87-649: CSS Fredericksburg was a casemate ironclad that served as part of the James River Squadron of the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War . Laid down in 1862 and Launched the following year, she did not see action until 1864 due to delays in receiving her armor and guns. After passing through the obstructions at Drewry's Bluff in May 1864, she participated in several minor actions on
174-508: A coast guard or an international policing fleet (e.g. United Nations fleet), to examine a ship's cargo in a search for drugs, weapons, passengers which are unrecorded on the ship's manifest, or any other type of contraband that could possibly have been carried aboard. A nation's coast guard could also board any suspicious ships that have been overfishing in such a nation's territorial waters. Air ambulances often deploy paramedics to ships by using typical helicopter boarding procedures. Boarding
261-456: A length between perpendiculars of 170 feet (51.8 m) with a maximum beam of 40 feet 3 inches (12.3 m), a moulded beam of 34 feet (10.4 m) and a depth of hold of 9 ft (2.7 m). The naval historian Saxon T. Bisbee quotes a beam of 40 feet (12.2 m) with a depth of hold of 10 feet 10 inches (3.30 m) and a draft of 9 to 10 feet (2.7 to 3.0 m) while US Navy historian Paul J. Marcello provides
348-430: A pilothouse , and one or two smokestacks. The casemate ironclad being steam driven, either by screws or by paddle-wheels, it did not need sails or masts, although sometimes, when not in combat, temporary pulley-masts, flagpoles, davits , and awnings were added. Inside the casemate, the guns were housed in one continuous deck. Unlike with turret ironclads , the guns had to fire through fixed gunports and therefore aiming
435-459: A pivot mount in the bow , two 6.4-inch (163 mm) Brooke rifles, one on each broadside and a 10-inch (25.4 cm) Columbiad muzzle-loading smoothbore gun on a pivot mounting in the stern. Naval historian Paul H. Silverstone states that she was armed with one 11-inch (27.9 cm) smoothbore cannon, an 8-inch (20.3 cm) rifled cannon , and two 6.4-inch (16.3 cm) rifled cannons, and naval historian W. Craig Gaines states that she
522-518: A Confederate offensive against the Union vessels in the James. On May 23, Fredericksburg passed through the remainder of the obstructions, and Virginia II and the ironclad CSS Richmond passed through the next day. General P. G. T. Beauregard placed artillery batteries along the south side of the river to support the naval advance, but Fredericksburg suffered boiler damage on May 29 that required
609-633: A May 1861 letter from its Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory (who was the one who came up with the idea of employing ironclads to offset the numerical superiority of the Union Navy in the first place) to the Confederate House Committee on Naval Affairs, the majority of them were from the outset designed to operate in coastal waters as well as inland waters, and unlike their Union counterparts were, theoretically at least, seaworthy to
696-496: A casemate ironclad consisted of a low-cut hull with little freeboard , upon which an armored casemate structure was built. This casemate housed anywhere from two to fifteen cannons, most of them in broadside positions as in classical warships. The casemate was heavily armored (later Confederate ironclads had three layers of 2 inches (5.1 cm) steel) over heavy wood backing and was sloped to deflect direct hits (a 35-degree angle quickly becoming standard). Though deflection of
783-430: A cost as it meant adding more armor and heavier structural support – and thus more weight – to the casemate, while maintaining the original armor thickness. Armor was also applied to the part of the hull above the waterline. The casemate was often box-shaped, with armor and weight saving octagon shapes appearing in the later stages of the war. From the top of the casemate protruded an armored lookout structure that served as
870-639: A crew aboard after the U-boat commander, Kapitänleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp , gave the order to abandon ship. The British would be rewarded with a fully operational Enigma cipher machine, left behind by the German sailors. On June 4, 1944 a United States Navy task force led by Captain Daniel V. Gallery boarded and captured U-505 . True boarding assaults in the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries became extremely rare, generally by small boats or by divers, who entered
957-405: A cruising speed of at least ten knots. However, the Union blockade meant that very few such engines reached Confederate naval shipyards, forcing them to do with whatever was on hand (typically, engines stripped from trapped wooden blockade runners ), and thus most of their ironclads were not able to surpass a speed of four to six knots at most. As an example, the engines of the first two ironclads of
