Civil War Ironclad Duel Forever Changed Naval Warfare

Black smoke billowed from the stack of the odd shaped vessel steaming full speed across the waters off Newport News, Virginia on the morning of March 8, 1862. The strange intruder was the 10-gun Confederate States Ship (CSS) Virginia. It was heading straight for the wooden hulled Union warships blockading the Virginia coast.

The ensuing battle began one of the greatest naval dramas of the century which later became known as "The Battle of Hampton Roads." It ended in a duel between two of the first Civil War ironclads ever built and changed forever the nature of naval warfare.

On the Virginia, tensions ran high as the ironclad neared the Union blockade. It was the crew's first fight aboard an ironclad, and no one knew what to expect.

The Virginia's captain, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, singled out the 24-gun USS Cumberland for the ironclad's first attack. He opened fire on the Cumberland from less than a mile. Firing grew more intense as he maneuvered the Virginia on a course set to ram the Cumberland.

Morale soared and tension dissipated aboard the Virginia once her crew realized that the ironclad's thick metal plates were easily deflecting every projectile that hit their ship.

Union sailors aboard the Cumberland stared in astonishment as cannonballs, which should have knocked gaping holes in the Virginia, ricocheted harmlessly off her slanted casemate.

Astonishment quickly turned to terror as the Cumberland's crew realized that the Confederate ironclad was about to ram them, and there was nothing they could do.

Splinters flew as the Virginia's iron ram crashed through the thick wooden hull of the Cumberland, splitting the Union warship below the water line.

When Buchanan ordered the Virginia to reverse to extract her ram, it broke off, and water began leaking into the ironclad.

Water rushed through the hole in the hull of the Cumberland. She immediately began to sink.

Although sinking rapidly, the Cumberland's crew heroically continued firing their big guns at the Virginia, abandoning ship only when the water reached their cannons.

By the end of the day, the Confederate ironclad had reeked havoc on the federal blockaders. She had rammed and destroyed the 24-gun USS Cumberland and had sunk the 50-gun USS Congress. Several other federal vessels, including the USS Roanoke and USS Minnesota, had suffered severe damage after running aground in efforts to avoid the Virginia.

Cheese Box On A Raft

At sunset, Buchanan extracted the victorious Virginia from the fight and set course to Sewell's Point. It was his intention to return the next morning and finish off the grounded Minnesota.

As the Virginia was retiring, another strange shaped ironclad made an appearance on the horizon. This one was described as looking like a "cheese box on a raft."

It was the USS Monitor.

Chaos greeted the Monitor and her crew as she arrived on the scene of the Hampton Roads engagement. The evening sky was a patchwork of crimson and black created by the exploding magazines and burning hull of the USS Congress.

The Monitor had been hastily built as a Union response to news that the Confederates were developing an ironclad warship at Norfolk from the salvaged hull of the scuttled USS Merrimack.

A 3,200-ton steam frigate, the Merrimack had been partially burned and sunk by Union forces on April 12, 1861 as they were evacuating Grosport Navy Yard (modern-day Portsmouth) near Norfolk, Virginia.

Confederates raised the Merrimack the following month and placed her in dry dock. They began

work on converting her into an ironclad in July based on a design of John M. Brooke and John L. Porter.

The conversion of the USS Merrimack was completed on February 13, 1862. She was commissioned the CSS Virginia on February 17.

Although christened the Virginia, Northerners not knowing her new name continued to call her the Merrimack as did many Southern Naval officers who remembered her from her days as an old wooden frigate.

Throughout conversion, the Virginia suffered many production problems, one of which was severe shortage of resources. Right up until the night before the Virginia's first battle on March 8, her officers found themselves desperately trying to secure enough powder for her guns.

No such problems existed for the Monitor. The federal government had plenty of resources. The Monitor had steamed out of the Brooklyn Naval Yard in New York under command of U.S. Navy Lt. John L. Worden whose specific orders were to find and destroy the Virginia.

Early the next morning (on March 9), Buchanan ordered the Virginia back to "Hampton Roads." His intentions were to finish off the grounded USS Minnesota and then to take on any other Union ship he could catch.

Buchanan's plans were spoiled, however, when he found the ironclad Monitor waiting for him near the Minnesota.

Curious Cases Of Mutual Misrepresentation

The two gunboats met cannons blazing in the first duel ever between ironclads. Circling the Virginia, the much smaller and more maneuverable Monitor moved about at will peppering the Confederate ironclad with shot.

