The Merrimac frigate, out of which the Virginia was constructed, was built at Charlestown in 1855, and was pierced for forty guns, her last service in the U. S. navy had been with the Pacific squadron; she had been the sister-ship of the Minnesota and the Roanoke, and was lying in Elizabeth River, opposite the navy-yard, on the eventful night of April 20th, 1861, when the navy yard was burned, and the vessels scuttled and sunk. On April 25th, her battery was removed and dispatched to batteries, on Sewell's Point and other places, for the defence of Norfolk. On May 30th, the Merrimac was raised and pulled into the dry dock. The work of her transformation into the Virginia began immediately by cutting her down to the old berth-deck, to within three and a half feet of her light water-line. Both ends for seventy feet were covered over, and when the ship was in fighting trim were just awash. On the mid-ship section, for a length of 170 feet, was erected, at an angle of forty-five degrees, a roof of pitch-pine and oak, twenty-four inches thick, extending from the water-line to a highth over the gun-deck of seven feet. Both ends of this shielded roof were rounded so that the pivot guns could be used as bow and stern chasers or quartering. Over the gun-deck was a light grating, making a promenade about twenty feet wide, and nearly 170 long. The iron plating which covered the wood-backing was rolled at the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, and was two inches thick. The underlayer being placed horizontal, and the upper laid up and down-the two being four inches thick-were bolted through the woodwork, and clinched inside. The Virginia, thus armored, was further provided with a castiron prow, which projected four feet, but imperfectly secured, as the test of battle proved. Another defect was the unprotected condition of her rudder and propeller. The pilot-house was forward of the smoke-stack, and covered with the same thickness of iron as her sides. The same motive-power of the Merrimac propelled the Virginia, but it was so radically defective that both engine and boilers had been condemned in the last cruise of the Merrimac; and when to those defects are added the injury sustained from the fire which burned and the water in which she was sunk, it was not possible for the limited resources at the command of the Confederate Bureau of Construction to do more than repair. Every effort was made to hasten the completion of the ship. Flag-officer Forrest, on January 11th, 1862, expressed his high appreciation of the voluntary offer of the "blacksmiths, finishers and strikers to perform extra work gratuitously in order to expedite the completion of the Merrimac." 1 The agreement of the blacksmiths, and strikers, and finishers, was as follows: "We, the undersigned blacksmiths, finishers and strikers, But notwithstanding every agree to do any work that will expedite the completion of the Merrimac, free of charge, and continue on until eight o'clock every night; or any other exertion to finish the ship and to have her ready for action before McClellan's advance from Washington to the peninsula, the unavoidable delay in preparing and transporting the plating from Richmond to the Norfolk navy-yard prevented an earlier completion of the ship. The Tredegar Works at Richmond were the only shops within the Confederate lines where plates of the kind required could be rolled, and their limited resources were taxed in the preparation of every kind of war material. It was impossible for the very few experienced workmen who could be collected together, no matter how ready and willing, to do more than was accomplished, both at the Tredegar Works and at the navy-yard, to expedite the transformation of the Merrimac into the Virginia. In many instances the very tools required by the workmen had to be improvised and made; not only was the ship to be radically changed, but the Tredegar Works had also to be converted from an ordinary iron workshop, for the manufacture of the engines of locomotion in peaceful times, to those of destruction and defence in the midst of a terrible and exacting war. There were no patterns to follow in constructing this experimental iron-clad; the theory, drawings and calculations of the constructor had to be verified as they proceeded, and errors, if any, corrected as the work progressed. And it is not the least remarkable fact in the history of the experiment, that the Virginia and the Monitor should have been so very much alike in their general outline and form. The submerged hull and machinery and the protection of the battery were the same in both vessels, the difference being only in the round turret of the Monitor and roof-shaped casemate of the Virginia. The armament of the Virginia consisted of two seveninch rifled guns, heavily reinforced around the breech with three-inch steel bands shrunk on; these were the first heavy guns so made, and were the work of Lieut. Brooke, and they were the bow and stern guns of the battery; there were also two six-inch guns of the same make, and six nine-inch smoothbore broadside-ten guns in all. There was no Armstrong gun, as so often asserted, on the ship. Her entire battery was the work of Lieut. Brooke. work that will advance the interests of the BLACKSMITHS AND STRIKERS. Hodges, Alex. Davis, Thomas Guy, Smith Guy, FINISHERS. Jno. B Rooke, Elias Bridges, Anderson Gwinn, Johu Stoakes, E. H. Brown, Harvey Barnes, Lemuel Leary, William Jones, John Rhea, William Leary, John Wilder Frederick Bowen, Charles Sturdivant. Jesse Kay, William Shipp, William Pebworth, Lawrence Herbert, T. I. Rooke, Calder Sherwood, George Collier, Henry Hopkins, George Bear, Walter Thornton, Edward Walker, Thomas Dunn." Such was the Virginia; her defects were many and of a most serious character. She was absolutely dependent for her movement on her defective machinery; for this once out of order, she became helpless, while hurtful to her assailant only when her assailant came within the range of her battery. Her great draft of water rendered her action dependent on the tides, and menaced her helplessness should she move out of the narrow channel where the water was deep enough for her. Her ram was useless against a vessel drawing less water, which, by retiring into shoal water, reduced the action to a duel of heavy guns, where the stoutness of iron sides would carry off the palm of victory. The officers assigned to the Virginia, February, 1862, were: Flag-officer, Capt. Franklin Buchanan;1 Lieutenant, Catesby Ap R. Jones; Executive and Ordnance Officers, Charles C. Simms, R. D. Minor (flag), Hunter Davidson, John Taylor Wood, J. R. Eggleston and Walter Butt; Midshipmen, R. C. Foute, H. H. Marmaduke, H. B. Littlepage, W. J. Craig, J. C. Long and L. M. Rootes; Paymaster, James Semple; 1 Franklin Buchanan was born in Baltimore, Md., on the 11th of September, 1800. He was a grandson of Governor McKean, of Pennsylvania, and a brother of Paymaster Buchanan, who was in the U. S. ship Congress when she was destroyed in the fight with the Virginia. When a youth, Franklin Buchanan resided in Pennsylvania, from which State he was appointed a midship man. He entered the U. S. navy on the 28th of January, 1815; became a lieutenant January 13th, 1825; master commander, September 8th, 1841; first superintendent of the Annapolis Naval Academy, 1845-7; captain, September 14th, 1855. On the 19th of April, 1861, when the Sixth Massachusetts regiment was attacked on its passage through Baltimore, Capt. Buchanan was in charge of the navy-yard at Washington. immediately resigned his commission, but finding that Maryland did not secede, petitioned to recall his resignation, but was refused. On the 5th of September, 1861, he entered the He service of the C. S. navy, and was assigned to duty as Chief of Orders and Details. He was ordered to the command of the Virginia on February 24th, 1862, and after she had been cut loose from her moorings and was on her way down the harbor, Capt. Buchanan called "all hands to muster," and delivered the following spirited address to the crew: "Men, the eyes of your country are upon you. You are fighting for your rights-your liberties--your wives and children. You must not be content with only doing your duty, but do more than your duty! Those ships "(pointing to the Union fleet) must be taken, and you shall not complain that I do not take you close enough. Go to your guns!" How well the officers and gallant crew of that "monster of the deep" performed their whole duty, the following pages will tell. When Capt. Buchanan was severely wounded and taken below, a feeling of deep sadness pervaded the entire crew, but they soon rallied when Lieut. George Minor, |