CSS Atlanta—that strongly suggests all early Confederate jacks were not a medium blue color but actually a dark blue, matching the color of the ensigns' cantons. Whatever shade of blue, later versions of Virginia's jack would have contained, like her ensign, 9, 11 and 13 white, 5-pointed stars, as additional Southern states seceded and joined the Confederacy during 1861.

Virginia's pre-1863 commissioning pennant would have closely followed the designs being used by the U. S. Navy. It would have been long and narrow and likely one of five approved sizes, being anywhere from 25 ft to 70 ft in their overall lengths. Several surviving drawings from the era show a much shortened pennant flying forward from Virginia's upper casemate flag staff. Because the ironclad was a new type of steam powered warship, without the usual tall masts, it is possible her pennant would have been much shorter, perhaps no longer than the maximum height of the ironclad's upper casemate flag staffs. The pennant's medium or possibly dark blue canton (hoist) could have been up to one-quarter of its overall fly (length). It would have carried from 7 to 13 white, 5-pointed white stars as the number of states in the Confederacy grew. The star pattern could have been staggered up and down or laid out in a single, horizonital row across the blue canton (historic accounts and drawings of pennants vary). The remaining portion of the long, narrow streamer would have been divided equally with two stripes, red-over-white (some accounts say white-over-red), with both stripes terminating in twin-forked points. A slightly modified third pennant variant with three long, horizontal red-over-white-over-red stripes, terminating in twin-forked points, was also used by the Confederate Navy before 1863.
 * Madaus, H. Michael, Rebel Flags Afloat: A Survey of the Surviving Flags of the Confederate States Navy, Revenue Service, and Merchant Marine, Winchester, MA, Flag Research Center, 1986. ISSN 0015-3370. (An 80-page special edition of "The Flag Bulletin, #115" covering all known surviving Confederate naval flags.)

Mary Louvestre notable?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2013/02/mil-130225-nns01.htm Somehow, Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles learned of the refitting of the Merrimack, which began in April 1861.


 * Is the spycraft worth noting here? Hcobb (talk) 14:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

redirects
CSS Virginia I and CSS Virginia 1 should redirect here -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 23:17, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

When was the "reconstruction as an ironclad" completed?
The article states that the salvage of the USS Merrimack was completed "by May 30" of 1861.

However, the section describing her reconstruction as an ironclad does not state any start or finish dates.

Since the Battle of Hampton Roads took place on March 8, 1862, I was curious if anyone knew how long and on what date the USS Merrimack's reconstruction was completed? Or, if anyone knew on what date the former USS Merrimack was christened the CSS Virginia?

Thank you for your time and consideration. Jensenr629 (talk) 00:56, 31 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Jensenr629 (talk) 01:27, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * According to what Carnildo wrote in the section titled (ironically?) "Untitled":
 * The USS Merrimack was "[c]ommissioned as CSS Virginia on February 17, 1862." Unfortunately, the link that Carnildo cited in 2004 has gone stale, so "further study is required."


 * Carnildo goes on to state that: "Despite an all-out effort to complete her, Virginia still had workmen on board when she sailed out into Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862." So, apparently, CSS Virginia's reconstruction was never actually "completed."


 * The Internet Archive has a copy of the page at, while the current DANFS has merged it into the page on the Merrimack. Both list February 17, 1862, as the date of commissioning.  Based on what I've read in various places, the Virginia was never really completed -- there were perpetual difficulties with the steering gear and the steam engines, both damaged in the initial sinking. --Carnildo (talk) 03:46, 7 February 2015 (UTC)


 * --Thank you, Carnildo. I appreciate your assistance and your efforts. --Jensenr629 (talk) 03:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Location/Status of the Naval Ensign?
The Destruction sections says that the ensign still exists and is at the Chicago History Museum but it doesn't look like there's a source for this and I can't find a reference that it's there; can anyone confirm/source this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SacrovirTheGaul (talk • contribs) 21:19, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

After reaching out to the Chicago History Museum, a collection manager told me there is no documentation of the flag in their collection, and that if it was there in the past there is no record of it. I think this statement in the article is an error. --SacrovirTheGaul (talk) 00:31, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

source needed
The article mentions an 1867 classified ad in the Norfolk Virginian regarding the ship's ram, but no source is provided. Can someone provide supporting evidence for this important (IMO) piece of information? Elsquared67 (talk) 21:28, 2 January 2024 (UTC)