“The sea was calm, the sky clear, but a shadow loomed—a monster clad in iron, come to break us.”—Acting Master’s Mate John Harrington, USS Cumberland survivor, 1862
March 8, 1862, Hampton Roads, Virginia. Dawn breaks over a glassy sea, the air crisp with salt and the faint tang of gunpowder from the Union blockade. The USS Cumberland, a 50-gun frigate, rides at anchor near Newport News Point. Her masts are tall, her hull a weathered oak fortress, her crew of 376 hardened sailors and marines ready for another day holding the line. The morning is quiet. Men sip coffee, swab decks, eye the horizon. Then, at 7 a.m., a murmur ripples through. Something is coming. Little did her crew realize, the USS Cumberland was about to engage in a clash that would etch her name into naval history.
“There she was, a black, squat thing, like a floating barn with a chimney,” wrote Lt. Thomas O. Selfridge Jr., the Cumberland’s executive officer, in his memoirs. The CSS Virginia, reborn from the scuttled USS Merrimack, now an ironclad juggernaut, churns into view, smoke belching, her armored sides glinting. “A devil’s machine,” Acting Master William P. Randall called her, “and we knew she meant business.”
The USS Cumberland’s Last Action Unfolds
“Man the guns! Clear for action!” shouts Lt. George U. Morris, acting commander, as the crew scrambles. Sails furl tight. The Cumberland is anchored, but her 9-inch Dahlgrens roar. Shot and shell slam the Virginia’s iron hide. “Like hitting a stone wall with peas,” Selfridge said, watching sparks fly and balls sink uselessly into the sea. At 1 p.m., she is 300 yards out, closing slow and deliberate. “Death itself,” Seaman James Brennan whispered, gripping his rammer.
The Ramming: Timber and Iron Collide
Then the mortal blow is struck. The Virginia drives her 1,500-pound iron ram straight into the Cumberland’s starboard bow, a sickening crunch, wood shattering like bone. “The whole ship shuddered,” Brennan recalled, “like she’d been struck by God’s own hammer.” Water floods the gun deck, knee-deep in seconds, cannons tilting as the hull rips open, 20 feet wide, jagged and deadly. “I saw a man swept away, screaming, gone in the torrent,” wrote Harrington.
The Virginia is stuck. Her ram is lodged in the Cumberland’s guts, but her guns wake up. Shells smash through, shredding planks, men, and hope. “A 7-inch Brooke hit us square,” Selfridge noted, “tore three gunners apart—blood and meat everywhere.” Yet the Cumberland fights back. “Give her a broadside, boys!” Morris yells, and the Dahlgrens thunder again, point-blank, useless against iron, but defiant. “We fired ‘til the muzzles glowed,” said Gunner’s Mate Charles Peterson, “knowing it wouldn’t stop her.”
Guns Aflame: Firing to the Bloody End
The ship lists hard, port guns skyward, starboard drowning. “Water was at my waist, then my chest,” Brennan said, “but we kept loading.” The Virginia wrenches free, her ram snapping off in the wreck, and circles back, raking the frigate with fire. Flames lick the rigging. The wounded scream below decks. One hundred twenty-one would die this day. Morris, sword drawn, paces the tilting quarterdeck. “As she goes, boys, give ‘em hell!” he roars.
A final broadside booms as the Cumberland settles. Muzzles dip into the waves, still spitting shot. “The flag never came down,” Randall swore, “we sank with it flying.” By 3:30 p.m., she is gone, masts jutting from the water like a drowned forest, the sea red with Union blood. The Virginia steams on to torch the Congress, but the Cumberland’s crew left their mark. One hundred twenty-one souls are lost, resolve unbroken.
The Forgotten Defiance of a Sentinel
“She showed the world wooden ships were done,” Selfridge wrote, grimly proud. Survivors clung to wreckage, watching the iron beast limp away, leaking, battered, but victorious. The next day’s Monitor duel would steal the headlines, but this was the war’s first ironclad kill, a frigate’s guts against a new age’s teeth, lost in the shadow of fame. “We fought like devils,” Peterson said, “and died like men.”
The USS Cumberland’s Civil War ended when she came to rest on the river bed. The question that remains is, what’s the Cumberland’s legacy? Gallantry, grim lesson, or both? You tell me—sound off below. The tale demands it.
Join me on my next quest—History’s echoes, faith’s sparks, mysteries uncharted. What’s your battle?
Sources and Further Reading:
https://amzn.to/4izX7Sr Civil War Ironclads: The Dawn Of Naval Armor- by Robert Macbride
https://amzn.to/3DcD7WP War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865- James M. McPherson
https://amzn.to/3QWVqmh The Battle of Hampton Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (2006)- Harold Holzer & Tim Mulligan