You Say Merrimack, I Say Virginia

摘要

Like so many Civil War engagements, the Hampton Roads naval clash has several names, including the Battle of the Ironclads, the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimac, and the Battle of Hampton Roads. Similarly, the name of the Confederate ironclad diat fought in that battle is variously known as the Merrimac, Merrimack, and Virgmia. Which is her proper name? In her original incarnation, the ship was the Merrimack. An American Indian word meaning "swift water," Merrimack is the name of a 110-mile river that begins in New Hampshire. On 25 September 1854, John Lenthall, chief of the U.S. Bureau of Naval Construction, selected it as the name for the steam-powered, 40-gun screw frigate being built at Charlestown Navy Yard. The ship was the first of a class of five frigates built during the 1850s each named for an American river: Roanoke, Wabash, Colorado, