"The Birth of the Ironclads" Topic

"On the night of Saturday, April 20, 1861, the United States naval authorities evacuated the navy yard at Gosport, Va. This was one of the most extraordinary proceedings of the war. Whether the commandant of the yard was perplexed by the indecisive instructions of the authorities at Washington, or whether he was simply panic-stricken, remains a mystery to the present day. The large corvette Cumberland and the steamer Pawnee, both in commission, were there; and by keeping the latter in the lower harbor to prevent the Confederates from obstructing the channel, and the Cumberland with her broadsides sprung upon Norfolk and Portsmouth, both towns would have been overawed. The yard was under the heavy batteries of the Pennsylvania and the Merrimac, to say nothing of a force of marines. It was simply out of the power of the Confederates to capture the place. They had no heavy guns to mount in batteries, even if they could have erected them under the broadsides of the Cumberland. "The spirit of madness and folly prevailed; and I know of no better exhibition of it than the fact that while they [the United States forces] were trying to get out, our people were actually trying to keep them in by obstructing the channel! One would suppose that we would have been only too glad to see them depart. And no sooner had the United States given up this yard than they commenced making preparations to recapture it…"
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