Bunny Base

June 16th, 2008 by smash girl

For those of you who are doing end of the school year history reports, allow me to help. Here is a page about the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack. Good luck!

The Merrimack was built by the Confederacy and was sent to rule the sea and destroy all of the Union’s ships. But one day, Lincoln thought of someone who could make a ship that could battle the Merrimack and not be destroyed and not have the Merrimack kill every ship in their navy. He decided to hire John Ericsson, who was proud, vain, cranky, and brilliant, and felt that the navy had cheated him out of payment for services when he had served.
When he designed the first Union iron clad, he decided that it would had only two guns, but they would be able to revolve so they wouldn’t have to turn and angle the whole ship in order to hit them, as so on the Merrimack. It was also made entirely out of iron and he quoted to a panicky Navy Department, “The sea shall ride over her and she shall live init like a duck.”
When he made a public demonstration of his first iron clad, The Princeton, all had gone wrong for him. One of the experimental guns had exploded, killing six people including the Secretaries of State and the Navy.
Finally, after 101 days ago that he agreed to build an iron clad, he created the Monitor, which contained 47 patented devices!
When the Monitor had gone off to sea to find and destroy the Merrimack, it was a terrible ride for the crew. When water washed on top of it, it would go down into the vessel and the air ventilation was horrid. Most of the gas wasn’t able to escape from it, so many of the crewmembers would faint.
When the Monitor had arrived to where the Merrimack was resting for the night, it had ended an engagement with the Minnesota. The Minnesota had not been fully sunken yet, but when it was light, the Merrimack was going to finish it.
When Merrimack crew woke up, they found the Monitor guarding the Minnesota and recovering from the night travel. They decided to engage in battle and neither clad sunk. The Merrimack was actually the first to disengage in the battle and was run off by the Monitor. The Confederates later had to blow up the Merrimack themselves so the Union wouldn’t capture it. Bye-Bye Merrimack!