Buchanan was having trouble steering the Virginia. Leaks caused by the loss of her ram made the ironclad respond sluggishly. Her smokestacks were so perforated with holes that it was difficult to get the draft needed to keep up sufficient steam. She was also having trouble hitting the Monitor because of the Union ironclad's smaller size and maneuverability.

After several hours of ineffectual fighting, one of the Virginia's guns finally hit the Monitor's pilothouse squarely. Shrapnel from the exploding shell blinded the Monitor's captain, who had been squinting through the peephole in the pilothouse. He had to be carried below deck.

The exploding shell had effectively disoriented the crew of the Monitor, throwing them into chaos. The federal ironclad drifted without pilot into shallow shoals for over a half-hour before the second in command could reorganize the crew and get the ironclad back into action.

Buchanan, unable to follow the Monitor into the shallow water and thinking that the Monitor was retreating from the fight, set the Virginia on a course back to Norfolk.

As the Virginia turned to leave, the Monitor's new captain maneuvered the Union ironclad out of the shallows to re-enter the fight.

When the Monitor's crew saw the Virginia steaming away, they cheered thinking they had won the battle.

As fate would have it, the first fight ever between two ironclads ended with the crews of both ships thinking they had won. This misunderstanding led to what historians have categorized as "one of history's curious cases of mutual misrepresentation."

The Virginia and the Monitor never met in combat again.

The Monitor returned north to Washington, D.C. for repairs. Her crew was given a hero's welcome, and she became a brief tourist attraction where the curious gathered to see this legendary ironclad.

She returned to the Norfolk-Portsmouth area and continued to participate in the blockade, effectively keeping the ironclad Virginia in check.

On May 11, 1862, the Confederates were forced to scuttle the Virginia near Craney Island to prevent the ironclad from being captured by Union troops advancing on Norfolk and Portsmouth. Rebel naval

officials had been for weeks anticipating the federal attack on Grosport Navy Yard and had already secretly removed all of Gosport's shipbuilding material and essential machinery to a newly established inland naval yard at Charlotte, North Carolina.

A few days after the Virginia was scuttled, the Monitor played a small role in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff on the James River between federal ships and Confederate shore batteries.

On December 29, 1862, the Monitor left under orders to proceed south to Beaufort, N.C. for blockade duty.

On her second night out, she encountered a fierce storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and sank in 230 feet of water. Sixteen crewmembers drowned while trying to get into lifeboats.

Although neither the Virginia nor Monitor went down as a result of battle, they both proved something to the world. The Virginia had clearly demonstrated that no wooden ship could stand a chance against an iron ship, and the Monitor proved that only an iron ship could stop an iron ship.

"No More" Wooden War Ships

Prior to the Civil War, ironclad ships had shelled land fortifications but none had ever fought each other. The world witnessed in awe the historic battle between the two Civil War ironclads.

Just two days after the news of the battle arrived in England, the British admiralty declared that no more wooden war ships would be built. England, they declared, would have an ironclad navy.

When war between the States broke out in April 1861, Stephen R. Mallory, Secretary of the Confederate Navy, was convinced that the rebel navy could offset the much superior strength of the Union Navy through the construction and employment of "floating batteries" (the ironclad warships).

Although Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a former Army officer, showed very little interest in the Navy or its operations, Mallory managed to put together a "formidable" ship building program, much of it eventually centering around the construction of ironclads.

The French at Sevastopol originated the concept of "floating batteries" in 1854 when they introduced the idea of shielding their wooden ships with thick metal plates attached on an incline to all areas exposed above the water line.

French naval architect Stanislas Dupuy de Lome, who devised a method that was later used by both France and England in converting sailing ships to steamers, built the first seagoing ironclad warship in 1858. Christened the "Gloire," her hull was plated above water from stem to stern with iron backed by wood.

The advantage of "inclined" armor was that it would deflect enemy shells, directing their kinetic energy upward rather than fully against the side of the ship. Nearly all the ironclads of the Civil War were built following this pattern.

In some cases, the armor on the ironclads was coated with lard or tallow grease in an attempt to further deflect shot. The effectiveness of this practice was never clearly determined.

In the Civil War sense, ironclads could be defined as armor plated steam-propelled vessels fitted with heavy guns and built to sail low in the water offering as small a target as possible.

In some cases, the bows of ironclads were reinforced to serve as rams capable of crashing through the wooden hulls of enemy ships.