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#17328450437251044-535: A day to repair. Mitchell was aware that the Union would have strong advantages in a naval battle, and he and his officers declined to attack. Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant moved across the James as part of an advance against Richmond in June, and established a supply depot at City Point on the James. The primary goal of the Union naval forces on the James became to protect City Point, and to further that goal, five blockships were sunk at Trent's Reach , which
1131-496: A figure of 13 feet 6 inches (4.11 m) for the ironclad's draft. She had a tonnage of 700 long tons . The ship's casemate was shaped like a rectangle and Porter's plan showed two pilothouses on the casemate's roof, although operational reports from her captain make no mention of the rear pilothouse. The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was contracted to produce her propulsion system, although Bisbee believes that it
1218-576: A limited extent—since they were never expected to venture out onto the high seas. This was exemplified by the fact that most Confederate ironclads were designed with a keeled deep-draft hull, as opposed to the Union shallow-draft flat bottom hulls (also featured on the Confederate river ironclads of which there were also a number built). This came at a cost, however: Confederate coastal ironclads frequently ran aground when operating in inland waters or shallow coastal waters, with more than one being captured by
1305-480: A preliminary artillery duel. Privateers and pirates found boarding even more necessary, as both depended entirely on capturing merchant vessels for their livelihood, under the wageless system of "no purchase, no pay." There were two chief techniques of boarding in the Age of Sail . One was to bring the two ships close enough to actually jump from friendly gunwale to enemy deck, with grappling hooks and lines helping to keep
1392-555: A primary means to conclude a naval battle since antiquity , until the early modern period when heavy naval artillery gained tactical primacy at sea. A cutting out boarding is an attack by small boats, preferably at night and against an unsuspecting and anchored, target. It became popular in the later 18th century, and was extensively used during the Napoleonic Wars . This heralded the emphasis on stealth, and surprise, that would come to dominate future boarding tactics. An example
1479-402: A separate armored gun deck/turret, it exhibited a single (often sloped) casemate structure, or armored citadel , on the main deck housing the entire gun battery . As the guns were carried on the top of the ship yet still fired through fixed gunports, the casemate ironclad is seen as an intermediate stage between the traditional broadside frigate and modern warships. In its general appearance,
1566-497: A ship could barricade themselves. The heavy blade could also cut grappling lines. The continued success throughout the 18th century of boarding tactics in a secondary role is best exemplified by John Paul Jones' assault against HMS Serapis from the sinking USS Bonhomme Richard in 1779, the only known case in the Age of Sail where a ship's captain captured an enemy ship while losing his own. HMS Shannon in turn broke
1653-432: A ship. Spanish and Portuguese sailors, especially officers, were known to use the rapier throughout the 17th and even into the 18th century, but the close-quarter nature of boarding combat rendered these lengthy swords very ineffective. An important multipurpose weapon was the boarding axe, useful for attacking the enemy, but also essential for chopping down doors and bulkheads to break into closed quarters where defenders of
1740-463: A soldier within range of a large group of hostile combatants extremely quickly. In addition, it would be hard for large numbers sufficient to overwhelm the other ship's defenses to be brought onto the deck in this fashion. Boarding in the Age of Sail was more difficult and dangerous than in previous eras of open-decked sailing vessels. Defenders could seek cover in "closed quarters" in the ship's roundhouse or foredeck, shooting through small loopholes at
1827-485: A time during December 1864, and from January 14 through 25, 1865. By the beginning of 1865, the situation was becoming bleaker for the Confederates due to several military defeats, and it was decided to risk an attack against the Union fleet on the James in hopes of breaking the blockade on the river and destroying the depot at City Point. The Union obstructions at Trent's Reach had been damaged by high water, and part of
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#17328450437251914-592: Is an offensive tactic used in naval warfare to come up against (or alongside) an enemy watercraft and attack by inserting combatants aboard that vessel. The goal of boarding is to invade and overrun the enemy personnel on board in order to capture, sabotage, or destroy the enemy vessel. While boarding attacks were originally carried out by ordinary sailors who are proficient in hand-to-hand combat , larger warships often deploy specially trained and equipped regular troops such as marines and special forces as boarders. Boarding and close-quarters combat had been
2001-668: Is mostly associated with the Confederacy . This is partly due to the Battle of Hampton Roads , in which the Union turreted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia (sometimes called the Merrimack ) dueled, giving rise to the popular notion that "The North had Monitors (predominantly deployed for coastal operations, whereas the unseaworthy Union casemate ironclads were restricted to inland river operations—hence their " brown-water navy " nickname) while
2088-477: Is possible that the Richmond-based Shockoe Foundry may have produced them. The ship was propelled by a pair of 24-inch-diameter (61 cm) direct-acting steam engines that each drove a 7-foot (2.1 m) propeller. Porter's plan shows Fredericksburg as having three horizontal boilers measuring 7 feet tall, 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter, and 15 feet (4.6 m) long, but it is not known if
2175-470: Is the oldest method of securing an opposing ship, as the first cases were depicted when the Sea Peoples and Egyptians fought. For cultures that lack effective shipboard artillery , boarding is the main technique of ship-to-ship combat. However, in the modern era, boarding is still used, particularly when stealth is desired. In all eras, boarding requires that the ship boarded be stable enough to withstand
2262-505: Is the successful cutting out of the Hermione which took place at Puerto Cabello , Venezuela , on 25 October 1799. In modern warfare, boarding by military forces almost always involves stealth, and usually takes place at night. It may involve the use of small submarines or submersibles , inflatable boats , or frogmen . All involve scaling the sides of the ship. When stealth is not as important, helicopters may be used to carry troops to
2349-547: The Charleston Squadron , the CSS ; Chicora and CSS Palmetto State , were so weak that they were unable to overcome Charleston Harbor 's five-knot tides under their own power. The only time both ironclads sortied out of the harbor was on 31 January 1863 in a successful action against the Union Navy, albeit only engaging wooden enemy ships and making use of slack water in the harbor. Having to add heavier armor in
2436-527: The James River and fought in the Battle of Chaffin's Farm from September 29 to October 1. On January 23 and 24, 1865, she was part of the Confederate fleet at the Battle of Trent's Reach , and was one of only two Confederate ships to make it past the obstructions at Trent's Reach . After the Confederate attack failed, Fredericksburg withdrew with the rest of the James River Squadron. On April 3, as
2523-558: The Merrimack' s into Virginia , and suffered from the same defects. Still, all admiralties concluded that it was an evolutionary dead-end and that the revolving gun turret was the way to go – the validity of the conclusion being amply hammered home when the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought (1906) entered service, rendering everything that went before obsolete overnight. As a result, by 1910 no navy had any casemate warship left in service. Naval boarding Naval boarding action
2610-529: The Paraguayan War demonstrated the futility of direct assault by boarding in the face of 19th-century technology. During World War I the Royal Navy created their own type of warship specifically designed for boarding. Several armed boarding steamers were converted from merchant ships and fought in engagements such as the action of 16 March 1917 . For the most part, boarding became a police action in which
2697-639: The Peruvian Navy wooden gunboat BAP Loa , which was converted into a Confederate-style casemate ironclad in 1864 and used in a very similar role during the Chincha Islands War . The other example concerned the Royal Dutch Navy ship-of-the-line Zr Ms De Ruyter , whose conversion into an "armoured steam battery" – completed in 1865 – was ordered immediately after the Battle of Hampton Roads, much like
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2784-594: The ongoing aftermath of the Libyan Civil War , and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation . In November 2023, Ansar Allah militants boarded the roll-on/roll-off ship Galaxy Leader in an Mil Mi-17 helicopter and sailed it to Al Hudaydah during their their involvement in the Israel–Hamas war . Ansar Allah on 30 December 2023 attempted to board the container ship Maersk Hangzhou but
