2 Comments on “Where did the hull of the CSS Virginia come from?”

1. gummibears06
   November 12th, 2007 at 8:52 am

   DUH!!! THE MERRIMACK OF COURSE!!!!! but….The name of the warship which served the Confederacy in the famous Battle of Hampton Roads has become a source of confusion, which continues to the present day.

   She was commissioned by the Confederacy as Virginia. However, even after she was rebuilt, the Union preferred to call the Confederate ironclad warship by her earlier name, Merrimack. Perhaps because the Union won the US Civil War, the history of the United States generally records the Union version. However, in an apparent quirk in history, at some later time, the name commonly used was shortened to drop the final “-k”, hence “the Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack
   When the Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, one of the important federal military bases threatened was Gosport Shipyard (now Norfolk Naval Shipyard) in Portsmouth, Virginia. Accordingly, the order was sent to destroy the base rather than allow it to fall into Confederate hands. Unfortunately for the Union, these orders were bungled. The steam frigate USS Merrimack sank before it completely burned. When the Confederates entered the yard, they raised the Merrimack and decided to use the engines and hull to build an ironclad ram.

   This new ship was named Virginia. It had an iron deck and casement, four inches (102 mm) thick. It mounted ten cannons, one in front and rear and four on each side. Further, the designers of the Virginia had heard of plans by the North to build an ironclad. Figuring that cannon would be unable to harm such a ship, and to conserve gunpowder, they equipped the Virginia with a ram—the first ship so-equipped in over a thousand yearsThe Merrimack’s engines, now part of the Virginia, had not been in good working order, and the salty Elizabeth River water did not help it very much. The addition of a number of tons of iron did not improve the situation.

2. parrotjohn2001
   November 14th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

   The steam frigate USS Merrimack sank before it completely burned. When the Confederates entered the yard, they raised the Merrimack and decided to use the engines and hull to build an ironclad ram.

   This new ship was named Virginia. It had an iron deck and casement, four inches (102 mm) thick. It mounted ten cannons, one in front and rear and four on each side

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