Monday, March 9, 2009

2:76, #380: The Monitor vs. Merrimack Party

Yessiree, Bob, it's the 147th anniversary of the initiation of modern naval warfare when the U.S.S. Monitor defeated the C.S.S. Virginia, a.k.a. the Merrimack on a beautiful Sunday morning in Hampton Roads, Virginia. (Note the public domain Currier & Ives pic to the right.) Once again, it was the Sabbath-breaker's defeat...yes, DEFEAT... because Southern objectives were to destroy the wooden ships of the North that were parked in Hampton Roads and that did not happen on Sunday. Now, granted, on Saturday when statistically speaking, attackers win 67% of the time during the War of Southern Aggression, the Merrimack wrecked a couple of wooden ships, so it won that day, but not the next.

The Monitor's objective was to prevent the destruction of the Union fleet, not to destroy the ironclad Merrimack, so it did win the battle in spite of the faulty opinions of most historians that chalk it up as a draw. Interestingly enough, both ships ended up at the bottom of the drink for one reason or another, sunk by their owners either by gunpowder (Merrimack) or by storm (Monitor). I've thought it significant that the start of ironclad ship warfare should be on a Sunday morning ever since I did the research for God Caused the Civil War.

Maybe I could get publishers interested if I changed the title to Do You Think God Initiated the War of Southern Aggression?...nah, probably not.
Got brass Napoleon cannon lawn ornaments?

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