2871-731: The British dubbed " centre battery ships " and the French "casemate" or "barbette" (if the citadel was circularly shaped) ships, which were oceangoing, unlike the American originals (excepting the Confederacy's CSS Stonewall , the only Confederate high-freeboard and oceangoing barbette /casemate ironclad, and the Union's rather unusual low-freeboard, but equally oceangoing, casemate ironclad USS Dunderberg ). British examples were, among others, HMS Bellerophon (the first such one completed by
2958-551: The British in 1865) and HMS Hercules (1868). French examples included Brasil (casemate, and as the name implies, completed for the Brazilian Navy in 1865, and, when stripped of its masts , sharing a striking side-profile similarity with its Confederate progenitors) and Redoutable (barbette, and the first warship in history to be constructed in steel in 1878, instead of iron). Two earlier and rarer examples – having more in common with American ironclads – concerned
3045-431: The Confederacy, at the cost of being able to mount fewer guns than those ironclads built with traditional hulls. Their shallow draft and flat bottom restricted these ships to rivers and inland waters. Porter supervised the work of constructing Fredericksburg , but it is uncertain how exactly he followed his design as surviving documents disagree in many ways. The plan showed an overall length of 188 feet (57.3 m) and
3132-447: The Confederate vessels were unable to move downriver to Battery Danztler. On October 22, while patrolling the river, the James River Squadron was surprised by the presence of a Union shore battery which had been recently constructed upstream from Fort Brady. The three ironclads moved against the battery to allow the wooden gunboats of the fleet to escape, before falling back to Chaffin's Bluff. Fredericksburg suffered minor damage during
3219-400: The Confederates considered another attempt through the obstructions that night, it was decided not to risk a movement, and the surviving vessels of Mitchell's squadron withdrew to Chaffin's Bluff. In addition to the hull damage from crossing the obstructions, Fredericksburg also lost an anchor during the affair. Shortly after the battle at Trent's Reach, Mitchell was replaced as commander of
3306-524: The Confederates were abandoning Richmond, Fredericksburg and the other vessels of the James River Squadron were burned. Her wreck was located in the 1980s, buried under sediment . In mid-1862, Fredericksburg was laid down by the Confederate States Navy in the Rocketts Landing area of Richmond, Virginia to a plan by the Chief Naval Constructor, John L. Porter . The ship was one of
3393-469: The James River Squadron by Admiral Raphael Semmes . Lieutenant Alphonse Barbot took command of Fredericksburg in February. Fredericksburg was repaired, but did not see further action. On April 3, Semmes was informed that the Confederates were abandoning Richmond. The vessels of the James River Squadron were taken upriver from Chaffin's Bluff to the obstructions at Drewry's Bluff, and the ships, including
3480-610: The Mediterranean's lighter winds encouraged the Spaniards , Italians and Ottomans to retain the rowed galley , which was difficult to equip with heavy broadsides because the weight and size of the artillery interfered with the oar banks. As late as 1571, the Mediterranean Battle of Lepanto , while influenced by artillery, was still principally a battle determined by boarding. The defeat of Spain's Great Armada in 1588 struck
3567-551: The Romans were primarily a land-based army, they could not effectively combat the Carthaginian navy, and subsequently lost several sea battles . The corvus , a boarding ramp with a steel spike, was the Roman answer to this problem. Roman sailors piloted their ship alongside a Carthaginian ship, dropped the corvus from one deck to the other, and sent their soldiers across the board, assaulting
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3654-510: The South had (casemate) ironclads". In effect, the Confederacy concentrated its efforts on casemate ironclads as a means to harass the Union blockade of their ports, but this was a choice dictated by available technology and materials rather than by confidence in the possibilities of this type. Since breaking the Union blockade was the primary objective of the Confederacy's casemate ironclads, as outlined in
3741-516: The Spanish from long range, tearing up their rigging and their crews with the superior firepower of their broadsides. This enabled the outnumbered English fleet to avoid being boarded and allowed them to prevent a Spanish landing. While boarding would never again be the dominant tactic in Western naval warfare, it was not abandoned. Boarding was still used as the coup de grace against a crippled ship, enabling
