9 March 1862

The first battle of ironclad ships.

Lots of interesting stuff today, but I decided to highlight the Monitor and the Merrimac, because it was probably the most significant thing.

These two ships met off Hampton Roads, Virginia, and fought an inconclusive battle, but one that forever changed naval warfare. The Merrimac had been doing some damage to Union ships and was far larger and more heavily armed than the Monitor, which had been built specifically to stop the Merrimac. After many hours of close fighting, the Merrimac withdrew, but neither ship was really damaged. Neither ship had much of an impact on the war as a whole - the Merrimac was scuttled when the Confederacy withdrew from Norfolk, while the Monitor was lost in a storm off Cape Hatteras. But the fact that these ships proved that ironclad ships were viable meant that the age of wooden ships was effectively over. They lasted a while, of course, but were dinosaurs from this date on.