Monitor & Merrimack

The Merrimack was a former wooden warship. The Confederates plated it with iron railroad rails. They renamed it the Virginia. The Virginia easily wrecked Union Navy ships and threatened to destroy the whole Navy. The Confederates later destroy the ship to keep it from the Union. This marks the end of wooden ships.

the Merrimack was a small Union ironclad built in about 100 days to stop the Confederate ship. The Merrimack, which was a former U.S. wooden warship destroyed two wooden Union ships in the Chesapeake Bay and threatened the Yankee's plan of blockading all Southern ports. The Union built the Monitor and transported it to the Chesapeake. On March 9, 1862, in 4 hours, the Monitor, or the "Yankee cheesebox on a raft," fought the Merrimack "to a standstill."