3828-463: The Union because of it, or were destroyed by their own crews to prevent capture in such circumstances—a fate that befell the CSS Virginia as her draft ultimately prevented her escape some time after the Battle of Hampton Roads. Furthermore, even the relatively modest aim of limited seaworthiness was rarely achieved, since the Confederacy had to make do with repurposed and underpowered machinery that
3915-447: The Union fleet had been transferred to North Carolina for operations against Fort Fisher . On the night of January 23/24, the Confederate fleet, composed of Fredericksburg , Richmond , Virginia II , Hampton , Drewry , Nansemond , the gunboats CSS Torpedo and CSS Beaufort , and the torpedo boats CSS Hornet , CSS Wasp , and CSS Scorpion moved downriver towards Trent's Reach. Fredericksburg
4002-601: The United States' run of successful frigate battles during the War of 1812 by boarding and capturing USS Chesapeake in 1813. The adoption of ironclads and increasingly powerful naval artillery vastly increased the risk to boarding parties. Meanwhile, the suppression of piracy and the abandonment of privateering and prize money made boarding actions even against merchant vessels less rewarding. The massacre of Paraguayan canoe-borne boarding parties by Brazilian ironclads during
4089-546: The area. On August 13, Confederate naval forces fired on the Union troops building the canal. Fredericksburg participated in the action, along with Virginia II , Richmond , and the gunboats CSS Drewry , CSS Nansemond , and CSS Hampton . The Confederate vessels fired approximately 147 shots during the engagement, but did little damage. The shooting lasted from 06:00 to 18:00, and about 30 Union soldiers were killed or wounded. Union return fire damaged Fredericksburg ' s smokestack . Four days later,
4176-491: The attackers came on board only when no resistance could be expected, in order to search vessels and remove contraband. The target would be a ship that had hove to or surrendered. During wartime, the surrendering or sinking ship would be searched for any valuable information such as plans and ciphers . One prominent example would be during World War II , when British vessels crippled the German submarine U-110 in 1941, and sent
4263-541: The death knell for major fleets geared toward boarding. The Spanish galleons were intended primarily for boarding combat, their contingents of boarding soldiers far outnumbering the English and their decks provided with high castles for suppressive fire. But the Armada proved unable to close with the English vessels, partly because the Spanish castles rendered their ships more sluggish, while Drake and Hawkins stood off and bombarded
4350-425: The deck of the ship. Boarding is used in wartime as a way to seize a vessel without destroying it, or to remove its cargo (people or goods) before it is destroyed. It can also be used to aid in the collection of naval intelligence , as soldiers boarding a sinking, crippled, or surrendered vessel could possibly recover enemy plans, cipher codebooks or machines. For a boarding to be successful, it must occur without
4437-561: The enemy decks. Naval tactics in medieval China, Korea , and Japan also depended on boarding, with the flat expanse of a ship used as a battleground for the marine contingents. The Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185 was one of the classic naval battles in medieval Asia to be decided by boarding. Boarding attacks also occurred beyond the medieval era in Asia. During the Imjin Wars in naval operations, both Korean and Japanese marines would attempt to board
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#17328450437254524-602: The engagement, with her smokestack and the roof to her casemate damaged. On October 24, Fredericksburg was sent upriver to the Rocketts area, where she was given a replacement cannon for the gun that had burst and had the roof of her casemate protected with iron bars. Fredericksburg , Virginia II , and Richmond went down to Fort Brady on December 7 and exchanged fire with the Union position. Rootes did not command Fredericksburg due to illness from December 1864 until February 1865. Lieutenant Francis E. Shepperd commanded her for
4611-402: The exposed boarders. The defenders could also place grenades on their gunwales or dangle them from their yards, detonating them by fuses of quick match that led back through the loopholes into the closed quarters. If not in closed quarters, defenders sometimes resorted to the naval boarding pike , trying to kill or wound boarders while keeping them at a distance, and of course might use any of
4698-460: The fighting from September 29 to October 1. Their fire was effective and they suffered little damage, although a rifled cannon on Fredericksburg burst on September 30. The Union gains on land allowed them to construct a battery known as Fort Brady on the now-captured Signal Hill upriver from Battery Dantzler. While Battery Danztler still controlled part of the river for the Confederates and prevented Union ships from travelling upriver to Fort Brady,
