Richmond Ironclads at Trent's Reach
Detail from
Library of Congress photo
LC-DIG-cwpb-02742
Smokestack of the Ironclad CSS Virginia II
In the dawn's early light, the U.S. guns focused on the grounded ironclads. Over the next four hours on the Richmond, the strikes came too fast to count. The Virginia II got hit “upward of 70 times.” One shell glanced through a port, wounding eight men at her forward gun, but the U.S. Army cannon were too light to penetrate the armor. Nonetheless, they riddled external fittings like this stack. This image is the most detailed photographic record in existence of the Richmond ironclad fleet.
Smokestack of the Ironclad CSS Virginia II
In the dawn's early light, the U.S. guns focused on the grounded ironclads. Over the next four hours on the Richmond, the strikes came too fast to count. The Virginia II got hit “upward of 70 times.” One shell glanced through a port, wounding eight men at her forward gun, but the U.S. Army cannon were too light to penetrate the armor. Nonetheless, they riddled external fittings like this stack. This image is the most detailed photographic record in existence of the Richmond ironclad fleet.