Few days opened more darkly for the U.S. Navy than March 9, 1862. Mangled by the lethal guns and armored sides of the CSS Virginia on the previous afternoon, the Union fleet in Hampton Roads still ...

DINWIDDIE — While many Americans remember the famous land battles of the Civil War such as Gettysburg, Manassas or our own Petersburg Campaign, a large and equally important war was waged at sea.

On March 9, 1862, Confederate Navy ship CSS Virginia and Union navy ship USS Monitor met in battle off the coast of Virginia. Their clash was inconclusive, but the battle was the first time metal ...

The 19th century was a time of dramatic global transformation. Monarchies were falling and democracies sprang up to replace them while many remaining monarchs saw their power diluted in favor of ...

For almost all of human history, boats were made of wood. Sure, today we've got amazing ships built from steel and composites, but people have been sailing for thousands of years, so almost every ship ...

On March 8, 1862, a large, slow-moving and unwieldy Confederate ship steamed toward the blockading Union vessels posted at Hampton Roads, outside of Virginia’s James River. The rebels made a beeline ...

When the USS Monitor arrived in the Confederate-controlled waters off the coast of Sewall's Point, Va., in the early morning hours of March 9, 1862, the wooden-hulled USS Congress was still ablaze ...

That is the office environment of a Virginia Beach-based U.S. Navy team this summer as it salvages a Civil War ironclad vessel in the Savannah River. The team battles back against the underwater ...

One of the worst-kept secrets of the Civil War was the plan to dominate America's waterways with ironclads. North and South raced to be first, while newspapers and scientific magazines reported every ...