4785-451: The final construction varied from the blueprints or not. Bisbee believes that the boilers probably were of the fire-tube type. Fredericksburg could move at a speed of about 5 knots (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph) and had a crew of 150. She also carried about 20 to 25 Confederate States Marines in case of a battle that required naval boarding . Fredericksburg eventually received her armament of one 7-inch (178 mm) Brooke rifle on
4872-484: The impact of enemy personnel leaping or climbing onto the deck and a subsequent sustained fight. The target ship must also have enough deck space for boarders to be able to stand and fight effectively. Thus, Native American war canoes or New Zealand waka were not suitable boarding targets, and wars between sides equipped with such vessels have generally not seen boarding actions, or any other decisive form of ship-to-ship combat. Instead, such vessels were often used for
4959-411: The increase of armor thickness on Confederate ironclads; sloping increased effective armor thickness against armor-piercing ordnance, which was typically fired on a flat trajectory. For example, the later 6 inches (15.2 cm) Confederate armor, sloped at 35 degrees, resulted in a 22 percent increase of effective horizontal armor thickness at 7.33 inches (18.6 cm). However, increasing the slope came at
5046-400: The ironclads built to Porter's shallow- draft "diamond hull" configuration with a flat bottom and hull sides that met the base of the casemate at a 90° angle. By substituting straight lines and angles for the traditional keel and curving frame of the hull, Porter optimized his design to be quickly built by ordinary carpenters, rather than highly skilled shipwrights that were in short supply in
5133-470: The ironclads, were burned early that morning. The men of the James River Squadron served on land, moving with the Confederate government to Danville, Virginia , before eventually surrendering in North Carolina. The wreck of Fredericksburg survived later dredging operations, despite being incompletely removed in 1871 and 1872, and the site was rediscovered in the 1980s. Fredericksburg lies parallel to
5220-442: The knowledge of the crew of the defending ship, or the ship's defenses must be suppressed. In modern warfare, boarding by military forces may involve the use of small submarines or submersibles , inflatable boats or helicopters to carry troops to the deck of the ship, or may simply be carried out by scuba divers scaling the sides of the ship. In peacetime, boarding allows authorized inspectors of one nation or group, such as
5307-485: The later stages of the war only served to aggravate matters. All this resulted in the Confederate casemate ironclad never quite living up to its full potential, with glimpses of what might have been gleaned from the exploits of such vessels as CSS Virginia herself, CSS Arkansas , CSS Albemarle and CSS Tennessee (1863) . In their specific outer appearances, i.e. being essentially floating gun batteries encased in armored citadels, albeit powered,
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#17328450437255394-478: The low-freeboard Union and Confederate casemate ironclads were almost uniquely North American. However, the concept of a fixed armored citadel mounted on a warship housing the main armament itself was further explored by European navies in the last third of the 19th century, by the French and British navies in particular, in no small part due to the inspiration gained from the Battle of Hampton Roads. This resulted in larger, high-freeboard ironclad frigates or battleships
5481-412: The major role in boarding combat. Boarding was of particular importance in the 17th and 18th centuries' guerre de course , or commerce raiding , as well as to privateers and pirates . Because naval crews were paid prize money for bringing back enemy merchant shipping and cargoes intact, it was preferable to capture such ships rather than sink them, which ultimately required boarding, with or without
5568-427: The morning and reached the obstructions, firing on the now-freed Virginia II , and Richmond who were still in the process of moving upriver towards the battery. The two Confederate ironclads were able to reach the safety of Battery Dantzler, which provided fire support, striking the gunboat USS Massasoit . Union forces also brought up a Drummond light so that the river could be illuminated during nighttime. While
5655-486: The obstructions, none of the other Confederate ironclads could. Virginia II ran aground, and the Confederates decided not to push further that night and recalled Fredericksburg and Hampton back across the obstructions. Drewry also became grounded and was abandoned; Union fire sank her later in the morning and the resulting explosion pushed Scorpion towards Union lines, where she was captured. Fredericksburg withdrew to Battery Dantzler. Union vessels arrived during