At the beginning of the war, the Confederacy's ironclads were built near large ports such as Portsmouth, New Orleans or Mobile.

After the spring of 1862, four out of five ships built in the Confederacy fell into the category of ironclad.

As the Union began to retake the ports along the coast of the Confederate states, rebel shipbuilders were forced to construct their ironclads inland along navigable streams and rivers.

For the South, raw materials such as iron became scarce after the federals occupied the rich ore fields in Tennessee and Kentucky. This severely hampered Mallory's shipbuilding efforts.

Construction was also hindered because what little iron was available for the ironclads was often

delayed in transport by Southern railroads tied up moving troops and supplies for the Army.

Interestingly, the South's first ironclad to see action was not the Virginia but an odd little turtleback christened as the Manassas. She went into action on October 12, 1861 below New Orleans.

The Manassas was a powerful steam tug which some say was an icebreaker that had been converted by a private concern for use as a privateer. The Confederate Navy confiscated the little turtleback in 1861.

Sporting a powerful ram, the Manassas successfully attacked Union ships blockading New Orleans and was finally destroyed while attacking Farragut's Fleet as it ran up toward New Orleans.

The CSS Albemarle

Another famous Confederate ironclad was the Albemarle, built upriver in eastern North Carolina in William Ruffin Smith, Jr's cornfield on the edge of the Roanoke River near Scotland Neck. The cornfield soon became known as Edwards Ferry Shipyard, because of its close proximity to a river crossing called Edwards Ferry.

The CSS Albemarle was commissioned on Sunday, April 17, 1864.

Her captain, Commander James W. Cooke, was ordered to immediately begin her trek downstream. Cooke, who previously held the responsibility of overseeing the construction of ironclads built in North Carolina, had been appointed as her captain in January.

Despite the fact that the Union Navy command in New Bern had been warned by spies that the Albemarle was on her way downstream, Cooke managed to successfully maneuver around Union-laid obstacles including a gauntlet of sunken hulls, pilings, torpedoes and cannon shot.

Two days after leaving the Edwards Ferry yard, the ironclad Albemarle, with her tender ship the Cotton Patch following close behind, arrived offshore of Plymouth.

At 4:07 a.m. on April 19, Cooke ordered the Albemarle's gun crew to load solid shot and standby. Through the misty twilight he had spotted two approaching Union vessels.

As the enemy grew closer he could see that the two ships were linked together with "hawsers and chains."

It quickly became obvious that the Union captains planned to snare the Albemarle with their chains trapping her between their vessels so the ironclad could be boarded and possibly captured.

Cooke ordered the Albemarle "all ahead full," sending the 376-ton ironclad straight for the space between the bows of wooden hulled Union vessels.

Heavy guns from the two Union ships, the USS Southfield and USS Miami, pounded the Albemarle with shot.

In a few seconds, the Albemarle had traversed the river, feinted at the last moment and rammed the Southfield hard at her port bow.

The Albemarle's ram crashed 10 feet inside the Southfield's hull, causing the Union ship to start sinking immediately. The Southfield suddenly listed to starboard, causing the Albemarle's bow to become jammed in the hull.

Cooke ordered "all astern full," hoping that full reverse thrust would relieve the Albemarle's bow and ram from the sinking Southfield.

To his horror, the Albemarle's ram remained stuck.

The ironclad began to sink with the Southfield, her bow depressed under the sinking ship. The Albemarle's forward deck was depressed so low that water rushed into her forward port.

Crewmen on the Southfield were abandoning ship. Some were attempting to lower small boats. Others were leaping into the chilly water.

A Fatal Mistake

The normally quiet morning twilight was filled with un-muffled shouts, screams and curses of Union sailors abandoning ship.

With the Albemarle stuck fast to the Southfield, the Miami's Captain, Lt. Commander Charles W. Flusser (also the Senior U.S. naval officer at Plymouth) ordered several broadsides fired into the ironclad's port casemate.

The shots ricocheted off the iron plates of the Albemarle, careening harmlessly into the water.

Flusser became enraged.

He jumped behind the Miami's bow-mounted XI-inch Dahlgren cannon, and personally fired the big gun pointblank at the Albemarle from a range of about 30 feet.

The shell slammed into the ironclad's casemate, ricocheting back and exploding directly over Flusser, killing him instantly and wounding several of the gun crew.

Cooke, still unable to use the big guns of the Albemarle because of her unfortunate predicament of being stuck to the Southfield, ordered his crew to climb to the top of the casemate where they engaged the Miami's crew in a brief but brisk small arms skirmish.

