CSS Virginia - Historical Names: Merrimack, Virginia, Merrimac

Historical Names: Merrimack, Virginia, Merrimac

The name of the warship which served the Confederacy in the Battle of Hampton Roads has become a source of confusion, which continues to the present day.

When she was first commissioned into the United States Navy in 1856, her name was Merrimack, with the K; the name derived from the Merrimack River near where she was built. She was the second ship of the U. S. Navy to be named for the Merrimack River, which is formed by the junction of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers at Franklin, New Hampshire. The Merrimack flows south across New Hampshire, then eastward across northeastern Massachusetts before finally emptying in the Atlantic at Newburyport, Massachusetts.

The Confederacy bestowed the name Virginia on her when commissioned, following her raising, restoration, and outfitting as an ironclad warship. But the Union continued to refer to the Confederate ironclad by either its original name, Merrimack, or by the nickname "The Rebel Monster;" perhaps because the Union won the Civil War, the history of the United States generally records the Union's version of events. In the aftermath of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the names Virginia and Merrimack were used interchangeably by both sides, as attested to by various newspapers and correspondence of the day. Navy reports and pre-1900 historians frequently misspelled the name as "Merrimac", which is actually an unrelated ship. Hence "the Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac". Both spellings are still in use in the Hampton Roads area.