Tuesday, October 22
Today was always going too be a light day. The first stop on the agenda was the Maritime Museum in Hampton, Virginia, just south of Newport News. The museum is situated a few blocks off the James River, in an area known as Hampton Roads. "Roads" is an old naval term for a long stretch of deep water that's safe for passage.
During the Civil War, Union ships had blockaded the James River as well as the Chesapeake Bay. The Confederate Navy had a plan to end the blockade. But first, some backstory. When Virginia seceded from the Union in April, 1861, orders went out to the Union's Gosport Navy Yard(Now the Norfolk Navy Yard) to destroy everything.
To keep it from falling into enemy hands, the navy burned the steamship USS Merrimack to the waterline. The Confederates found it and discovered the hull and steam plant still in good condition. Due to it's size and the condition of her engines, the ship was put into dry dock. She was eventually outfitted with four inches of iron plating and rechristened the CSS Virginia. On March 8, 1862, she sailed into battle for the first time.
She first attacked the USS Cumberland, then the USS Congress. Both were destroyed with minimal damage to the Virginia. That night, the Union Navy's own iron warship arrived at Fort Monroe.
The next morning, The Virginia returned and approached the USS Minnesota, hung up on a sand bar. The captain had grounded the ship once he realized the water was too shallow for the Virginia. As it started firing on the Minnesota, The USS Monitor joined the fray.
No one had seen anything like it, and the confederates didn't know what it was until it started opening fire on them. Their first impressions described the Monitor as a "cheese box on a raft." Unlike the Virginia's more traditional gun emplacements, The Monitor only had two, protected by a revolving turret. After firing, the turret would rotate to protect the crews while they reloaded.
The battle between the two ships began shortly after 8A and lasted until noon. Running low on ammunition, the Virginia broke off and headed back to the yard. Two months later, the Confederates would abandon the navy yard and scuttle the Virginia. The Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras on December 31st.
The exact location of the wreck wasn't known until 1973, with the first manned exploration of the site occurring three years later. The first artifact to be recovered a year later, the red lantern.
On the night the Monitor sank, the crew tied this lantern to a pole atop the gun turret. It was the last thing they saw as the ship went down.
In 2002, a successful attempt was made to raise the Monitor's turret. A team of one hundred-sixty divers took part in the recover effort. The ship had flipped upside down and a great deal of debris had to be removed before they could free and lift the it.
In the lower level of the museum, you'll find the recovered turret, as well as one of the guns. It's displayed the way they found it, upside down.
I talked to one of the volunteers about the noise inside the turret. It's not just the sound of the cannon firing inside, but the slams as the return shot hit the exterior wall. He told me there would be as many as twenty men inside the turret, including the gunners, loaders, officers and those bringing in more ammunition.
A recreation of the turret as it would have looked...
Maybe it's just me, but the overhead sign made me chuckle. This was on the Hampton Bridge/Tunnel and traffic was stopped cold.
More delays crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel...
There's a visitor center just over the bridge. I stopped in for maps and ideas for lunch. When they suggested Cape Charles Brewery, it sounded perfect. Lunch was a some seriously good steamed shrimp and a Moon Sauce Experimental Lager. Moon Sauce was just a random name.
Random, abandoned rail cars behind the brewery.
Hwy 175 took me across a lengthy bridge to the town of Chincoteague and the Days Inn. It’s your basic, small coastal town and most businesses close down early. After checking in and chatting with a group of guys on the back porch, it was off to a public boat ramp I had spotted on the drive in. Sure, it was drizzling and still gray, but there were a few lighter spots to the west. With any luck, I might get something.
The rain tapered off and I was eventually joined by another photographer. He left, I stuck around. I didn’t get much in the way of color. But, I still like what I did get.
As for the Days Inn. The vast majority of places I’ve stayed were respectable and I would have no problem staying with them again. There have been a few along the road that are the exceptions. You’d expect better from an affiliate of a national chain. It started with an itch from the comforter.
When I woke up, I was covered in hives. Yeah, I did leave an honest review. Fortunately, the itch and the swelling faded during the next day.
Coming Up,
Wild Horses on the Dunes
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