Finally, the Southfield's hull hit the bottom of the river. She rolled slightly, releasing her death grip on the Albemarle.

Cooke quickly reversed out and maneuvered the Albemarle for an attack on the Miami.

The Miami, however wanted no more of the Albemarle. She reversed her engines, then retreated at full speed.

By 5:11 a.m., as the sun began to cast rays over the waters of the Roanoke River at Plymouth, the Albemarle's first battle was over. She had suffered only one casualty - a crewmember identified only as "Harris." That unlucky Confederate received a pistol shot from a sailor on the Miami when he succumbed to curiosity and took a peek out of one the ironclad's gun ports.

Cooke navigated the victorious Albemarle to a point one mile below Plymouth where he dropped anchor and allowed the crew to recover and prepare their ship for another battle.

His "iron sharpshooter battery" and tender ship, the Cotton Plant, which had remained above Plymouth while the Albemarle engaged the enemy, was now anchored close by the ironclad.

Retaking Plymouth

Having now established control of the Roanoke, the Albemarle began sporadically firing her two 6.4 rifles at Union targets in and around occupied Plymouth.

On the morning of the 20th, Cooke steamed the Albemarle to the banks of the river at Plymouth in support of Confederate ground troops who were attacking Union forces stationed there at Fort Williams. Anchoring off Jefferson Street, The Albemarle's crew began shelling the fort.

By 10 a.m., the Union had surrendered Plymouth back to the Confederates, and the Albemarle was basking in another victory.

On May 5, the Albemarle, accompanied by the Cotton Plant and the newly acquired CSS Bombshell (formerly the USS Bombshell), entered Albemarle Sound with intentions of heading to New Bern to support a planned Confederate attack against the Union forces occupying the town.

As Cooke's flotilla of three entered the sound, he spotted dead ahead Union picket vessels that had been guarding the mouth of the river — the U.S. warships Ceres, Commodore Hull, Whitehead and and the transport Ida May.

The unexpected arrival of the Albemarle caused the Union captains to cancel their mission of laying torpedoes across the river. They quickly withdrew while sending the Ida May, their fastest vessel, for help.

Cooke pursued the retreating vessels for nearly 10 miles until he encountered four large Union gunboats - the USS Miami, USS Mattabesett, USS Sassacus and USS Wyalusing. Realizing that a very unequal battle was about to take place, he hoisted flags ordering the Cotton Plant and Bombshell to turn about and head back to the Roanoke.

At 4:40 p.m., the seven Union gunboats had combined forces and were bearing down on the Albemarle. They had orders to steam past the ironclad in two columns, blasting her "at every opportunity."

The Bombshell, which had been slow about retreating, was caught in the encounter.

For the next three hours, the Albemarle and the Bombshell were surrounded by gunboats firing into them at close range. Both ships became completely engulfed in thick white smoke from the cannon fire. The Bombshell was finally disabled and her crew captured. The Albemarle was rammed once and hit by shells over 44 times.

With the Union warships continuously circling and firing on the Albemarle, Cooke finally ordered her set on a course back to the Roanoke. He had lost nearly all steam pressure, and his speed had dwindled to about five knots.

Luckily, with darkness coming on, the Union fleet drew weary of attacking the ironclad, believing her to be "impervious to damage." The wounded Albemarle was finally able to escape west to the Roanoke and back to Plymouth.

Five days later, Southern loyalist Catherine Ann Edmondston wrote in her journal about the Albemarle's heroic battle on the sound:

"Captain Cooke has had a severe fight with Yankee gunboats in Albemarle Sound. His smokestack was so riddled with shot that he could not burn coal & but for a supply of lard & bacon he would have been taken. He kept up his fires with these, however. Sunk two steamers & fought his way back to Plymouth with one gun disabled & her smokestack with holes in it through which a man might creep. He lost his new tender, the Bombshell. She was sunk & her crew captured. Ten men were killed on the deck of the Albemarle. She engaged 11 boats at once & escaped them all. They threw a net made of rope over her but the ropes which held it to the steamers parting, it fell harmless off her sides into the water. For her preservation, God be thanked."

In actuality, the combined assault on the Albemarle consisted of seven Union gunboats. The damage inflicted on the Union ships by the Albemarle included four Union crewmen killed, 25 wounded, one gunboat completely disabled and three others seriously damaged.

After-battle reports from the Union vessels indicated that a combined total of 60 guns had fired 557 various types of shot and shell at the Albemarle.

