CSS Virginia Launches: The Age of Ironclad Warships Begins
The Confederates built their ironclad from a ship the Union had already sunk. When Federal forces abandoned the Gosport Navy Yard in April 1861, they torched the USS Merrimack and scuttled her in shallow water. The South raised the hull, stripped off the burned wooden superstructure, and bolted 4-inch iron plates over 24 inches of oak and pine. On March 8, 1862, the reborn CSS Virginia steamed into Hampton Roads and rammed the USS Cumberland, sending her straight to the bottom. Thirty sailors drowned trapped below decks. The Virginia sank another Union ship that afternoon and would've destroyed the entire wooden blockade fleet—except the USS Monitor arrived that night. The age of wooden warships died in a single day, killed by a vessel the North thought they'd destroyed a year earlier.
March 8, 1862
164 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on March 8
Ferdowsi finished his monumental epic, the Shāhnāmeh, after thirty years of meticulous labor. By recording the myths and history of ancient Persia in pure Persi…
élection de l'antipape Grégoire VIII.
His mother ruled for seventeen years while nobles tried to replace her with every available man — her husband, her ex-husband, even her teenage son. But Urraca …
Da der Sohn des verstorbenen Kaisers Heinrich VI., Friedrich II., zu diesem Zeitpunkt erst drei Jahre alt ist, wird sein Onkel Philipp von Schwaben von der stau…
They entered through the latrine chute. That's how Philip II's soldiers finally breached Richard the Lionheart's supposedly impregnable fortress after six month…
The butchers and bakers won. On the frozen fields of Hausbergen, Strasbourg's shopkeepers and guild members—armed with pikes they'd forged themselves—faced down…
Talk to History
Have a conversation with historical figures who witnessed this era. Ask questions, explore perspectives, and bring history to life.