Taking Fort Henry
Jan 17, 2012 Updates
Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant sent a telegram to Major General Henry Halleck in St. Louis on January 28, 1862, that he intended to capture Confederate Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. This fort was located in western Tennessee, near the Kentucky state line. To assist him in this effort, James B. Eads built four ironclad gunboats, measuring 175 feet long and 50 feet wide. These gunboats had two and one half inches of armor plates, and they mounted 13 guns per boat. These shallow draft vessels were ideal for river fighting.
In February of 1862, Grant brought two divisions of Federal troops downriver on four ironclad gunboats, and on three transports. The transport vessels needed two trips to transport the 14,000 troops in the operation against Fort Henry. In command of Fort Henry was Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman with 3400 Confederate troops. Most of his men were armed with shotguns and old fashioned flintlock rifles left over from the War of 1812. Recent flooding on the Tennessee River submerged all but nine of his fifteen cannon that faced the Tennessee River. The entire powder magazine of the fort was under water as well.
As the attack commenced, the ironclad gunboats took Fort Henry under fire. Fort Henry’s guns responded, pounding the U.S. gunboat Essex some 30 times, and putting her out of action with a short through her boiler.
Other gunboats closed the range and took the guns in Fort Henry under fire. One six inch rifle burst, and a giant Columbiad was soon spiked by a broken priming wire. Other guns were destroyed by gunboat fire, until only four serviceable guns were left.
Tilghman ordered his infantry in the fort to march out toward Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. After the infantry marched out, Tilghman struck his colors. By three o’clock p.m., General Grant’s troops arrived to take possession of the fort.
With Fort Henry in Union hands, a water highway deep into Alabama had been opened. Union troops now had the means to be transported into territory as far south as northeastern Alabama. General Grant wired General Henry Halleck in St. Louis: “Fort Henry is ours.” Another Confederate fort around fourteen miles east on the Cumberland River, Fort Donelson, became General Grant’s next target for federal attack.
Raising the Merrimack
Jan 17, 2012 Updates
When Virginia seceded from the Union in April of 1861, Union Navy forces abandoned the Gosport Navy Yard. On a berth at Gosport was the U.S.S. Merrimack, a steam frigate that weighed 350 tons and carried 40 guns. On April 20, 1861, Union officials set the Merrimack on fire at her berth, and scuttled her by opening her shuttlecocks. They then abandoned the Gosport Navy Yard. The ship sank so quickly at her moorings, her engines and hull were saved from the fire.
Confederate Navy Lt. John M. Brooke went to Richmond, and persuaded Secretary of the Navy Mallory to raise the Merrimack, and to convert her into a sea going ironclad ship. The Merrimackwas the only large ship with her engines intact located in the area of Hampton Roads, so Secretary Mallory was eager to have the vessel raised and rebuilt. Mallory gave his approval, and the Merrimack was raised, pumped out and plugged, and the silt was scrubbed out of her engines.
The Merrimack was originally built at the Boston Navy Yard in 1854. The ship went into service originally in 1855, and sailed around Cape Horn and back in the 1850’s. The original steam frigate relied on sail power and steam power for propulsion, but the converted ironclad would only rely on her steam engines for propulsion after she was raised and rebuilt. The reason that the Merrimack was at the Gosport Yard in April of 1861 was for a steam engine overhaul, and that would be significant after the ship was rebuilt.
Lt. John Brooke moved the ship to the graving dock at the Gosport Yard, where the ship’s burned structures were removed. After the ship was cut down, a casement was built of 24 inches of oak and wood lumber in several layers. Two inches of iron plate were laid over the wooden casement, making the new ship the world’s first ironclad warship. The armor plates were angled at 36 degrees to deflect enemy shells.
The new ship was rechristened the C.S.S. Virginia. She was rebuilt with an iron ram on her prow, a large twin blade screw propeller, a new fantail, and a V-shaped cutwater on her bow. The Virginia had a forward and aft main deck that was designed to be submerged, and these structures were covered with four inches of iron plate.
The casemate gun deck contained 14 gun ports, with four gun ports on each broadside. The battery consisted of four muzzle loading Brooke rifles and six smoothbore 9 inch Dahlgren guns salvaged from the sunken Merrimack. The two Dahlgrens located nearest the boiler were designed to fire heated shot at wooden naval vessels.
As an ironclad ship, the mission of the C.S.S. Virginia was to break the Union naval blockade in the Hampton Roads area. The one Achilles heel of the Virginia was her engines. The reason the Merrimack was at the Gosport Yard in April of 1861 was for an overhaul of her weak steam engines. The overhaul was not completed before the ship was scuttled. Exposure to the salt water of the Elizabeth River degraded the old steam engines further. The added weight of the ironclad construction and the forward iron ram put greater stress on the old Merrimacksteam engines. This would become a critical factor the following spring, when the Virginia sailed out into Hampton Roads to take on the Union fleet.
