Happy 150th, CSS Arkansas!

The Vicksburg Transportation Museum had its Grand Opening on the 15th. Part of the celebrations was a salute fired in memory of the men who served on the Arkansas. The museum houses a large collection of WBTS model ships, a model diorama of the assault on the defenses at Vicksburg as well as other historical ships and ways of transportation used in Mississippi's history. I commanded the Mississippi Division SCV Color Guard and participated in the firing of the salute to those brave men.
 
As a child, all the texts book speak of that first iron-clad battle as between the Monitor and Merrimack, not Virginia. Gosh- THOSE books were ancient even then and must have been written a lot of years closer to the end of the war than you'd think. I only untangled that recently, in point of fact, thought it was the other way around.

The name "Merrimack" has stuck for a number of reasons... One may simply be the alliteration of Monitor and Merrimack. Another is that a lot of the naval history has an inherent Northern bias, because the Union Navy was so much larger than the Confederate Navy, and because most (fortunately not all) of the Confederate naval records were lost at Richmond at the end of the war.

But an important third reason was that the name Virginia was not too widely known or used at the time. I'm not precisely sure when the name was first applied to the converted ironclad, but Southern sources consistently refer to the vessel as "Merrimac" throughout her conversion process, and John Mercer Brooke, one of her designers, often continued to refer to her as "Merrimac" even after she was technically the Virginia.

Virginia is clearly most correct when referring to the operational Confederate ironclad, but the use of Merrimack and Merrimac are entirely understandable due to these various considerations. John V. Quarstein, in his books about Hampton Roads, calls her the Virginia when writing from a Southern point of view, the Merrimack when from a Union point of view, and uses whatever the people used at the time (often Merrimac) when quoting the originals directly.

My rule is to call her the Virginia whenever she's mentioned as actively operating under the Confederate flag, and to use "CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack)" if I feel there's a possibility of confusion.
 
Interesting, thank you! Yes, I'm thinking the fact that in our history poor culture, you can still say ' The Monitor and Merrimac ' to a middle schooler and they'll at least know what you're speaking of may have something to so with alliteration. The teachers do what they can, astonishingly leave this stuff stored in young heads somewhere and I'm certain it's been helpful having the 'M's glued together like that.

I see on the above post the CSS Arkansas was just honored by the Vicksburg Transportation Museum. There's a way of keeping the CW Naval history alive- you wonder how many people who never heard of an ironcled will get their first experience because of some exhibit like that. I just this week bumped into Yates County, NY, historical society ( family from there ). There's a photo of USS Carundolet ( sp? ) along with a story on one of the county's men who served on her. It just seems so many of these little places are doing a wonderful job of commemorating both Navies, although it sounds like it's tougher to get information on the CSS side of things. I hadn't known that about losing all the records at Richmond- what a terrible loss to history!
 
The name Virginia was only assigned on February 17, less than three weeks before the battle, almost an afterthought - what good rebel wanted to steam into battle on a ship named for a river in Massachusetts?
What Northerner would? haha. No offense to my Mass. Compadres. :wink:
I had started a previous thread about the Merrimack...er....Virginia and I myself had trouble rationalizing, why even into the 150 year era of the battle, we still refer to it by Monitor and Merrimack, when clearly it wasn't.
 
So, in Farragut's attack on the forts below New Orleans, three of the "heavies" involved were the Mississippi, Richmond, and Pensacola (the Mississippi being technically named after the river rather than the state).

And the Confederate Mississippi, an ironclad which had just been launched but was nowhere near complete, was burned on the approach of the federal fleet including USS Mississippi.
 
I SO apologise for having so completely de-threaded this birthday of CSS Arkansas that the candles are now melted all over the cake and mice are making away with what's left of the crumbs by this point. If one tracks back, I'm the culprit, to be sure. I'm hoping she wouldn't mind, since these are her sisters sharing her spotlight. I know so little of the Naval War and it's another aspect one begins to find completely fascinating once you start getting into even a few good stories and written histories. I think I just got lazy and kept intruding on poor CSS Arkansas's celebration with my queries and questions!

The source I'm using at the moment ( The book 'Hearts of Fire, which was originally Century magazine's project to have Civil War leaders write accounts of their parts in various battles ) has been confusing as heck, with the 'USS Mississippi' ( for example ) referred to sometimes by the writers of 150 years ago as just 'Mississippi'. It's awfully helpful knowing ( because of the forum ) that yes, these were indeed Union ships and no, it didn't make sense. :smile:
 
If y'all don't mind my digressing onto land, I just ran across another twist in the Merrimack-Virginia debate. During the Seven Days battles, the Confederates employed the world's first armored train, a wagon mounting a rifled 32-pounder behind iron plating, pushed by a locomotive. It was employed at the battle of Savage's Station on June 29 and was nicknamed the "Land Merrimack" - apparently that name had stuck in peoples' minds, even among rebels in Virginia, a few miles from where CSS Virginia fought.
 
Yup, and there's another connection... John Mercer Brooke was one of the guys behind it, and he was also one of the Virginia's designers. It appears to have been an idea of Lee's... there's some correspondence about it reproduced on pages 92-3 and following in George M. Brooke, Jr.'s Ironclads and Big Guns of the Confederacy: The Journal and Letters of John M. Brooke (University of South Carolina, 2002).
 
A watercolor of the C.S.S. Arkansas.
C.S.S. Arkansas.jpg
 
Yeah, that's the Skerrett illustration from the ORN. It's got a few problems with it; namely, the sides of the casemate were vertical; only the front and rear faces were sloped. Also, most sources agree that the bulwarks/sides of the bow and stern were higher above the waterline than shown here. And thirdly, the forward gunports should be oval rather than square.
 
Yeah, that's the Skerrett illustration from the ORN. It's got a few problems with it; namely, the sides of the casemate were vertical; only the front and rear faces were sloped. Also, most sources agree that the bulwarks/sides of the bow and stern were higher above the waterline than shown here. And thirdly, the forward gunports should be oval rather than square.

Well the illustration shows her riding really low in the water but then I expect the weight of the armor would reduce the freeboard a tad..........Still she is a cool looking boat and wouldn't be quite as handsome without the slanted/sloped armor midships IMO.
 
Handsome isn't a word anyone used for the Arkansas... even her commander, Lt. Isaac Newton Brown, was rather disparaging about her appearance. But she was more functional than attractive (other than those pesky engines).

The model shown on this website: http://www.hunleystore.com/CSS_Arkansas.htm is thought to be pretty accurate.

Well I suppose she did sort of resemble a floating boxcar with vertical casemate save fore and aft. I think I kind of like the rectangular gunports in the llustration better than oval ones.
 
No doubt there were worse names than Peacock :wink: In both world wars the Royal Navy had classes of ships named after flowers - sloops in WWI, corvettes in WWII. Their own crews were probably no more embarrassed than some German U-boat captain who found out that he had been sunk by HMS Petunia......
Pity the poor souls who were assigned to HMS Pansy !
 
So, in Farragut's attack on the forts below New Orleans, three of the "heavies" involved were the Mississippi, Richmond, and Pensacola (the Mississippi being technically named after the river rather than the state).

And the Confederate Mississippi, an ironclad which had just been launched but was nowhere near complete, was burned on the approach of the federal fleet including USS Mississippi.
Just imagine the confusion if CSS Mississippi had become operational and got into battle with USS Mississippi. Apart from anything else sending and receiving signals would have been a nightmare.
 
Back
Top