CSS Virginia
Channel: all the knowledge of the universe PRINCIPIA
Date: 2021-12-09

CSS Virginia, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5933 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Ironclad_warships_of_the_Confederate_States_Navy
#Shipwrecks_of_the_Virginia_coast
#Ships_built_in_Newport_News,_Virginia
#Battle_of_Hampton_Roads
#1862_ships
#Maritime_incidents_in_May_1862
#Shipwrecks_of_the_American_Civil_War
#Scuttled_vessels
#Naval_magazine_explosions
CSS Virginia was the first steam-powered ironclad warship built by the Confederate States Navy during the first year of the American Civil War; she
was constructed as a casemate ironclad using the raised and cut down original lower hull and engines of the scuttled steam frigate USS Merrimack.
Virginia was one of the participants in the Battle of Hampton Roads, opposing the Union's USS Monitor in March 1862.
The battle is chiefly significant in naval history as the first battle between ironclads.
When the Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, one of the important federal military bases threatened was Gosport Navy Yard （now Norfolk Naval Shipyard） in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Accordingly, orders were sent to destroy the base rather than allow it to fall into Confederate hands.
On the afternoon of 17 April, the day Virginia seceded, Engineer in Chief B. F. Isherwood managed to get the frigate's engines lit.
However, the previous night secessionists had sunk light boats between Craney Island and Sewell's Point, blocking the channel.
On 20 April, before evacuating the Navy Yard, the U. S. Navy burned Merrimack to the waterline and sank her to preclude capture.
When the Confederate government took possession of the fully provisioned yard, the base's new commander, Flag Officer French Forrest, contracted on May 18 to salvage the wreck of the frigate.
This was completed by May 30, and she was towed into the shipyard's only dry dock, （today known as Drydock Number One）, where the burned structures were removed.
The wreck was surveyed and her lower hull and machinery were discovered to be undamaged.
Stephen M...