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The Naval Historical Center loaned this 'Dahlgren gun' to the local museum in 2003. It has proven to be a popular tourist draw. |
The Fredericksburg Area Museum & Cultural Center is closed for renovations.
The doors are locked, but the museum keeps getting visitors because its big gun--both literally and figuratively--is outside.
The big draw, even after museum hours, is a cannon from the famous Merrimac ironclad.
There's something compelling about the gun.
"People are drawn to it," said Mary Helen Dellinger, vice president and curator of the museum. "They want to touch it."
This week saw the 144th anniversary of the immortal battle between the Union's Monitor and the Confederacy's Merrimac--the first clash between metal warships in history.
The 8,300-pound, 9-inch smoothbore "Dahlgren gun," named after its designer, Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren, has been stopping downtown tourists and shoppers in their tracks since it was loaned to the museum by the Naval Historical Center in 2003. The Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren signed off on the deal.
The gun came off the ironclad CSS Virginia, which was originally a wooden warship named the USS Merrimac. The Merrimac was captured by the Confederacy, converted into an ironclad, and renamed the Virginia. However, many people still knew it as the Merrimac.
After the war, the damaged cannon that was removed from the Virginia was exhibited at the Washington Navy Yard . Then it moved to the Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground, established in King George County in 1918 as a tribute to the admiral.
The gun is one of very few pieces to have survived the great ironclad.
At the time, it was a terrifying weapon, with a range of almost 4,500 yards.
But, according to the Navy, it's considered one of the safest guns ever made.
Museum President and CEO Edwin Watson noted that the barrel shows signs of damage sustained during the March 8, 1862, battle off Hampton Roads between the CSS Virginia and the USS Cumberland and the USS Congress.
Watson said the Virginia was attempting to break the Northern blockade of Richmond.
As the Virginia approached the Cumberland to ram her, that ship's gunners inflicted the only serious damage ever done to the Virginia.
A "lucky shot" struck the cannon on the Virginia just as she was preparing to fire, Watson said. One man was killed and several wounded.
Despite serious damage, the Virginia crew continued to use the gun.
"They continued firing it until they couldn't fire anymore," Watson said.
The crew stopped shooting and abandoned the gun when flames engulfed the forward port side of the ship.
The next day, March 9, the Virginia set out to continue laying waste to the Union's wooden vessels.
But, dramatically, the ironclad USS Monitor appeared and engaged the Virginia.
In what must have seemed a surreal spectacle at the time, the two metal behemoths pounded each other throughout the day, with neither giving way.
The battle of the Monitor and the Virginia, or Merrimac, is generally considered to have been a draw, even though the Virginia withdrew at the end of the day, Watson said. The gun now on display in the museum was not fired in that famous battle due to the damage suffered the previous day.
The meeting of the Merrimac and the Monitor changed the way naval warfare is conducted.
Neither ship survived the war, but the damaged gun now outside the museum did.
The Virginia was scuttled by the Confederates in the spring of 1862 to keep her from falling into Yankee possession.
The seemingly invulnerable Monitor became the victim of Mother Nature, sinking in a storm at the end of that year.
Watson said nothing remains of a later Confederate ironclad named after the city of Fredericksburg. That's part of the reason the museum wanted a similar gun, along with the Dahlgren connection.
According to Gary R. Wagner, public affairs officer for Naval Support Activity South Potomac, Rear Adm. Ralph Earle, chief of the Bureau of Ordnance in 1918, suggested the new proving ground in King George be named for Dahlgren, whom he considered to be "the father of modern ordnance."
The Fredericksburg Area Museum, on the corner of Princess Anne and William streets, reopens April 1 with its new exhibit, Treasures of the Triassic, on loan from the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
To reach MICHAEL ZITZ:
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
