Ironclads Civil War

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During the Civil War, the South’s Confederate States Navy and the North’s Union Navy created a new war in the coasts, rivers and seas. With new technologies, both the North and the South were able to fight brutal battles on the water.
During the Civil War, both the North and the South had their own navies. The North’s Union Navy was superior to that of the South’s Confederate States Navy since they had more fleets, warships, resources, and shipyards. The South had less resources, fleets and shipyards than the North had. However, the South’s latest technologies like Ironclads made it easy to use their resources to their fullest potential. Even though ironclads had been introduced in Europe in the 1850’s, the Union Navy's warships were still …show more content…

Warships were made out of wood and were sail-driven. The Union Navy's first task was to begin building dozens of warships and to purchase hundreds of merchant ships that were converted into blockades, according to the article “The Navies of the Civil War”. The North’s warships were built of wood until the South switched to Ironclads when they captured the Merrimack which they later renamed Virginia. With the help of John Ericsson, the Union Navy was able to switch their wooden boats to underwater ironclads with gun turret called “Monitor” class gunboats as told by the article “Steel & Steam”. Most of these warships were steam powered. In the article (“Steel & Steam” by Roger A. Bailey) it states that even though steam engines existed before the Civil War, Robert Fulton introduced the Union Navy to steam powered boats. Even though steam engined ship were slow to catch on, by the late 1850’s all new warships featured steam engines. Steamers achieved an unprecedented freedom of movement that allowed ships to easily return upriver after transporting goods to port or continue a journey with weak or adverse …show more content…

The South used submarines to break the Unions Navy blockades. The first every submarine to destroy an enemy ship was the H.L. Hunley. The Hunley was ready to be tested on July 1863 in Mobile Bay where it proved successful by sinking a coal floatboat like the article “Civil War Submarine” explains. The Hunley was then sent to Charleston, South Carolina to stop Union blockades. On February 17, 1864, the Hunley meet the Union's USS Housatonic. The Housatonic was sunk within five minutes of battle. Lieutenant Dixon and his crew became the first to ever sink an enemy ship using a submarine as told by the article “Civil War Submarine”. After the battle, the Hunley was never heard from again until the 1970’s where it was found by underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence.
During the Civil War, both the North and the South's Navy found new ways to change warfare. From the first warship to submarines, Civil War technology became a new standard of warfare among

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