Sinking of Union sloop Cumberland by Confederate ironclad Virginia (ex-U.S.S. Merrimack) in 1862, by Alexander C. Stuart.
The Coming of Iron and Steam
Merrimack, Virginia, Cumberland: names that point up the ironies of war. As the steam frigate Merrimack was being launched in July 1855 (see pages [32-33]), the partially built ship-of-the-line Virginia lay in another part of the yard. It had been laid down and named in the 1820s, a more harmonious time. Even if the old 74 had finally come down the ways, it is not likely that, amidst the sectional acrimony of the 1850s, it would have kept the old name—and certainly not after the secession of the state whose namesake it was.
A year after Merrimack’s launching, the frigate was back in the yard after going aground during its shakedown cruise (when the crew becomes familiar with a ship and problems are ironed out). While workers replaced damaged coppering and repaired the propeller on the big warship, a smaller sail frigate waited its turn.
Launched 13 years earlier, Cumberland had served as flagship of the African Squadron, whose mission was to suppress slave running. Now back home, Cumberland moved into the dry dock soon after Merrimack was towed out. It was cut down to a fast sloop-of-war with one gun deck of 28 guns and a crew of 376.
Cumberland’s worth as a leaner warship was proven in the first months of the Civil War. Assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the vessel took eight Confederate prizes in three weeks. But the next year Cumberland, among the last sailing ships launched by the Navy, came up hard against the future.
On March 8, 1862, Cumberland and other vessels were on blockade duty in Hampton Roads, Virginia, when the men on deck sighted a bizarre new war machine steaming out of Norfolk. Approaching them was a dark, monolithic vessel—decks awash, no masts, no sails, no sailors. C.S.S. (Confederate States Ship) Virginia, the much-rumored ironclad blockade-breaker, had finally taken the stage.
Architect’s rendering of the Charlestown machine shop’s “Great Chimney,” 1858.
It was a slow, clumsy vessel, but menacing nevertheless. Using a full mile to gather momentum, Virginia steamed steadily towards the Union vessels. It passed the frigate Congress and headed straight for Cumberland, its sloping iron casement shedding the Union ships’ barrage of heavy shot and explosive shell as if they were “peas from a pop-gun,” in the words of a Cumberland sailor. But Cumberland, though clearly outmatched, could not avoid engagement. It was at anchor in a dead calm, the crew’s wash drying in the rigging. The Union sailors could only take the punishing return fire, clear the decks for battle, and wait for the inevitable.