Ironclads Of The Civil War :: essays research papers

IRONCLADS OF THE CIVIL WARThe book I say is called IRONCLADS OF THE CIVIL WAR. When you think of the Civil warfare you think of on res publica battles, but there were also some battles in the water. The Civil war introduced the Ironclads, which are huge ships made of iron with no sails and very destructive.The premier(prenominal) built and launched brassbound was in 1855 and it was named the Merrimac. Europe just starting construct ironclads and sent her to Norfolk. The Merrimac was still there when Virginia seceded from the Union in April of 1861. The Union and so sank the Merrimac and set her afire but the hull of the shop and the engines settled in the bottom of the river. The Confederates found it and raised the parts out. It took 1,500 workforce to work on the Merrimac. It was a very slow process because there was not many supplies or tools. The Merrimac needed needed on thousand tons of iron. It was exhausting to get some because there was very few iron manufacturers anyplace in the South and there was just one able to render enough. The Merrimac got a small share of iron and then went to work. It took over a year to get this ship finished. The captain was Franklin Buchnan and he had 300 men for a crew.Most of the men were soldiers recently assigned out of hired gun regiments. And there were very few sailors in the South, so most were uninformed on where to go or what to do. When everything was done and she began to move it looked like the Merrimac was unfastened of doing what she was meant to do.The Northerners were warned astir(predicate) this ironclad monster and were waiting for this moment a yearn time. When the Merrimac came into view she fought the Cumberland and ended up destroying it. The shell burst into the rail and knocked shore nine men of the Cumberland. In the end the Merrimac destroyed the Cumberland. But no ship in the navy ever fought as hard or as brave as the Cumberland did. Once the word got around about the ironclad everyone started to make them. France built the Gloire and England built the Warrior. By the Civil War was a year old the navies were being complemented with ironclad. And the Union knew that they had to have an ironclad to ever beat the South Merrimac Captain John Ericisson