The two-gun Albemarle had fired 27 shells at the Union ships.

A Daring Night Raid

On May 12, Cooke was ordered to withdraw the Albemarle from Plymouth to a safer point upriver. The enemy meanwhile became busily engaged in reconnaissance, looking for the Albemarle.

Their objective was to destroy her at all costs.

U. S. Navy Lieutenant William B. Cushing finally achieved the deed on October 28, 1864 with a small launch and a crew of 14 handpicked men.

Cushing in a daring night raid breached Confederate lines and crashed his small steam-powered launch over a log boom that was protecting the Albemarle. Within seconds, he had shoved a torpedo extended on a 10-15 foot poll under the Albemarle's hull and set it off.

The blast, along with a simultaneous blast of a cannon fired from inside the Albemarle, killed a number of Cushing's crew. He escaped by leaping into the cold water and swimming downstream.

Mortally wounded, the Albemarle sank.

The only reported casualty of the Albemarle's crew of 66 was acting Master's Mate James Charles Hill. When the torpedo exploded, he sustained severe injuries from a hatchway falling on him as he slept.

Probably the youngest member of the Albemarle crew was Benjamin H. Gray, a 12-year old black youth who had enlisted as "powder boy" when Cooke was recruiting his crew. Gray served in combat aboard the Albemarle six months until Cushing's torpedo sank the gunboat.

After the war, the famous Confederate ironclad Albemarle was raised, taken north and sold for scrap.

A Hero From Beaufort

Cooke was a native of North Carolina, born in Beaufort in 1812.

At age 16, he received an appointment to the U.S. Navy and entered training as midshipman on the USS Guerierre in 1828.

In 13 years he rose to the rank of Lieutenant.

Twenty years later in May of 1861, Cooke resigned his commission in the United States Navy to join the Confederate Navy.

In the fall of 1861, Cooke was appointed official liaison between North Carolina contractors and the Confederate Navy Department. Soon after, he was promoted to the rank Commander.

Cooke was assigned responsibility of overseeing the building of three armored floating batteries, the CSS Albemarle at Edwards Ferry, the CSS Neuse at Whitehall (Seven Springs) on the Neuse River and an unnamed ironclad at Tarboro.

In the capacity of overseer, Cooke found himself traveling around North Carolina coordinating the building of ironclads and attempting to locate boat-building materials including iron for plating the gunboats.

Iron from the railroads became a primary source.

Cooke, for example, managed to secure through negotiations with the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad Company the railroad tracks that ran between Kinston and New Bern. These tracks had become of no use to the Confederates because New Bern had fallen into the hands of Union forces.

North Carolina Governor Zebulon Vance agreed for the railroad iron to be taken and shipped to either Richmond, Virginia or Atlanta, Georgia to be rolled into plate under the stipulation that it be used for the defense of the state.

In particular, the governor noted that the railroad iron should be used on the ironclads being built inland on the Neuse and the Roanoke.

Propellers and propeller shafts for the ironclads were fabricated in the Confederate Navy yard at Charlotte. Steam engines were obtained wherever they could be found.

Although no one knows for sure, some people claim the engine for the Albemarle was converted from "a large saw mill."

The Neuse is said to have taken her boiler from a steam locomotive "probably" from the Baltimore and Ohio No. 34, and her engine from a saw mill in New Bern.

Fatal Delays

In all, the construction of naval vessels in North Carolina, particularly inland on the Neuse and Roanoke Rivers, was greatly retarded by difficulty in obtaining iron for plating. Both the Albemarle and the Neuse suffered long delays in construction because of the shortage.

In the case of the CSS Neuse, these delays were fatal. And although construction of the Neuse had begun at the same time as the Albemarle, the shipbuilders at Whitehall on the Neuse River had to dodge Union troops who were constantly passing through the little town.

Finally in November of 1863, the unobtrusive wooden vessel was cautiously slipped from her stocks and pulled about 100 yards on long rollers into the river. Her hull, made water tight with oakum (cotton soaked in tar) and pitch, was polled 18 miles downstream to the Confederate "naval station" at Kinston for transformation into an ironclad.

When the Neuse finally arrival in Kinston, she was moored near the foot of Caswell Street. Later, the ship was pulled down river about 100 yards to the foot of King Street in deeper water at a place locals called "cat hole."

The banks adjacent to the cat hole were steep, which allowed the ship's machinery, engines, cannons and iron plating to be easily lowered onto the hull from the riverbank.

