Markers of History

Cannonball Trail
The First Battle of Ironclad Ships, 1862

Location: West end of Town Point Park at the Elizabeth River, steps east of the Armed Forces Memorial and its marker, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:30pm

Transcription of marker: On March 8, 1862 CSS Virginia steamed past this point (1) to a bat­tle which would for­ever change naval war­fare. This ship had pre­vi­ously been a Union steam frigate, USS Merrimack, which had been destroyed near the Gosport Navy Yard (2). Confederate forces found its hull to be sound and con­structed a super­struc­ture with iron plates to cre­ate a new kind of war­ship. The Virginia pro­ceeded out into Hampton Roads where she sank USS Cumberland and severely dam­aged USS Congress (3). The next day she returned to destroy the Union fleet and open the port. However, USS Monitor, another iron­clad, had slipped into Hampton Roads unde­tected by the Confederates (4). A major naval bat­tle ensued (5). Neither iron­clad did sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the other. The Virginia tried to ram the Monitor but failed to sink her and opened a gash in her own hull. She returned to Gosport never to fight again. She was scut­tled and burned on May 11, 1862 to pre­vent her cap­ture by Union forces (6).

My impres­sions: I love the way this marker uses a map to help you under­stand the geog­ra­phy of the bat­tle, com­plete with a “YOU ARE HERE” indi­ca­tor. I’m not sure whether this is the best marker I’ve seen on the sub­ject of the Monitor and the Merrimack or whether I’m just get­ting famil­iar enough with this impor­tant event in local his­tory that my brain is able to fill in the details which would have con­fused me by their omis­sion (since a marker has lim­ited space, there are ALWAYS omissions!).

And I’m glad that, more than two and a half weeks after this trip to Norfolk, I have finally fin­ished blog­ging about the mark­ers I found that day (when I really hadn’t intended to make it a snar­fari). Tomorrow, we move on to July 4th (one day later) and an inten­tional snar­fari. We’ll start with a cou­ple of mark­ers from the drive to Yorktown and, some­time soon, I’ll have to fig­ure out how to post the mark­ers I found along the Colonial Parkway and at Historic Jamestowne. After all that, I have a few mark­ers and sites from around Virginia Beach, and after that, it will be snarfs from this week and the future. Thanks for read­ing, and feel free to leave a com­ment on any­thing you see here.

Civil War Trails
Gosport Navy Yard

Location: At the east end of Columbia St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 3:15pm

Transcription of marker:

Gosport Navy Yard
Birthplace of the CSS Virginia

Before you is the Gosport Navy Yard (Norfolk Naval Shipyard). Gosport is the old­est Navy ship­yard in the nation. Here is where the USS Merrimack was burned and then trans­formed by the Confederates into the pow­er­ful iron­clad ram, the CSS Virginia.

Gosport Navy Yard was first estab­lished in 1767 by British naval agent Andrew Sprowle. It was occu­pied by patriot forces in 1775 and oper­ated as a ship­yard by the Virginia State Navy. Gosport, the largest ship­yard in America, was burned by the British in 1779 when they occu­pied Portsmouth.

In 1794 the yard was loaned to the U.S. Government and pur­chased by the U.S. Navy Department in 1801. The USS Chesapeake was one of a group of six frigates autho­rized by Congress to “Provide a Naval Armament,” and was the first ship built at Gosport Navy Yard in 1798 – 1799. On June 17, 1833, the 74-gun ship-of-the-line USS Delaware entered the newly com­pleted Dry Dock No. 1. The Delaware was the first ship to enter a dry dock in America.

When Virginia left the Union, the U.S. Navy evac­u­ated and burned the yard. Gosport was imme­di­ately occu­pied by local Confederates. Salvaged stores and equip­ment, includ­ing 1,085 can­nons, were used to equip and for­tify the many land bat­ter­ies erected in the Tidewater region and at other loca­tions through­out the South.

The steam frigate Merrimack, with 40 guns, had been under repair at Gosport and dur­ing the Federal evac­u­a­tion was burned and sunk. The Confederates raised it, placed it in Dry Dock No. 1 and from designs drawn by Naval Constructor John L. Porter, a Portsmouth native, con­verted it into the iron­clad CSS Virginia. While on its trial in Hampton Roads, Virginia sank the USS Cumberland and USS Congress on March 8, 1862. On the next day it fought the iron­clad USS Monitor, prov­ing that wooden war­ships were obsolete.

Gosport Navy Yard pro­duced sev­eral other gun­boats and part of another iron­clad, the CSS Richmond. On May 10, 1862, the yard was burned again, this time by the evac­u­at­ing Confederates and imme­di­ately reoc­cu­pied by the U.S. Navy. The Union con­trolled Gosport dur­ing the rest of the war.

My impres­sions: Again, I’m impressed by how much his­tory, the Civil War Trails mark­ers man­age to include on one marker. They are full of con­text and details and color. They also appear to me to be well-written. I real­ize that this helped clear up some of my con­fu­sion around the Fort Nelson marker which speaks of how many times the fort was burned. But it seemed too pas­sive to me. This marker, while dis­cussing another site, explains the rea­sons why the instal­la­tion was lost to fire. It doesn’t talk about how it “was burned,” it tells us who burned it and why, and makes a lot more sense to me than the guesses I was mak­ing as to the fire’s causes.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged and await­ing its proper code in the database.

All these mark­ers from Portsmouth, and we didn’t need to cross the street to see them. Then when we do…

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-s
John Luke Porter (19 Sept. 1813 — 14 Dec. 1893)

Location: In the median of High St (between Water St & Crawford St), Portsmouth VA 23704.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:20pm

Transcription of marker:

John Luke Porter, first pres­i­dent of the Portsmouth com­mon coun­cil, was born just two blocks south of here. An accom­plished naval con­struc­tor, com­mis­sioned first by the United States and later by the Confederacy, Porter super­vised, at the Norfolk Navy Yard, the con­ver­sion of the frigate Merrimac to the iron­clad CSS Virginia. On 8 March 1862, the Virginia rammed and sank USS Cumberland and destroyed USS Congress at Newport News. The next day Virginia fought a his­toric but incon­clu­sive bat­tle with USS Monitor in nearby Hampton Roads, in the world’s first naval com­bat between iron­clads. Porter later became chief naval con­struc­tor for the Confederacy, design­ing 21 iron­clads. He died in Portsmouth.

Department of Historic Resources, 1997

My impres­sions: An absolutely beau­ti­ful set­ting in the median of High Street, though prob­a­bly less acces­si­ble than it could be, in the mid­dle of the street, but it is cer­tainly quite vis­i­ble between the trees in the mid­dle of the street. A lot of these names are becom­ing famil­iar from ear­lier trips to Nauticus, etc. and from names that have been passed on in the area, but I plead igno­rance on the Civil War, too. I do like the way this marker explains both Porter’s ties to his­tory as well as his ties to Portsmouth, not only answer­ing the “Why is he impor­tant?” ques­tion but also “Why is this marker placed in this location?”

Notes for future snar­fers: If you get off the ferry from Norfolk at the High Street land­ing, walk towards the street and you won’t be able to miss the two state mark­ers in the mid­dle of High Street.

Markeroni sta­tus: Visit logged June 3, 2009. Waiting for whelm level to drop before ask­ing for cor­rec­tion of blank city name to Portsmouth.