by Janette Peel

Created on: April 15, 2008

Though ironclad warships were already being built in France and Great Britain, the Civil War demonstrated conclusively their superiority over wooden warships, revolutionizing naval warfare. Because the South lacked the means of producing a navy equal to the North's wooden fleet, much of its limited resources were spent in building ironclads.

In May 1861 confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory requested Congress to support the building of an ironclad warship that could challenge the Federal blockade. A month later, Confederate Lt. John M. Brooke began working on a design for such a vessel.

Though some naval traditionalists looked with disfavor on ironclads, the U.S. Congress made an important first step in their development by establishing a three member Ironclad Board, which examined proposals for an experimental ironclad, then made recommendations.

The South's first ironclads were designed to operate both on open sea and inland waters, reflecting the offensive strategy advocated by Mallory. The South's and North's first efforts at building ironclads resulted in the CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor. The superiority of an ironclad over wooden adversaries was dramatically illustrated when the Virginia went into action at Hampton Roads on 8 March, 1862. Then, on 9 March the Virginia and the Monitor fought to a stand-off in one of the most important naval battles in American history.

The lessons of Hampton Roads were obvious, and for the rest of the war both North and South concentrated on building ironclads. By mid 1862 Mallory had changed to a more realistic defensive strategy, resulting in smaller, shallow-draft ironclads built for river and harbor defense.

In all, about 50 ironclads were either laid down or contracted for within the Confederacy, but only 22 of these were actually commissioned and put into operation. The shortage of iron and lack of suitable engines greatly handicapped their completion, and continuous loss of waterways and ports to Northern forces led the Confederates themselves to destroy many of these ships, both finished and unfinished.

Though the ironclads used were unseaworthy, slow, and plagued by mechanical problems, they nevertheless contributed much to the South's war effort. The threat they posed led to ram fever' in the North, and exaggerated fear that invincible Southern ironclads would soon break the blockade and move against Northern coastal cities. This fear was shared by the public and official Washington circles alike and resulted in the diversion of Federal vessels and troops to counter the menace.

It also led to Monitor Fever' following the success of the Monitor at Hampton Roads. Some 60 Monitor-type vessels were built by the North after Monitor 1, varying greatly in size and design. One of these, the new ironsides, was the most powerful ironclad built by the Federals and the only ocean-going armored cruiser to be completed during the war. Though the other ironclads were unsuited for blockade duty, they proved invaluable in operations on Western waters and against the South's harbor defenses.

Even before the Virginia-Monitor encounter, Federal ironclad gunboats (referred to as Pook Turtles' after their designer, Samuel M. Pook) had been hurriedly built and were contributing to Federal army and navy successes on the Mississippi and its tributaries. River steamers were also converted into ironclads and participated in the River War.

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