Traditionally, the ironclad that fought against the Monitor was referred to by the name of the original Union ship that was scuttled and then refloated and refitted, following the precedent of the Union refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the Confederacy. Then for a while it was considered correct to call it by the name the Confederacy christened it as, the CSS Virginia. Now I see it mostly called the Merrimac again. Any reason for this?
Do you really suppose there’s ever been a nationwide consensus on these kinds of Civil War questions? Isn’t it just a function of the region where the writer is from?
The only real difference is that the Union would not (obviously) accept that the Confederacy had the proper legal title to the vessel. Hence it was still the Merrimac, but was simply stolen by rebels.
This is my take on it, combined with the alliteration of Monitor v. Merrimac which is not present in Monitor v. Virginia. The erstwhile switchover to Virginia was the sort of “hypercorrectness” that inisists on every reference to Brontosaurus being corrected to Apatosaurus, and every reference to Persian being corrected to Iranian – even when specifically “what Marsh called the dinosaur” or “the old language of the Persis region” are meant.
Yeah, “The Monitor and the Merrimac” is euphonious. Had the original union ship been called, say, The Belchertown, even Union accounts would have been fine with referring to it as the Virginia.
Agree that it’s the alliterative sound that makes the use of Merrimac popular. I’d expect it was popularized by newspaper editors trying to sell papers.
Disagree that it necessarily represents hypercorrectness to call the ship the CSS Virginia.
IMHO, famous things (and people) should generally be called what their creators/users called them (or what they called themselves). “Cassius Clay” is alliterative as all get-out, but I’m not going to insist “Ali vs Frazier” be renamed “Cassius Clay vs Frazier.” He was Ali at the time, by his own choice.
The ship in question is notable for its armor, all of which was added to the raised hulk of the Merrimac during its rebuilding as CSS Virginia. All the parts that were visible above water during the fight were new Virginia parts. Sure, the underlying hull and engines came from the Merrimac, but those were just parts. If the engines had once come from crate 17, we wouldn’t name the ship “Crate 17” because parts of it came from that.
Well, she was originally commissioned the USS Merrimack (spelled just like that, with the final “k,” sometimes dropped in the inconsistent spelling of the day), and was named after the New England river of the same name, also usually but not invariably spelled with the final “k”: USS Merrimack (1855) - Wikipedia
I agree the alliterative nature of “Monitor and Merrimack” is why that phrase has persisted as long as it has in referring to the world’s first duel between ironclad warships. Contemporary sources also show that both Northern and Southern writers, naval and otherwise, continued to refer to the ship as the Merrimack (or Merrimac) even after her conversion into an ironclad.
But since, upon her capture and conversion into an ironclad, she was commissioned into the Confederate States Navy under a different name than that which she had originally borne, it is more technically correct to refer to her at the time of the March 8-9, 1862 fighting in Hampton Roads as the CSS Virginia.
But that would be, as per my post, only if she were legally the property of the Confederacy to raise. Legally, she was still U.S. government property. Thus, by the issue of the war itself being decided against the Confeds, it would seem that she is and always was the Merrimac.
Ths is not as simple as that. The USS Merrimack had been decommissioned and placed “in ordinary” for maintenance in February, 1860. This meant she was not an active unit of the US Navy on 20 April, 1861 but was still US Property. Union forces then scuttled the Merrimack, and she was struck from the Navy List. At that point, she was an abandoned hulk. The laws that applied to any other shipwreck would apply to that hulk.
This is where it gets a bit tricky. Today, military vessels that are lost as wrecks are retained as the property of the government or its successors unless they explicitly give up those ownership rights. In 1860, I believe the state of the law at the time regarded any salvaged vessel as the property of the salvor.
Note also that the CSN did not seize the former Merrimack. The actual salvors would have been the Commonwealth of Virginia as VA ratified secession only on May 23rd, and did not join the CSA until May 29th.
In other words, the Commonwealth of Virginia could well have been the legal owner of the lower hull and machinery that were formerly part of the USS Merrimack on that date they managed to refloat the wreck.
Only if you recognize said navy as having been that of a legitimately constituted state.
No, USN retained ownership. Being stricken means only that a ship is no longer counted as being a ship. It does not abandon property rights.
Seems to me if one can refer to “the Confederacy” and the “CSA” without having the issue of legitimacy coming up each time and being corrected to refer to “the states in rebellion,” one can do the same with “CSS Virginia” and “Merrimack.” (And Col. Lee, etc.)
Then couldn’t you also claim that the southern generals were not really generals?
I agree that it’s more accurate to refer to the two ships that fought as the Monitor and the Virginia. But it appears tradition and alliteration have trumped accuracy in this case.
Today, yes, which is what I said. In the nineteenth century, however, being stricken was an immediate preliminary to disposal. The records I’ve seen from that time are not especially consistent, so if there was an official policy on whether striking a vessel was the same as abandoning ownership or not, it was not followed with regularity. Sometimes, striking happened after a vessel or hulk was sold for scrapping, sometimes before. What was (somewhat) consistent was that after a vessel was sunk or ran aground, striking was the last official action and the U.S. government did not regularly assert property rights to wrecks after striking them from the Naval Register.
It is at least arguable that the Union government gave up ownership of the ex-USS Merrimack (even though the reverse is equally arguable) and therefore arguable that the CSN had legal ownership of the CSS Virginia.
The situation is not as definitive as **smiling bandit **stated. That doesn’t mean I think he’s wrong, but just that the historical record can be used to support either position.
The Lincoln Administration certainly didn’t accept that the CSA was a legitimate government, but it has long since been officially recognized (including by the U.S. Navy today) that the Virginia was a Confederate vessel: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/csa-sh/csash-sz/virg-d.htm. What was once politically sensitive is now simply historical.
And although I’m as true-blue a Union man as you’ll ever hope to meet, I think the Merrimack was, as a captured hulk, the Confederacy’s to do with as it pleased. In all the anti-CSA invective I’ve read over the years - and I’ve read a lot - I’ve never seen anyone arguing that the CSN acted illegally or committed theft by making use of the Merrimack as it did.