Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

I’d like to thank the folks who came out to the Houston Museum of Natural Science Tuesday evening to attend my talk on blockade runners. It was a good time — folks laughed where intended to, not where they weren’t, and there was lots of good Q&A at the end. I did get a little too technical on ship construction and machinery, though, and I oughter watch out for that in the future. Not everyone is that interested in frame spacing and entrance lines.

I’d also like to thank the folks who made my talk possible, particularly Amy Potts from HMNS and Ed Cotham. Thanks, y’all!

One thing that I didn’t have a chance to do, using the format of the talk, was to provide a list of suggested readings. And so:

• J. Barto Arnold III. The Denbigh‘s Civilian Imports: Customs Records of a Civil War Blockade Runner between Mobile and Havana. College Station, Texas: Institute of Nautical Archaeology, 2011.
• W.T. Block, Schooner Sail to Starboard: The US Navy vs. Blockade Runners in the Western Gulf of Mexico. College Station, Texas: Institute of Nautical Archaeology, 2007.
• Eric J. Graham. Clyde Built: Blockade Runners, Cruisers and Armoured Rams of the American Civil War. London: Birlinn Ltd, 2008.
• Thomas E. Taylor, Running the Blockade: A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks and Escapes during the American Civil War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995.
• Rodman L. Underwood, Waters of Discord: The Union Blockade of Texas During the Civil War. McFarland, 2008.
• William Watson, The Civil War Adventures of a Blockade Runner. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2001.
• Stephen R. Wise. Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.

This guy was not a visitor who, on a whim, pocketed a couple of Minié balls he found lying on the ground. He also kept a detailed, day-by-day journal of his looting activities. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

By his own account, Santo wrote that he recovered more than 18,000 bullets, 68 fuses, 31 cannonballs and shells, 13 buckles, seven breastplates, five saber tips and 91 buttons over 1,014 days.

“The defendant’s journal is a tell-all of his misconduct, identifying with a high degree of specification where he engaged in metal detecting/relic hunting and when and what he recovered,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney N. George Metcalf in federal court papers. “He even kept a running tally of the items he found from day to day on a yearly basis.”

Santo’s handwritten journal, recovered during a July 10, 2011, search of his Petersburg home, proved to be his undoing. On Wednesday, the 52-year-old unemployed Pennsylvania native was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Richmond to one year and one day in a federal prison.

He pleaded guilty in December to two counts of damaging archaeological resources and one count of pillaging Petersburg National Battlefield Park.

Santo is regarded as the park’s most prolific relic thief.

Unfortunately, Santo’s conviction still leaves important, unanswered questions:

[Park historian Jimmy] Blankenship said one of the issues that concerned the court was the amount of relics Santo apparently sold. “We know he found over 18,000 bullets,” Blankenship said. “We only confiscated something like 8,500. So what happened to the other 10,000 bullets?”

But archaeology, as opposed to private treasure hunting on public land, remains a hard sell to the general public. As one archaeologist notes on the Historical Archaeology e-mail list,

If you want to see where the public perception of archaeology is, or if you have wondered who would watch and champion shows like Digger or American Digger, just read the comments at the end of the article. To nearly all commenters, the perpetrator is a hero who has rescued the artifacts from the ground, something the power-loving authorities and archaeologists have no desire to do so.

Trust me, professional archaeologists would love to have the resources to devote to a systematic study of sites like Petersburg, but they don’t. (And note that comprehensive study of a battlefield site can completely revise our understanding of well-known engagements, as Doug Scott’s study of the Little Bighorn and the THC’s work to reconstruct the Red River War both attest.) But there’s little public support for investing in that sort of work, which requires a lot of time by highly-trained people, and is therefore expensive. Buckets of Minié balls and uniform buttons, looted from public land — which is to say, stolen from us — don’t do a damn thing to improve our knowledge or understanding of the conflict.

One additional note: Santo’s 366-day sentence is common in the federal system for low-level, non-violent criminals. The federal system does not have parole, but does allow some credit for inmates with good behavior or who participate in rehab or educational programs while incarcerated. This can knock, I believe, about 15% off the time they actually spend in jail. But to be eligible for this, the law requires that the prisoner be sentence to “more than a year” behind bars — thus the sentence of 366 days. Santo will likely serve about ten-and-a-half months, and then be put on some form of supervised release.

Small stories that don’t warrant larger posts all their own.

