The rest were saved from certain destruction on the second day by the appearance of the Federal ironclad Monitor. On the first day of fighting, the Virginia handily dispatched two wooden Union vessels. In March 1862, in Hampton Roads, Va., the brand-new ironclad set out to destroy the entire Union blockading squadron. Although slow and able to operate only in deep water, the Virginia proved a resounding success. The first Confederate attempt was the CSS Virginia, a conversion of the Union frigate Merrimack that had been burned at Gosport Navy Yard when Union forces abandoned the Norfolk, Va., area.
With its limited shipbuilding capacity, the Confederate navy found it more advantageous to build a few impregnable warships to combat the numerically superior Union navy. The Confederacy concluded in June 1861 that ironclad warships would best suit its needs. The Civil War clearly demonstrated the superiority of ironclads and revolutionized naval warfare. Attempts to armor war vessels had been made during the 300 years prior to the American Civil War, but it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that steam-powered warships and the development of large-caliber rifled cannons made armoring practical and indeed necessary.
Other names for these ships include rams, armorclads, iron gophers, iron elephants, iron coffins, turtle-backs, and mud-crushers. Ironclads were warships designed to be impervious to enemy shot and shell by virtue of their iron-armored wooden hulls. See also: Albemarle, CSS Neuse, CSS North Carolina, CSS Raleigh, CSS Wilmington, CSS.
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