5742-562: The other's ships for engagement in hand-to-hand combat. The Japanese used boarding attacks more often because of the imbalance of firepower between the two navies; at the time, the Koreans controlled a much more powerful navy, technically and tactically, than the Japanese. Though the Japanese were armed with the latest in European small firearms, Korean cannons were advanced and among the best in Asia at
5829-479: The rapid transportation of troops and supplies, and decisive engagements were normally fought by landing forces. Throughout the ancient and post-classical periods, all naval ship-to-ship combat focused primarily on boarding, although ramming and incendiaries were secondary tactics. Greek and Persian naval tactics emphasized ramming and boarding, notably at the Battle of Salamis . The earliest Roman naval battles against Carthage also emphasized boarding. Since
5916-465: The river, buried under 6 feet (1.8 m) to 15 feet (4.6 m) of sediment . Bisbee reports that the site has been heavily disturbed. Casemate ironclad The casemate ironclad was a type of iron or iron-armored gunboat briefly used in the American Civil War by both the Confederate States Navy and the Union Navy . Unlike a monitor-type ironclad which carried its armament encased in
6003-443: The ship was one of several ironclads sometimes known as the "Ladies Gunboats". An attempt to launch the warship on June 6, 1863, failed when the Confederates were unable to get her into the water, but another on June 11 was successful. Her fitting out was prolonged by a lack of iron, which was in short supply in the Confederacy. The shortage led to work on the ironclad CSS Virginia II being delayed until after Fredericksburg
6090-490: The ship's captain recommended that additional iron bars be positioned between the bars to better protect the crew, although it is uncertain if this was ever done. Fredericksburg had less armor than Virginia II , which gave her a lighter draft but made her comparatively weaker. Named for the Virginia city , Fredericksburg ' s construction was partially funded from monies raised by women's organizations for ship construction;
6177-520: The ship. The Carthaginian navy, unprepared for this "land combat" on the oceans, lost several ships to this tactic. This invention secured Roman naval dominance in the Mediterranean Sea for several centuries. During the medieval period, boarding continued to be the dominant form of ship-to-ship combat. The most prominent naval power of the period, the Vikings , rarely fought other seaborne peoples on
6264-439: The target vessel surreptitiously and exploited total surprise to seize control before resistance could be effectively organized. Modern-day pirates in motorboats similarly depend on speed, stealth and surprise to take their targets, usually unarmed and poorly defended, without serious resistance. However, the use of boarding tactics has begun to revive in recent years, both as part of anti-piracy operations and in conflicts such as
6351-523: The three ironclads helped repulse a small Union attack against a Confederate position at Signal Hill, which was the location of a Confederate battery downstream from Drewry's Bluff. On September 29, Butler's Union Army of the James attacked the Confederate land positions in the Battle of Chaffin's Farm . The three Confederate ironclads were in the area, and were called upon to fire at the Union lines. Union troops took Fort Harrison , but were unable to capture Chaffin's Bluff . The ironclads participated in
6438-474: The time; they were easily able to destroy Japanese ships. The development in the early 16th century of shipboard gunports and gun carriages, and the consequent adoption of broadside tactics, gradually ended the primacy of boarding in naval warfare. The decline in boarding occurred faster in Northern and Western Europe than in the Mediterranean. While England and France quickly designed ships with heavy broadsides,
6525-400: The traditional round shot was the primary sloping rationale for ironclad designers, there actually was an added advantage involved, becoming more pertinent in the later stages of the war when armor-penetrating ordnance was developed, especially by the Union Navy which at war's end had developed shells capable of penetrating up to 9.5 inches (24 cm) of perpendicularly placed armor – hence
6612-458: The vessels side by side. The second technique was to place a boarding party onto a dory , gig , or another type of small boat, row it alongside the target, and then climb aboard by using grappling hooks or the steps built into some ship's sides. The cinematic method of throwing a grappling line into the enemy's rigging or yards and then swinging aboard does not appear to have any historical support; it could hardly have been practical, as it would put