• The City of Lexington, Virginia has filed a petition to dismiss the Virginia SCV’s lawsuit against the city, which seeks to overturn a 2011 ordinance that bars all non-governmental flags from city property, including light poles. (The ordinance does not prohibit the flag on private property, nor parades or other displays of the Confederate flag, as is sometimes claimed.) This latest filing is a standard motion that doesn’t add much significant to the case. My earlier thoughts on the plaintiff’s likelihood of prevailing in court are here.
• The long-running lawsuit of Candice Hardwick (above, with Confederate activist/performance artist H. K. Edgerton in 2006) appears to have come to an end, with the dismissal of her federal lawsuit against the administration of Latta High School, in Latta, South Carolina. In 2006, then-fifteen-year-old Hardwick was suspended twice from school for wearing a Confederate flag shirt. She sued, and her case became a cause celebré among heritage groups.
• Near Raleigh, North Carolina, volunteers spent six hours digging up the graves of two brothers, Joseph and Joel Holleman, to move the remains to a nearby cemetery to be reburied alongside other Civil War veterans. This story is the most ghoulish thing I’ve read in a long time; it reeks of necro-voyeurism. The original graves were marked, identified, and not threatened by development or erosion. Nor, as far as I know, was there any wish on the part of these men’s descendants to have this done. So they dug them up anyway, because (in the words of the event’s organizer), ““my heart says this is the right thing.” The folks who scream “GRAVE DESECRATION!” and “SPITTING ON THE GRAVES OF AND DISHONORING AMERICAN VETERANS!” when a cemetery owner removes Confederate stick flags ought to be up in arms about this foolishness. But they ain’t gonna say boo about it.
• Speaking of disturbing graves. . . .
• It looks like Kentucky will finally shut down its Confederate Soldiers Pension Fund, a mere fifty years after anyone was eligible to receive benefits from it. Don’t do anything precipitous, y’all.
• Union County, North Carolina, is moving one step closer to putting up a monument to local African American men who went into the field with the Confederate army as personal servants of soldiers. The description of the men in question by historians interviewed is reasonably accurate, but it’s still all very muddled. Earl Ijames doesn’t help by observing that “history has attempted to negate what they did. . . .They would die for their freedom before freedom was available for their own people. . .  .For Union County, Jesse Helms’ (home) county, this makes a big statement that we are a society that has evolved into a more integrated society.” I have no idea what he’s saying, but it sure sounds good.
• Fed up with Waite Rawls, John Coski and the Museum of the Confederacy, the SCV is soliciting money to build and operate the Confederate Museum at Elm Springs in Columbia, Tennessee to counter the “forces of political correctness,” who are attempting “to ban any and all things Confederate through their ideological fascism.” The first 20 camps or divisions to contribute $1,000 or more will each receive a commemorative gavel, “made from wood taken from the damn [sic.] at Fredricksburg [sic.] during the War.“

Finally, I’d like to remind folks that I’ll be speaking on Civil War blockade runners in Texas at the Wortham MAX Theater at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. It should be fun.

I’d like to extend my thanks to the SCV John Bell Hood Camp No. 50 for hosting my talk on blockade runners Monday evening. A few members recalled my earlier talks on the subject from 10+ years back, and came armed with questions. I talked a little long (surprise!), but I got a lot of solid info in there. I even got in a plug for Jim Schmidt’s upcoming book on Galveston during the war. It’s going to be a good one.

Tuesday evening at 6:30 my friends Bob Gearhart, Amy Borgens, and Edward T. Cotham, Jr. will present “U.S.S. Westfield, A Civil War Shipwreck in Galveston Bay” in the Wortham Theater at the Houston Museum of Natural Science:

In the fall of 2009, a team of marine archeologists working under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers supervised the recovery of artifacts from USS Westfield, a Staten Island ferryboat that had been converted into a Civil War gunboat after its purchase by the U.S. Navy in 1861. Westfield saw significant Civil War action, participating in battles at New Orleans, Vicksburg and other places along the Gulf Coast. Its destruction at the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863, was one of the most important and dramatic events of the Civil War in Texas. This audiovisual program uses rare historic documents and images to describe the conversion of a ferryboat to armored warship and examine the military career of this unique “fighting ferryboat” and its impact on the war in Texas. It retraces the series of events that led to the relocation of Westfield’s wreck and the challenging project that resulted in recovery of tons of artifacts undergoing conservation at the Conservation Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University. Among the artifacts being conserved is a more than 4 ton Dahlgren cannon capable of firing a projectile almost 2 miles.

