About three and a half months ago, on March 8, 1862, the naval 
battle between the Merrimac and the frigates Cumberland and 
Congress in Hampton Roads ended the long era of wooden 
men-of-war. On March 9, 1862, the naval battle between the 
Merrimac and the Monitor in the same waters opened the era of 
war between ironclad ships.* 

Since then the Congress in Washington has approved considera- 
ble sums for building various ships armoured with iron and 
completing the large iron floating battery of Mr. Stevens (in 
Hoboken, near New York). In addition, Mr. Ericsson is engaged in 
completing six ships built on the pattern of the Monitor, but larger 
and with two mobile turrets, each flanked with two heavy cannons. 
The Galena, a second ironclad, not constructed by Mr. Ericsson, 
and of different design to the Monitor, has been completed and 
has joined the Monitor, at first to watch the Merrimac and then to 
clear the banks of the James River of rebel forts; this task has 
been performed to within seven or eight miles of Richmond. The 
third ironclad in the James River is the Bengaluche, first named the 
Stevens after its inventor and former owner. 

A fourth ironclad, the New Ironsides, is being built in Philadel- 
phia and should be ready to go to sea in a few weeks. The 
Vanderbilt and another large steamer have been converted into 
rams; a large number of other wooden men-of-war, such as the 
Roanoke, are to be reborn as ironclads. In addition, the Union 
government had 4 or 5 ironclad gunboats built on the Ohio, which 
did good service at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson and Pittsburg 

a See this volume, pp. 289-95.— Ed. 

Landing. Finally, Colonel Ellet and his friends fitted out various 
rams by levelling down and ironcladding the bows of old 
steamships at Cincinnati and other places on the Ohio. He did not 
arm them with cannons but with sharpshooters, in which the West 
abounds. He then offered the rams, the crews and his own 
services to the Union government. We shall come back later to the 
first feat of arms of these improvised rams. 

On the other side, the Confederates did not remain inactive. 
They began to build new iron ships and remodel old ones at 
Norfolk. Before they had finished their work there, Norfolk fell to 
the Union troops and all those ships were destroyed. In addition, 
the Confederates built three very strong iron rams at New Orleans, 
and a fourth ironclad of enormous size with excellent armament 
was nearing completion when New Orleans fell. According to 
Union naval officers, the last-named ship, when ready for battle, 
would have exposed the entire Union navy to the greatest peril, 
since the government in Washington had nothing equal to 
opposing this monster. Its cost came to two million dollars. As we 
know, the rebels themselves destroyed the ship. 

At Memphis, the Confederates had built no fewer than eight 
rams, each of which carried four or six guns of large caliber. It 
was at Memphis that the first “battle of the rams’ took place on the 
Mississippi on June 6. Although the Union flotilla, coming down 
the Mississippi, had five ironclad gunboats, it was two of Colonel 
Ellet’s rams, the Queen and the Monarch, that essentially decided 
the combat. Of the eight enemy rams, four were destroyed, three 
were captured and one escaped. After the gunboats of the Union 
flotilla had opened a lively cannonade against the rebel ships and 
kept it up for some time, the Queen and the Monarch sailed into 
the midst of the enemy squadron. The fire of the gunboats ceased 
almost completely, since Colonel Ellet’s rams were tied up in such 
a knot with the enemy ships that the gunners could not distinguish 
friend from foe. 

Ellet’s rams, as already mentioned, carried no cannons but a 
host of sharpshooters. Their engines and boilers were protected 
only by timber work. Powerful steam engines and a sharp oak bow 
covered with iron constituted the entire equipment of these rams. 
Men, women and children streamed out of Memphis by the 
thousands to the steep banks of the Mississippi, at some points 
hardly half an English mile from the scene of battle, to watch the 
“battle of the rams” in anxious suspense. The conflict lasted little 
more than an hour. While the rebels lost 7 ships and 100 men, 
about 40 of them by drowning, only one Union ship was seriously 

The American Civil War and the Ironclads and Rams 915 

damaged, only one man wounded and none killed. 

Apart from the one iron ram that escaped from the naval 
engagement at Memphis, the Confederates may still have a couple 
of rams and ironclads at Mobile. Except for these, and the few 
gunboats at Vicksburg, which are, simultaneously, threatened by 
Farragut, sailing up the river, and Davis, sailing down it, their 
navy has already seen the end of its days. 

216 

Karl Marx