6699-450: The victimized vessel to be recovered and used by the boarders' side rather than being sunk. Important information such as enemy plans, ciphers or rutters might also be recovered. Large quantities of soldiers were consigned to transports rather than "pestering" the decks of warships, but smaller units of specialized marines were kept aboard to aid in boarding (as well as to enforce naval discipline). Sailors themselves were now expected to play
6786-519: The water, but they still depended on boarding on those rare occasions, often lashing their longships together to make a more stable platform for the upcoming battle. The maritime use of Greek fire made Byzantium less dependent on boarding than other medieval powers, but it was still used. To better resist boarding, medieval European ships began to be built with high wooden "castles" fore and aft, which boarders could scale only with great difficulty, while archers, crossbowmen or arquebusiers could sweep
6873-438: The weapons that the boarders themselves used. Boarding weapons in the Age of Sail consisted of grenades , pistols , blunderbusses , muskets , bayonets , cutlasses , naval boarding axes , and naval boarding pikes , etc. Until the introduction of the percussion cap in the early 19th century, sailors preferred to use flintlocks whenever possible, as the lighted match of a matchlock was extremely dangerous to use on board
6960-539: Was fitted out , placed under the command of Commander Thomas R. Rootes. She was assigned to the James River Squadron . The James River Squadron had been commanded by Captain French Forrest until May 6, when Captain John K. Mitchell replaced Forrest. As of April 30, Fredericksburg ' s armament was reported to be close, but not quite, complete, and she was still not fully ready when Mitchell took command. By May 15, she
7047-600: Was 20 miles (32 km) upriver from City Point. On June 21, the James River Squadron and a Confederate shore battery known as Battery Dantzler bombarded Union ships stationed at Trent's Reach. The naval fire was at a range of almost 2 miles (3.2 km) and was not effective. Union forces under the command of Major General Benjamin Butler began building the Dutch Gap Canal in August to try to bypass Confederate land defenses in
7134-492: Was armed with four 6-inch (15.2 cm) rifled cannons. Gaines states that she had 4 inches (10.2 cm) of wrought-iron armor. The area where the casemate met the deck was armored with 2 inches (5.1 cm) of iron, and the armor extended below the waterline . The top of the casemate consisted of 2-inch-thick iron bars, spaced 9 inches (23 cm) apart. After the Battle of Chaffin's Farm in September–October 1864,
7221-427: Was armored, as there was not enough metal available to work on both ships at the same time. The ship was complete, except for her armament by November 30. High waters on the James River in early 1864 threatened to wash away stockpiles of timber and inundate the shipyard's wharves , further delaying her completion. In March, Fredericksburg was commissioned and taken to Drewry's Bluff on the James River , where she
7308-404: Was done by moving the gun relative to the gunport. This was labor-intensive and often up to 20 men were needed to load, aim, fire, and clean a gun, and even with this manpower the firing rate was no better than one shot per five minutes. Although the Union successfully used a substantial fleet of casemate ironclad riverboats in their Mississippi and Red River Campaigns , the casemate ironclad
7395-404: Was fully ready for combat. The vessels of the James River Squadron could not initially move downriver beyond Drewry's Bluff, as the river had been obstructed there in 1862 to prevent Union incursions up the river. Pilings had been driven into the river which was also blocked with stone-filled cribs and blockships . However, in May 1864, the obstructions were partially dismantled to allow for
7482-402: Was in the lead as she had the lightest draft. The ships successfully passed Fort Brady in the darkness, but Torpedo ran aground not long after and had to be abandoned. Fredericksburg was able to cross the Union obstructions at Trent's Reach at about 01:30 on January 24, but suffered hull damage during the process. The damage caused the ship to spring a leak. While Hampton also passed
7569-582: Was originally designed to power wooden vessels, and which was unsuited for powering the now-heavier casemate ironclads, seriously hampering their maneuverability and leading to many grounded Confederate ironclads being unable to free themselves without help. Acutely aware of the fact, the Confederacy's chief naval engineer John L. Porter (co-designer of Virginia , which was likewise powered by her original, wooden frigate engine) had originally envisioned his subsequent casemate ironclad designs to be equipped with superior British-made engines, theoretically giving them
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