And next Tuesday, March 27, I’ll be presenting my own talk there, “For-Profit Patriots: Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast.” Hope to see y’all there!

Small stories that don’t warrant larger posts all their own.

• A life-sized bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest was stolen last weekend from the Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama. Police reported no leads, and it’s unclear whether the Forrest monument was specifically targeted, or if the bronze was stolen for its metal value.
• Ron Wilson (right), a coin and precious metals dealer from South Carolina, is under investigation by the state for allegedly running a multimillion dollar Ponzi scheme involving the purchase of silver securities. Wilson, a former National Commander of the SCV, was one of the so-called hard-liners that came to prominence within that organization in the early 2000s, bent on a more aggressive, politically-engaged course for the group. Wilson remains prominent in local Confederate heritage circles, and apparently hawked his dubious investments among his butternut friends. Wilson has a history of skeevy business dealings dating back to his tenure as a local elected official, some of which involved steering favors to his SCV buddies.
  
• Also in South Carolina, State Senator Glenn McConnell has agreed to serve as that state’s Lieutenant Governor. McConnell has been invaluable in raising funds and public support for the recovery and conservation of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, but he’s also caught grief for posing for some seriously ill-advised photos. Cartoonist Kate Salley Palmer wonders whether McConnell, who’s been a fixture in South Carolina state politics for decades, is really enthusiastic about relinquishing his senior post in the State Senate. John Courson, the new South Carolina Senate Pro Tem, was (with McConnell) one of the Senate Republicans that negotiated the compromise by which the Confederate flag was removed from the State House in Columbia and placed at the Confederate memorial, where it remains today. (Update: the claim about Cleburne’s coat is being the one in which he was killed is in dispute, as noted in the comments below.)
• The coat worn by Confederate General Patrick Cleburne when he was killed at Franklin in November 1864 will be one of the centerpiece artifacts on display at the new Appomattox site of the Museum of the Confederacy. Cleburne is, after Jackson, Lee and Forrest, probably the most-celebrated Confederate general officer today, but his prominence at the museum is being overshadowed by the controversy surrounding that institution’s decision not to fly a Confederate flag out front.
• Cole Grinnell has a great new blog post up at the Civil War Monitor, “How I tried and failed to escape the Civil War.”
• Finally, ninety-two year-old Pete Seeger sings (what else?) “Forever Young,” part of an album celebrating Bob Dylan’s 50-year career. More about the song here.

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Detail of “Sons of Erin,” by Don Troiani. Father Corby rides across the advancing line of the Irish Brigade at Sharpsburg.

On a day when everyone’s just a little Irish, the Very Rev. Dr. Stephen Duncan of Galveston is marching in New York:

Next weekend I will travel to New York City and march with my Civil War re-enactment group the 69th New York State Volunteers Historical Society as a part of the famous Irish Brigade from the Civil War. This unit traditionally leads the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York and this year will be in two of the parades — one for the old Cathedral and the other, larger parade in the afternoon.

The men of the Irish Brigade and their chaplain, Father Corby, helped change the perception of Americans about the Irish.

During the Civil War, many Irish immigrants and Irish Americans enlisted and served with distinction on both sides. There were more Irish serving in Union blue, but there were significant numbers with the harp of Erin under the gray.

Many had joined as members of the Fenian Society. They were determined to gain experience in modern warfare so they could return to Ireland and free it from the yoke of England.

Their fathers and grandfathers had served in the last Irish rebellion and many had fallen on Vinegar Hill.

In the end, the fact that England tacitly supported the South by continuing to buy cotton and sell supplies fueled the fervor of the Irish love for the Union and the freedom it represented for Ireland.

It was how well the Irish performed their duties as soldiers that got the attention of the (non-Irish) American officers.

The Irish as a unit were fearless in battle. They did what they were told even in the face of insurmountable odds, such as at Fredericksburg.

The soldiers closest to the Confederate lines at the end of that dreadful battle wore the green sprig of boxwood in their kepis — reminders of the green of Ireland that Gen. Meagher had asked them to wear as they marched off to the strains of the Garryowen.

At Gettysburg, Father Corby, later president of the University of Notre Dame, climbed on a rock and asked the unit to kneel to receive general absolution before the battle.

