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Norfolk Naval Shipyard - History During the Civil War

When Virginia joined the Confederate States of America in 1861, the commander of the Gosport Shipyard - the original name of the Norfolk Naval shipyard - feared the Confederacy would take control of the facility. As a result, on the night of April 20, 1861, federal authorities set fire to the shipyard and quickly evacuated. As they retreated, they torched most of the buildings, equipment, and stores at the shipyard, and either burned or scuttled 11 ships at their mooring. They also made an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the dry dock, which was the first ever to be built in the United States.

At this time, Virginia had already passed an ordinance of secession from the Union, but the Commonwealth had not yet joined the Confederacy. The Virginia State Navy seized Gosport Shipyard and held it for a brief time. Shortly thereafter, Virginia officially joined with the Confederate States, and on July 1, 1861, the Confederate flag flew over the Navy Yard for the first time. The first order of business for the yard's new owners was to determine what could be saved from the partially burned shipyard. The Confederate forces salvaged 1,085 pieces of heavy ordnance to equip the land batteries in the area. Cannon and other heavy guns were mounted at strategic spots in the yard to guard against possible attack, and embrasures were drilled through the brick walls for the use of riflemen who would stand guard in the port's defense.

Known since the mid-1700s as one of the most conveniently-located and best-equipped shipyards in the country, the Confederacy made good use of what they found at Gosport. But the most famous salvage from the second burning of the shipyard - the first had happened during the Revolutionary War at the hands of General Matthews - was a 40-gun steam frigate known as the MERRIMACK. The MERRIMACK had been under repair at the yard when the federal navy evacuated, and was one of the 11 ships torched. However, the frigate had been burned to the water line and then sunk. The Confederate forces raised the ship, placed it in dry dock, and began the process of refitting her. Using designs drawn by John L. Porter, a Portsmouth native, the MERRIMACK was converted into the first armored vessel ever built. Renamed the CSS VIRGINIA, but still referred to as the MERRIMACK in many historic documents, the CSS VIRGINIA confronted the ironclad MONITOR in one of the most famous naval battles of the Civil War.

Other ships that were burned when the Federal troops abandoned Gosport include the Pennsylvania, Columbus, Delaware, New York, United States (built in Philadelphia in 1797 with 50 guns and a tonnage of 1,607), Columbia, Raritan, Plymouth, Germantown, and the Dolphin.

It was only a matter of months before the shipyard was once again set ablaze, this time on May 10, 1862, when the Confederate States Navy evacuated Gosport. Federal forces reoccupied the shipyard immediately, and held control of it until the end of the war. On May 11, the CSS VIRGINIA, which had successfully held the USS MONITOR at bay for months, was destroyed by its crew after repeated attempts to lighten the ship enough to move up the James River. Her final resting place was off Craney Island, just six miles from where she had commanded the attention of the entire world in her historic battles with the MONITOR.

The shipyard was recaptured along with the nearby towns of Portsmouth and Norfolk, and renamed the Norfolk Navy Yard despite the fact that it was technically within the town limits of Portsmouth. It's assumed that the Navy chose Norfolk as a name to avoid confusion with the Portsmouth Navy Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

The shipyard at Norfolk was especially important to the Confederacy, which had, at the outset of the war, only two shipyards capable of producing naval warships. Norfolk was the larger of these, and had built 13 major gun ships prior to 1861. After Norfolk fell to the North, the South was forced to rely on smaller shipyards that had sprung up along interior rivers, often hastily raised in a clearing, with few of the facilities or equipment needed to produce warships of any size or strength.

By the end of the Civil War, the Norfolk Navy Yard had burned three times and changed hands and sides repeatedly. One of the most important ships in U.S. history was converted and outfitted there and held sway over its portion of the Elizabeth River and the Chesapeake Bay. As the war came to a close, the old Gosport Navy Ship Yard was poised to move into the 19th century, which would be one of its busiest and most important eras. Norfolk had retained its position as one of the most important shipyards in the New World for nearly 100 years, and its history was just beginning.

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