CSS Virginia was the first steam-powered ironclad warship built by the Confederate States Navy during the first year of the American Civil War. She was constructed using the razéed hull and engines of the scuttled steam frigate USS Merrimack after Union forces destroyed the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia in April 1861 to prevent the facility from falling into Confederate hands. The Confederacy salvaged the Merrimack's lower hull and engines to create an ironclad warship capable of challenging Union naval superiority. Virginia was one of the participants in the Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862, where she opposed the Union's USS Monitor. This battle holds profound significance in naval history as the first engagement between ironclad warships, marking a revolutionary moment in maritime warfare and military technology.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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