The men dropped to their knees, their hats off in prayer. He exhorted them to do their duty and to make a full confession later if they were able and then pronounced the Latin words absolving them of their sins.

The non-Catholic officers nearby were impressed. Certainly this was not the first time general absolution had been given on an American battlefield, but something about the men of the Irish Brigade, en masse, going to their knees in prayer affected the Union officers greatly.

It began a notice that these Irish Catholics were somehow more human, more God-fearing, more American and more like themselves than they had been told all their lives.

Though there were terrible losses, the unit continued through the entire war.

After the Civil War, many of the young soldiers followed Father Corby back to Notre Dame where they became students and loaned their moniker “the Fighting Irish” to that French-founded University de Notre Dame du Lac (founded by the Holy Cross Fathers from France).

To this day, Notre Dame is a symbol of Ireland and Catholicism here in the United States — more than a great football team, more than a fantastic school — a place where the Irish in America found their home.

I think it is a good thing indeed that on every St. Patrick’s Day everyone is at least a wee bit Irish. Erin Go Braugh.

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Yesterday the Civil War Monitor presented another segment in the magazine’s “Voice from the Past” series, this one highlighting the account of Samuel Dana Greene, Monitor‘s executive officer, who commanded in that ship’s turret until forced to take over command of the ship when his captain, John L. Worden, was temporarily blinded by a shot from C.S.S. Virginia.

What follows here is another account of the action, this one from the Acting Chief Engineer of the Confederate ironclad, Henry Ashton Ramsay (1835-1916). Ramsay’s perspective on the action is unique; he probably knew the ship better than anyone else aboard, have spent most of the previous three years operating, maintaining, repairing and rebuilding the ship’s machinery. He’d joined U.S.S. Merrimac as Second Assistant Engineer at Panama in 1859, and sailed with her around Cape Horn. During this passage he reported to Merrimac‘s Chief Engineer, Alban C. Stimers. Engineer Stimers would later assist John Ericsson in constructing Monitor, and would serve as that ship’s Chief Engineer during the Battle of Hampton Roads.

Upon Merrimac‘s return to Norfolk, her engines were condemned and the ship laid up. There she remained until the spring of 1861, when she was burned to the waterline during the evacuation of the Navy Yard. When the war came, Ramsay cast his lot with the Confederacy, and soon found himself in Norfolk, working to convert the burned-out hull of Merrimac into a casemate ironclad.

While steaming out into Hampton Roads on the morning of March 8, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, commander of the rebuilt ironclad, now rechristened Virginia, called Ramsey up to the pilothouse and asked him how secure the ship’s machinery was in the event of a hard collision. When Ramsay assured him that the boilers and engine well-braced, Buchanan replied, “I am going to ram the Cumberland.” Fifty years later, in an article for Harper’s Weekly, Ramsay  described what happened next:

The crux of what followed was down in the engine room. Two gongs, the signal to stop, were quickly followed by three, the signal to reverse. There was an ominous pause, then a crash, shaking us all off our feet. The engines labored. The vessel was shaken in every fiber. Our bow was visibly depressed. We seemed to be bearing down with a weight on our prow. Thud, thud, thud, came the rain of shot on our shield from the double-decked battery of the Congress. There was a terrible crash in the fire-room. For a moment we thought one of the boilers had burst. No, it was the explosion of a shell in our stack. Was anyone hit? No, thank God. The firemen had been warned to keep away from the up-take, so the fragments of shell fell harmlessly on the iron floor-plates.

We had rushed on the doomed ship, relentless as fate, crashing through her barricade of heavy spars and torpedo fenders, striking her below her starboard fore-chains and crushing far into her. For a moment the whole weight of her hung on our prow and threatened to carry us down with her, the return wave of the collision curling up into our bow port.

The Cumberland began to sink slowly, bow first, but continued to fight desperately for the forty minutes that elapsed after her doom was sealed, during which we were engaged with both the Cumberland and the Congress, being right between them.

We had left our cast-iron beak in the side of the Cumberland. Like the wasp we could sting but once, leaving the sting in the wound.

Our smoke-stack was riddled, our flag was shot down several times and was finally secured to a rent in the stack. On our gun-deck the men were fighting like demons. There was no thought or time for the wounded and dying as they tugged away at their guns, training and sighting their pieces while the orders rang out: “Sponge, load, fire.”

Virginia pulls away from U.S.S. Congress after setting her afire, March 8, 1862. Painting by Tom Freeman.

