Norfolk VA. Since I spend 60% of my life these past 20 years living on great big metal floating cities, it’s a no brainer that today I wanted to see the place where the 2 first ironclad ships in America duked it out so I hustled off early in the morning to make the drive to Monitor Merrimack point or Sewell’s Point. Sadly, only one small plaque (above) is there to commemorate this piece of history….but everyone there told me it was the best place for fishing….
The Confederates were the first to take an old wooden sailing ship, the Merrimack, which was sunk in the bay, and raise her up and cover her with iron plates right there in Norfolk harbor. The engineers were copying the already existing ironclad ship in the UK but none of this was going to be an easy job. How do you cover a ship with a ton of iron which almost sinks her and then get her to float and steer and shoot? But they did it and changed the name to CSS Virginia in 1861.
The Union Army wasn’t about to be left out of this game so they got busy and built a more nimble (well, sort of...when she wasn't banging into things and going completely off course) ironclad, the Monitor.
Fast forward to March 9, 1862. The Virginia is protecting the harbor as it’s a huge supply base and along comes the evil twin, Monitor, looking very much like a not submerged sub
. The Virginia up to this point had blown anything and everything out of the water that was wooden but here comes not only an ironclad but one that's faster and has more guns (altho they tended to go off in the wrong direction). 8 hours they went at it. Bonging shells off each other, even ramming
each other. The outcome? They both didn’t sink altho they were both
pretty damaged and nobody won. The
Monitor crept off and never fought again, sinking 9 months later. The Virginia limped off to heal her wounds
and was scuttled one year later in 1862.
But the important part of the story is that the US now had
iron covered warships that would someday turn into one of those big floating
pleasure boats I live on.
I’m camped at a KOA in the middle of absolute nowhere. Huge sugar pines everywhere and cotton fields
in every direction. It seems ironic to
me that so much cotton is still grown down here. No black slaves to pick it anymore….just
those raping, murdering Mexicans that this whole area of the US is totally in
favor of building that wall and kicking out all their cheap help. Come on people!!! Please don’t let Trump
destroy this country. And please
remember that either not voting or voting for someone else besides Hillary is
basically a vote for Trump. You may not agree with everything she's about (please do your research first!) but the race is close. It's a sea of Trump signs down here for the past 6 states I've crossed. Please make your vote count.
Hoping you are all enjoying your Halloween weekend. Hugs from the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment