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IN THIS ISSUE
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* The Most Decisive Draw: Monitor And Virginia At Hampton Roads, 1862

* Viking Longboat

* The Battle of Actium

* HistoryList of the Month

* Historical Quote

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THE MOST DECISIVE DRAW: MONITOR AND VIRGINIA AT HAMPTON ROADS [By John D. Beatty]
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The battle between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia(1) around Hampton Roads in March of 1862, though tactically indecisive, had positive results for both sides, making it one of the most decisive draws in history. For the North, Monitor proved that the United States could build warships more powerful than nearly any other then afloat in a very short time, and could defend Northern interests against any interference by Europe into American affairs. For the South, Virginia represented sound and powerful harbor defense warship design that was at least equal to anything the Union could float, and that compelled the Union to take the threat of other, similar ships seriously. Further, her short career may have saved the Confederate capitol and lengthened the war by two years.

By March of 1862 the fortunes of the Confederacy were in decline. In Tennessee the Federals had taken Forts Henry and Donelson that January, forcing the evacuation of Nashville. In February an audacious naval operation had secured New Orleans. Surprising Army/Navy operations had secured Roanoke Island in Virginia and Port Royal in South Carolina, providing important bases for blockading ships.

The hopes of the Confederacy, a nation without a navy, rested in part on a new ship that then was being finished in Norfolk. The hull of USS Merrimac, one of the prewar US Navy's largest and most powerful steam cruisers, had been salvaged after she was burned at her moorings during the Union's hurried evacuation of the Gosport naval yards. The hull below the berth deck was practically intact, and her power plant was salvageable. Confederate authorities had approved the plans for the ship that would be dubbed Virginia.

In October 1861, as news of Virginia spread widely, the Union commenced construction of an iron ship of a completely new design. Designed by a Swedish-born inventor of considerable genius, John Ericsson, the warship had only two guns mounted in a centrally mounted turret. The new ship, called Monitor, was commissioned four months later.

In February 1862, Franklin Buchanan was ordered to take command of the Confederate James River Squadron that included Virginia. Neither he nor the squadron had orders to break the blockade or attack blockading ships, but was specifically part of the naval defenses of the James River. On Sunday 7 March 1862, Virginia attacked the Union blockaders. The resulting battle lasted little more than three hours, leaving the 24- gun sailing sloop Cumberland rammed and sunk, the 50-gun frigate Congress burning, and 47-gun steamer Minnesota, which rushed into the Roads to help, aground some two miles east of Newport News. In a single morning, the Confederacy had become a naval power.

But the Yankee sailors and land batteries had put up a fight, hitting Virginia more than 100 times with artillery, sweeping her outsides clear of all fittings, destroying her boats, riddling her smokestack, and destroying two guns. Two of her crew were killed and another nineteen wounded, including Buchanan. As the battle ended Monitor entered Hampton Roads, having worked her way south from New York through two days of storms.

On the morning of 8 March, Virginia and Monitor clashed in the Roads. Within minutes the two were side by side, pounding each other with gunfire from less than fifty yards in an age when it was more common to fight at ten times that. For the next three hours the two ships dueled. Virginia's casement was nearly breached once, but Monitor's guns misfired and the advantage was lost.

At about 10 o'clock Virginia grounded. After furious work and a tremendous pounding from Monitor she managed to scrape off and continued the fight. At about 11 o'clock Monitor hauled off into shallow water to replenish her shot lockers, while Virginia turned her attentions to Minnesota. The stranded Federal ship delivered a broadside that would have destroyed any wooden ship afloat but left Virginia unaffected. When the battle with Monitor was joined again Virginia's gunners despaired of hurting their enemy's thick turret so they concentrated on her pilot house at twenty yards, destroying it and blinding her captain. That caused Monitor to withdraw to shallow water again to assess damage. Virginia, having trouble with her engines and with parts of her unarmored hull exposed after consuming prodigious amounts of coal, headed back to Norfolk. The most important sea fight since Trafalgar was over.

The two ships never fought each other again, but Virginia sortied later in March and snapped up a couple of Union Army transports in the Roads. The Federals left Hampton Roads to Virginia for the next two months of her life, forcing Union plans for the Peninsula campaign to shift from using the James as an axis of supply to using the York, which may have saved Richmond and thus, for the moment, the Confederacy. Her crew later destroyed her when Norfolk was evacuated in May. Monitor never fought another ship, and foundered off Cape Hatteras at the end of 1862.

Note:
1. This article refers to the ship as CSS Virginia, her official name, even though neither side called her that.

Selected sources:
Daly, R.W. How the Merrimac Won: The Strategic Story of the CSS Virginia. New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell, 1957.
deKay, James Tertius. Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History. New York: Ballentine Publishing Group, 1997.
Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 1995.
Wood, John Taylor. "The First Fight of the Iron-Clads." In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Volume 1, 699-711. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1956.

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THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM [By Preston Chesser ]
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The strange battle of Actium ended decades of Roman civil war and resulted in the rise of the first Roman Emperor. The seemingly irrational battle tactics of Antony destroyed himself, his armies and his famed wife, Cleopatra. Conjecture over Antony's reasons for abandoning the battle and chasing Cleopatra's ship has been fodder for historians, poets and movie writers for centuries.

After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC Rome had no clear leader. Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius) took over Caesar's papers and many of his legions but Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was named as heir in Caesar's will. (Octavianus also possessed the ever important name "Caesar".) Since neither of the two men could manage a clear majority of support, they formed the Second Triumvirate with Marcus Aemilus Lepidus. Lepidus was a well respected yet aged General.

Individually, Octavianus and Antony continued to persuade senators and generals to join their side. Eventually, Lepidus who had been assigned an unimportant role in Africa, attempted to seize Sicily by force. His troops mutinied and he was forcibly retired by Octavianus. This left Octavianus with control of the Eastern provinces and Antony with control of those in the West. Antony married Octavianus' sister, Octavia, and an uneasy truce began.

Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII began their fateful relationship after he took over the Western provinces. He began to live openly with Cleopatra and eventually married her although he didn't immediately divorce Octavia his Roman wife. This was greatly resented by the Romans and helped erode much of Antony's support with the public and the Senate. Octavianus capitalized on the situation by reading a supposed copy of Antony's will which gave much of his control to Cleopatra's children Regardless of the authenticity of the will, the propaganda worked and the Senate declared war on Cleopatra (and, therefore on Antony as well.)

Prior to the battle of Actium, Mark Antony took his and Cleopatra's fleet into the Gulf of Ambracia (located on the west coast of Greece). He used towers on land and a row of ships in the water to guard the entrance to the Gulf. Octavianus setup camp on the Northernmost shore of the Gulf across from the Actium promontory (from which the battle gets it's name.) Over the next few months the two commanders were stalemated. A few battles were fought up and down the coast - the most decisive of which by Agrippa (one of Octavianus' Generals) cutoff Antony's lines of communication further down the coast.

During this time disunity increased between Antony, his generals and his wife. Antony's generals didn't trust either Cleopatra or her armies. They also realized that as long as she was present she would act as fuel for Octavianus' propaganda. They argued that if Cleopatra would go home many of the Roman senate, the Roman people and the Roman army would quit their support of Octavianus. In addition, the Roman generals were much more comfortable and experienced with land battles while Cleopatra insisted that Antony had the advantage on the water and should attack by sea. Furthermore she apparently didn't trust her control over Antony unless she was present and thus refused to leave.

Mark Antony finally agreed to take Cleopatra's advice and fight the naval battle and to simultaneously take his General's advice and send Cleopatra home. Exactly when Cleopatra and her ships (which made up a large number of the fleet) were to leave and whether or not Antony planned to go with them is a matter of debate to this day.

On 2 September 31 BC. Antony moved out to meet Octavianus. Antony's fleet consisted primarily of massive quinqueremes with bronze plates while Octavianus' fleet was made up mainly of smaller Liburnian vessels. The quinqueremes had the advantage of height from which to shoot or attack from and the advantage of the plates which protected them from ramming. The Liburnian ships were much more maneuverable. At the time the primary nature of Roman naval battles was to maneuver into position to ram the opponent and thus sink their ship. Since the quinqueremes couldn't maneuver quick enough to ram the faster Liburnian ships and the Liburnians couldn't do much damage even if they did ram the plated quinqueremes the battle progressed more as a land battle than a standard sea battle.

Antony's ships rowed out in two wings where Octavianus' ships were gathered at the entrance to the Gulf. Antony tried to flank Octavianus' right but the sudden move threw his own center into confusion. When Octavianus' center took advantage of the confusion the fighting grew heavy. All day the unusual battle progressed with the land tactics of arrows and spears being fired back and forth without much chance of tangible gain. Late in the afternoon, Cleopatra and her squadron of 60 ships suddenly raised their sails and raced away from the center of the battle to the open ocean.

Antony's reaction has baffled historians for ages. When he saw Cleopatra leaving, Antony immediately left his command ship and followed her with 40 of his own ships following. Some have attributed Antony's rash departure to being caught off guard when his lover decided to leave him. Others have argued that Antony and Cleopatra had always secretly planned for him to steal away with her once her ships had the opportunity to break free. What is certain is that a quarter of Antony's fleet left without warning in the middle of the battle leaving the remainder of his fleet to their doom. By the end of the day the Antonian forces had lost 5000 lives and 300 ships. Octavianus no longer had an enemy capable of contending with him on the sea. A week later when all hope of Antony's return was lost, Antony's land forces surrendered as well.

A year later, as Octavianus' troops closed in on him, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra was captured by Octavianus but rather than face the certain humiliation of being paraded through the streets of Rome she had a servant smuggle an asp into her quarters and committed suicide. In less than three years after the battle, Octavianus, now called Augustus Caesar, declared himself emperor.

Selected sources:
Porter, Barry. "Actium: Rome's Fate In the Balance", Military History Magazine Aug 1997
Weigall, Arthur. "The Life and Times of Cleopatra", G.P. Putnam's Sons 1924

See more about Ancient wars here:
http://www.ehistory.com/ancient/battles.cfm

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VIKING LONGBOAT [By Thomas R. Long, Jr.]
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Out of the fragmented world of Europe in the Middle Ages, after the decline of the Western Roman Empire, several societies began to make their presence felt. One of those societies was that of the Norsemen, or more commonly known, the Vikings.

The Vikings' primary mode of transportation was a boat pulled by oarsmen. In the first millennium, these boats were small, but by the 10th century, the longboat had come into use and nothing instilled fear in the hearts of Medieval Europeans more than the sight of an approaching Viking longboat full of men ready to pillage and plunder.

The longboat had a shallow draft and could be easily sailed up shallow rivers, and ranged in size from a few dozen feet to over one hundred and fifty feet. The Vikings used the longboats to conduct raids against isolated towns and monasteries in France, Germany, and England, as well as Russia and even the Mediterranean Sea.

The importance of the longboat to the Vikings cannot be underestimated. It was a symbol of both wealth and power and was closely associated with the owner's personality. In fact, the boats were so important to the Norse that many warriors were actually buried in them to be used in the afterlife. Many fine examples of longboats used for burial have been found over the past several decades.

By the Nineteenth Century the longboat was obsolete, replaced by larger, faster ships capable of carrying larger payloads farther with fewer crew. However, the longboat continued to sail the icy waters of Northern Europe, but without causing the fear the longboat brought in the previous centuries as it sailed along the coast or up a river looking for a target of opportunity.

The Viking longboat had a tremendous influence on Europe economically and socially, even contributing to a large degree to the establishment of Feudalism. But that is a topic for another article.

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HISTORYLIST OF THE MONTH
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First Ten U.S. Fleet Aircraft Carriers (by launch date)

Name	Launch Date:Notes
Langley CV1	24 Aug 1912 Converted from a collier on 20 March 1922; lost 27 Feb 1942
Saratoga CV3	7 Apr 1925 Sunk at Bikini atom bomb tests 25 July 1946
Lexington CV2	3 Oct 1925 Lost at Battle of Coral Sea 8 May 1942
Ranger CV4	25 Feb 1933 Scrapped in Feb 1947
Yorktown CV5	4 Apr 1936 Lost 7 Jun 1942 after Battle of Midway
Enterprise CV6	3 Oct 1936 Scrapped September 1958
Wasp CV7	4 Apr 1939 Lost 15 Sep 1942 after being torpedoedby Japanese submarine
Hornet CV8	14 Dec 1940 Hit at the Battle of Santa Cruz; lost 27 October 1942
Essex CV9	31 Jul 1942 Scrapped
Lexington CV16	26 Sep 1942 Decommissioned Nov 1991

See more World War II History Lists here:
http://www.ehistory.com/World/ListList.cfm?EID=6

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HISTORICAL QUOTE
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"High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it."
Henry Kissinger - 1979

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Thanks to this weeks contributor(s):
John D. Beatty
Preston Chesser
Thomas R. Long, Jr.

Larry Gormley, Editor
historyexplorer@ehistory.com

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