Virginia‘s score for the day included U.S.S. Cumberland, sunk, and Congress, abandoned and fully ablaze. Two more Federal vessels, St. Lawrence and Roanoke, had grounded themselves in trying to escape the guns of the ironclad. U.S.S. Minnesota had moved into shallow water where Virginia could not pursue, so the Confederate ironclad hauled off to her mooring at at Sewall’s Point. Ramsay continues:

All the evening we stood on deck watching the brilliant display of the burning [U.S.S. Congress]. Every part of her was on fire at the same time, the red-tongued flames running up shrouds, masts, and stays, and extending out to the yard arms. She stood in bold relief against the black background, lighting up the Roads and reflecting her lurid lights on the bosom of the now placid and hushed waters. Every now and then the flames would reach one of the loaded cannon and a shell would hiss at random through the darkness. About midnight came the grand finale. The magazines exploded, shooting up a huge column of firebrands hundreds of feet in the air, and then the burning hulk burst asunder and melted into the waters, while the calm night spread her sable mantle over Hampton Roads.

U.S.S. Congress explodes around midnight on the night of March 8-9, 1862. Battles and Leaders.

The Monitor arrived during the evening and anchored under the stern of the Minnesota, her lighter draught enabling her to do so without danger. To us the ensuing engagement was in the nature of a surprise. If we had known we were to meet her we would at least have been supplied with a solid shot for our rifled guns. We might even have thought best to wait until our iron beak, lost in the side of the Cumberland, could be replaced. Buchanan was incapacitated by his wound and the command devolved upon Lieutenant Jones.

Monitor arrives alongside U.S.S. Minnesota, late on the evening of March 8, 1862. Battles and Leaders.

We left our anchorage shortly before eight o’clock next morning and steamed across and up stream toward the Minnesota, thinking to make short work of her and soon to return with her colors trailing under ours. We approached her slowly, feeling our way cautiously along the edge of the channel, when suddenly, to our astonishment, a black object that looked like the historic description, “a barrel-head afloat with a cheese-box on top of it,” moved slowly out from under the Minnesota and boldly confronted us. It must be confessed that both ships were queer-looking craft, as grotesque to the eyes of the men of ’62 as they would appear to those of the present generation.

Virginia steams out into Hampton Roads, past the Confederate batteries on Craney’s Island. Battles & Leaders.

And now the great fight was on, a fight the like of which the world had never seen. With the battle of yesterday old methods had passed away, and with them the experience of a thousand years “of battle and of breeze” was brought to naught. The books of all navies were burned with the Congress, by a conflagration as ruthless as the torch of Omar. A new leaf had been turned, a virgin page on which to transcribe and record the art of naval warfare.

We hovered about each other in spirals, gradually contracting the circuits, until we were within point-blank range, but our shell glanced from the Monitor’s turret just as hers did from our sloping sides. For two hours the cannonade continued without perceptible damage to either of the combatants.

On our gun-deck all was bustle, smoke, grimy figures, and stern commands, while down in the engine and boiler rooms the sixteen furnaces were belching out fire and smoke, and the firemen standing in front of them, like so many gladiators, tugged away with devil’s-claw and slice-bar. inducing by their exertions more and more intense heat and combustion. The noise of the crackling, roaring fires, escaping steam, and the loud and labored pulsations of the engines, together with the roar of battle above and the thud and vibration of the huge masses of iron being hurled against us, altogether produced a scene and sound to be compared only with the poet’s picture of the lower regions.

Inside Virginia’s casemate during the action. From Blue Jackets of ’61: A History of the Navy in the War of Secession.

And then an accident occurred that threatened our utter destruction. We stuck fast aground on a sandbar.

Our situation was critical. The Monitor could, at her leisure, come close up to us and yet be out of our reach, owing to an inability to deflect our guns. In she came and began to sound every chink in our armor–every one but that which was actually vulnerable, had she known it.

The coal consumption of the two days’ fight had lightened our prow until our unprotected submerged deck was almost awash. The armor on our sides below the water-line had not been extended but about three feet owing to our hasty departure before the work was finished. Lightened as we were, these exposed portions rendered us no longer an ironclad, and the Monitor might have pierced us between wind and water had she depressed her guns.

