Ironclads

= Ironclads Warships = by Christian Lehner

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=The effect of the ironclad on the Civil War =

 From the very beginning of the war, both the North and South realized that technology would be one of the factors deciding the outcome. One result of that realization was a giant step in the evolution of warships. Indeed, the outcome of the Civil War may have been different had the Union or the Confederacy not built ironclad warships. The Confederacy built the first ironclad, the Merrimack, otherwise known as the C.S.S. Virginia. The Merrimack successfully attacked the Union’s U.S.S. Cumberland and three other Union transport and combat ships. In response, the Union built its own ironclad, the U.S.S. Monitor. The Monitor arrived late to the battle after the Merrimack had pulled away for the night. The next morning the two ironclads met in battle. The battle ended in a draw, though the Merrimack was more damaged than the Monitor. Had the Confederacy managed to break the Union’s blockade, the Civil War could have taken a different turn. And thus this battle was a pivotal point in ironclad history for one it made the world recognize the power of the ironclad.



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=Building the ironclads =

= =  Stephen R. Mallory was an Confederate Naval Secretary. Although very disliked by much of the Confederate Navy, he knew that to win, the South would have to improve its technology, which meant, for the navy, creating the C.S.S. Virginia. Similarly in the North, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the Swedish inventor John Ericsson to begin work on what was to become the Monitor. The North had a significant naval advantage over the South at the inception of the Civil War. The North already had a navy and the heavy industry necessary to make steam engines. By the end of the war, the North had built seventy-one ironclads. The North had the time and money to perfect the ironclad; the technology of the Monitor was vastly superior to the existing ironclads. While the Monitor’s technology was superior, it was, however, less seaworthy than the Merrimack. Meanwhile the North’s blockade was making it very difficult for the South to either import or export goods. The South had neither the means to build steam engines nor the money to purchase them. The struggling nation just managed to salvage old ships the Union discarded and remake them into ironclads. When the South was lacking the resources to build an ironclad they would build what was known as a cotton clad. The cotton clad was a commercial vessel whose decks were armored by vast amounts of cotton. They were cheap but unsuccessful warships. The lack of a navy at the beginning of the war meant that the Confederacy’s navy a rather ragtag collection of vessels, organized into fleets. These fleets were called mosquito fleets. A mosquito fleet was made up of small commercial ships recently converted from commercial use and large ironclads, and many of the ships were snagged from the Union or bought. By the end of the war, the Confederacy had acquired only twenty-five ironclads, small in comparison to the North’s fleet. If it were not for Stephen Mallory and John Ericsson important people, the ironclad might have never been used in the American Civil War.

=Life on an ironclad and torpedo boat =

[[image:h73688t.jpg width="300" height="242" align="left" caption="This a depiction of life on the Monitor."]]
Life on ironclad was hot and steamy. The smoke got into the eyes and lungs. Above all it was dangerous, steam engines have a knack of exploding. When not in battle many of crew would be on the decks getting away from the horrible environment within these machines. Although the conditions were terrible, any man on a wooden warship after the Merrimack and Monitor fought, would have been happy to be on an ironclad. Torpedo boats, which were a Civil War version of the submarine, had the worst living conditions of all. These submarines were for the most part shorter than the average man, making it terrible to work in. They were also powered by the men, spinning a long pole, which looked a bit like a old-fashioned hand drill to power the propeller. The torpedo boats were not nearly as successful as the ironclad, and on many missions they failed to sink the enemy ship but sank themselves instead.