During the time the ironclad was being fitted, Lt. William Sharp was in command of the ship. His primary responsibility was to obtain iron so that the vessel could be made ready for service.

Completion of the ironclad was greatly delayed while contractors waited for the arrival of the necessary iron plating.

Finally in April of 1864, the CSS Neuse was completed. She had a new captain assigned and was ready for action.

Lieutenant Benjamin Loyall, the new captain, ordered the ironclad's engines started on the afternoon of April 22, 1864 for her maiden run down the Neuse River to take on the Yankees at New Bern.

After traveling only half a mile, the Neuse grounded fast on a sandbar. The crew worked frantically to set her free, but the river continued to fall rapidly. Over the next four days, it had dropped seven feet.

Finally in late May, a sudden shower allowed the Neuse to break free and return to her mooring at old cat hole.

The crew, still anxious to move their new ironclad down to New Bern to engage the enemy, waited impatiently for the river to rise.

The Ram Neuse was now facing a new delay. Much needed troops for ground support had been called up to Virginia by General Robert E. Lee to counter Union General Ulysses S. Grant's troop buildup.

Without ground support, the possibility of the ironclad seeing action any time soon loomed further and further away. A soldier in Kinston wrote in his journal about the ironclad's delimma:

" . . . It is a great misfortune that we have managed so badly without the boat at Kinston. Could it have been completed a month ago and carried down the river . . . and the Albemarle come up the river, we would have had easy work taking New Bern and very probably saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of valuable lives."

On August 24, the Neuse's Commander, Lt. Loyall, received orders to report for duty on the Patrick Henry at Richmond. On the same day, Lt. Commander Joseph H. Price was assigned as the new captain of the ironclad Neuse.

By November, the river had risen sufficiently to allow the ironclad to descend. However, because there were still no ground troops, the gunboat was forced to remain idle until March of the following year.

Before Captain Price could get the Ram Neuse into service, Union troops had advanced within five miles of Kinston and were engaged in the Battle of Southwest Creek. Price realized his chances of safely journeying 60 miles to New Bern were hopeless.

After shelling the Union troops with grape and canister shot from the cannons of the Neuse, Commander Price ordered his men to place a charge under the bow and to set fire to the ship to prevent capture by the Union.

The explosion blew an eight-foot hole in the port side, and the Neuse settled uncermoniously into the murky depths of the river.

The Gunboat Lives On

Called "the Gunboat" by the local people, the Neuse remained undisturbed for 96 years and provided a favorite swimming hole for youngsters until raised in the spring of 1963.

Today, what is left of the CSS Neuse is cradled in a shed at the Caswell-Neuse Historic Site on Highway 70 Business in Kinston where she and a historic museum provide a favorite eastern North Carolina tourist attraction.

The Neuse is one of three ironclads from the Civil War on display in the nation, and it is deteriorating because of lack of proper shelter.

Bradley Rodgers, a conservation specialist at East Carolina University in Greenville, confirmed recently that the Neuse is in danger of being destroyed.

"The ship will rot. It will definitely go away if nothing is done," Rodgers said.

North Carolina State officials are preparing to move the gunboat from its current flood prone cradle in the Caswell park swamp to a higher location on the site.

These officials have come under fire by some in the community for their "half-heartedness" in saving the old gunboat. State officials have so far refused to commit to providing a proper "climate controlled" facility to house the relic.

Also, a committee of Seven Springs concerned citizens has recently offered to provide the land and raise money for such a facility if the State will agree to move the relic back to Seven Springs.

Over $5.9 million is being used to restore and protect the ironclad USS Cairo on display in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and $10 million has been allocated for a facility to house the ironclad CSS Jackson on display in Columbus, Georgia.

During the Civil War, the Union began construction of 76 ironclads, commissioning 42 of them before May 1, 1865.

On the Confederate side, 59 ironclads were begun, and only 24 were completed.

Of six ironclads begun in North Carolina, four were commissioned.

Very few Civil War ironclads were sunk by gunfire. Being destroyed to prevent capture by Union forces was the normal fate for Confederate ironclads. Of the total of 66 ironclads on both sides combined, only 12 were actually sunk by the enemy in battle.

Sources for this story include CSS Neuse A Question Of Iron And Time by Leslie S. Bright, William H. Rowland and James C. Bardon; Ironclad Of The Roanoke by Robert G. Elliott; Internet resources; and Heritage Place, Lenoir Community College.