RoadDog
Corporal
- Joined
- May 29, 2008
- Location
- The Great Midwest
Always great to get people thinking about the Naval part of the war. It is too often overlooked. Thanks.
USS Massachusetts gets turned away in a duel with a battery on Ship Island manned by CS Marines and sailors.
Nearly all of us visit Civil War battlefields, but we don't see ships from that era much. I've only been on two, both age of sail holdovers. I've never seen an ironclad. Any good list of ships or recreations of parts of ships that we could visit. Also, are there preserved sites of shipyards, docks, etc?
Since many of us played on artillery as kids or "enlisted" in the army at kids programs at battlefields or reenactments, a lot of us had substantial childhood fantasies based on "play." That carries over into adult life.
The most-complete Civil War ironclad on display is the USS Cairo, inside Vicksburg National Military Park.
There is a partial full-scale replica of Cairo in the Mississippi River Museum at Mud Island, Memphis.
The thing that struck me is , how similar to the gundeck of Victory that is, bearing in mind of course that the complete equipment is not present on Cairo.I need to rescan this at a better resolution, but... here's a snapshot from inside the Memphis mock-up:
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Contrast with approximately the same angle in the genuine article:
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