 

=Ironclads before the Civil War=

= =  The first ironclads were also, of course, warships and were significantly different from those used in the American Civil War. Two hundred and fifty years before the American Civil War, Yi Sun Shin in Korea built the first fleet of ironclads. Yi Sun Shin lived from 1545 to 1598. Though his design looked very different from the Civil War ironclads, his ships also had iron plating on the top of the ships and cannons for armament. The majority of these "ironclads" were 34.2 meters in length, 6.4 meters in height and 10.3 meters in width. However, either wind or oars powered his ships, unlike the Union’s and Confederacy’s steam-powered ironclads. Due to the way the iron plating was positioned on the top of the warships, these boats became known as turtle ships. This style of warship was successful but not enough to be fully accepted and Yi Sun Shin’s design died with him. The ironclad then reappeared in the Crimean War. The Crimean War in the 1850s was Great Britain and France fighting against Russia. Great Britain and France built a few ironclads. These ironclads were heavy, large, and difficult to move, but also had more firepower than the normal warship of that time. The Union and the Confederacy knew they had to build faster, higher-powered ironclads. The ironclads of the Civil War were a breakthrough in technology and also vastly superior to the ironclads before the war.

=Three types of ironclads = = =  There are three different types of ironclads in the Civil War. The Monitor represents the first kind. The second is represented by U.S.S. New Ironsides and last the U.S.S. Galena. The Monitor was the second ironclad built in the Civil War. It is easily distinguished from most ironclads by its rotating gun turret, and very low freeboard. The North built many more warships like the Monitor and it proved to be one of the better designs. John Ericsson was the designer of the Monitor; he was assigned to build the Monitor by Abraham Lincoln. The Monitor had many patentable inventions on it, and it was high tech for that time. It sunk in 1862, not long after it was built but many more ironclads would follow this design. The U.S.S. New Ironsides was in commission from 1862 to 1866. It was built in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and weighed 4,120 tons and was part of South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in 1863. This massive ship had eight large cannons on each side. It fought in many battles including the Fort Wagner campaign and the attack on Fort Fisher in North Carolina. U.S.S. New Ironsides had a successful career for the North and on April 1865 was decommissioned. On December of 1866 it was accidentally destroyed by fire. U.S.S. Galena was not as successful as the Monitor of U.S.S. New Ironsides. This ironclad was commissioned April of 1862. In May of 1862, in the battle of Drewry’s Bluff, the U.S.S. Galena suffered many casualties. In February of 1864 it was repaired and all of its iron plating was removed, ending its career as an ironclad.

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=<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Ironclads after the Civil War = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> At the end of the Civil War the Union and Confederacy had built just under a hundred ironclads. The United States was in great need of money, and without a war, production of ironclads slowed almost a stop. Europe had seen enough and soon started to build ironclads that were designed like the American Civil War ironclads. Ironclads stopped being built out of old wooden warships and instead brand-new ships designed to be ironclad were built. Soon the wooden warship would disappear from warfare. All warships wood be be plated with Iron and after that they would be purely made of Iron, and lastly steel.

= = =<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Work Cited = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> · Allen, Thomas. Mr. Lincolns High Tech War. United States: National Geographic, 2009

· "Battle of the Ironclads." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Eye Witness History //. Ibis Communications, 2005. Web. 28 Apr. 2010

· Creative Commons Search Query: Turtle Ships

· Deloach, Jay A. "USN Ships--USS New Ironsides (1862-1866)." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Naval History and Heritage Command //. Naval Historical Center, 31 Aug. 2001. Web. 02 May 2010. <http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-n/new-irns.htm>.

· Holloway, Anna Holloway. "Introduction | History | Monitor Center." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The USS Monitor Center | The Mariners' Museum //. Norfolk Southern, 2005. Web. 03 May 2010. <http://www.monitorcenter.org/history/introduction/>.

· Jenkins, Mark F. "IIroncladronclads and Blockade Runners of the American Civil War." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">ironclads and Blockade Runners //. 10 Jan. 2003. Web. 26 Apr. 2010.

· J. Rickard. "U.S.S. Galena." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Military History Encyclopedia on the Web //. History of War, 3 Sept. 2007. Web. 29 Apr. 2010. <http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_uss_galena>.

· Pike, John. "Civil War ironclads." //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Global Security.Org //. Military, 2000-2010. Web. 27 Apr. 2010.

· "Yi Sun-shin Home." //Korean Spirit and Culture Promotion Project//. Korean Hero.net. Web. 10 May 2010. <http://www.koreanhero.net/en/TurtleShip.htm>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 10pt;">