That sounds like a fair interpretation to me. 
On that note, there was a ship in the Republic of Texas Navy called the Independence (in this case, the Republic of Texas was a legally recognized independent nation, unlike the CSA several decades later). She ended up getting captured by the Mexicans during the Battle of the Brazos River. I always thought it a bit rude that the Mexicans didn’t even bother to change the name of the ship after pressing her into Mexican naval service.
For what it’s worth, I refer to her as the Virginia because at the time that was the name used by her crew, commander, and the military service she served under, even if all of the above were unlawful troublemakers who had stolen Federal property and made off with it.
Regarding naval combat happening at much longer distances than would allow for canister shot, I seem to recall that the action between the two ships here happened at short enough range that the Confederate ship managed to ram her opponent (which resulted in both ships nearly being sunk when the ram became stuck before breaking off).
On that note, battleships were designed with rams at least as late as the First World War, and in fact HMS Dreadnought once rammed an sank a German submarine (the only enemy ship Dreadnought ever engaged and sank in battle, ironically enough given her famous all-big-gun battery)
On that note, submarines were not developed in WWII, contrary to what someone said. They were quite notorious both during the Spanish Civil War (where they were used by pirates who were most certainly not in fact the Italian Navy carrying out unrestricted submarine warfare in the Mediterranean Sea) and World War I (where they were most famously used by the German navy, although other navies also operated subs).
And of course, one of the most famous early submarines saw action during the American Civil War, with the C.S. Hunley, which had a disastrous kill ratio of 3:1 against (she sank with all hands three times, including the final time when she managed to first engage and destroy the USS Housatonic with a spar torpedo, a weapon which was the bastard child of a petard and a ram)