Fearing that she might discover our vulnerable “heel of Achilles,” while she had us “in chancery,” we had to take all chances. We lashed down the safety valves, heaped quick-burning combustibles into the already raging fires, and brought the boilers to a pressure that would have been unsafe under ordinary circumstances. The propeller churned the mud and water furiously, but the ship did not stir. We piled on oiled cotton waste, splints of wood, anything that would burn faster than coal. It seemed impossible the boilers could long stand the pressure we were crowding upon them. Just as we were beginning to despair there was a perceptible movement, and the [Virginia] slowly dragged herself off the shoal by main strength. We were saved.

Before our adversary observed we were again afloat we made a dash for her, catching her quite unprepared, and tried to ram her, but our commander was dubious about the result of a collision without our iron-shod beak and gave the signal to reverse the engines long before we reached the Monitor. As a result I did not feel the slightest shock down in the engine-room, though we struck her fairly enough.

1886 chromolithograph of the Battle of Hampton Roads, by J. O. Davidson.

The carpenter reported that the effect was to spring a leak forward. Lieutenant Jones sent for me and asked me about it.

“It is impossible we can be making much water,” I replied,” for the skin of the vessel is plainly visible in the crank-pits.”

A second time he sent for me and asked if we were making any water in the engine room.

“With the two large Worthington pumps, beside the bilge injections, we could keep her afloat for hours, even with a ten-inch shell in her hull.” I assured him, repeating that there was no water in the engine and boiler rooms.

We glided past, leaving the Monitor unscathed, but got between her and the Minnesota and opened fire on the latter. The Monitor gallantly rushed to her rescue, passing so close under our submerged stern that she almost snapped off our propeller. As she was passing, so near that we could have leaped aboard her, Lieutenant Wood trained the stern-gun on her when she was only twenty yards from its muzzle and delivered a rifle-pointed shell which dislodged the iron logs sheltering the Monitor’s conning tower, carrying away the steering-gear and signal apparatus, and blinding Captain Worden. It was a mistake to place the conning tower so far from the turret and the vitals of the ship. Since that time it has been located over the turret. The Monitor’s turret was a death-trap. It was only twenty feet in diameter, and every shot knocked off bolt-heads and sent them flying against the gunners. If one of them barely touched the side of the turret, he would be stunned and momentarily paralyzed. Lieutenant Greene had been taken below in a dazed condition and never fully recovered from the effects. One of the port shutters had been jammed, putting a gun out of commission, and there was nothing for the Monitor to do but to retreat and to leave the Minnesota to her fate.

Captain Van Brunt, of the latter vessel, thought he was now doomed and was preparing to fire his ship when he saw the [Virginia] also withdrawing forward Norfolk.

It was at this juncture that Lieutenant Jones had sent for me and said: “The pilots will not place us nearer to the Minnesota and we cannot afford to run the risk of getting aground again. I am going to haul off under the guns of Sewall’s Point and renew the attack on the rise of the tide. Bank your fires and make any necessary adjustments to the machinery, but be prepared to start up again later in the afternoon.”

I went below to comply with his instructions, and later was astonished to hear cheering. Rushing on deck I found we were passing Craney Island on our way to Norfolk, and were being cheered by the soldiers of the battery.

Our captain had consulted with some of his lieutenants, and explained afterward that as the Monitor had proved herself so formidable an adversary he had thought best to get a supply of solid shot, have the prow replaced, the port shutters put on, the armor belt extended below water, and the guns whose muzzles had been shot away replaced, and then renew the engagement with every chance of victory. I remember feeling as if a wet blanket had been thrown over me. His reasoning was doubtless good, but it ignored the moral effect of leaving the Roads without forcing the Minnesota to surrender.

One of C.S.S. Virginia’s ensigns. This ensign was reportedly replaced with a variant with 11 stars during the March 9, 1862 action against U.S.S. Monitor. Time-Life, Arms and Equipment of the Confederacy.

As the [Virginia] passed up the river, trailing the ensign of the Congress under the stars and bars, she received a tremendous ovation from the crowds that lined the shores, while hundreds of small boats, gay with flags and bunting, converted our course into a triumphal procession.

We went into dry-dock that very afternoon, and in about three weeks were ready to renew the battle upon more advantageous terms, but the Monitor, though reinforced by two other ironclads, the Galena and the Naugatuck, and every available vessel of the United States Navy, was under orders from Washington to refuse our challenge and bottle us up in the Roads. This strategy filled us with rage and dismay, but it proved very effective.

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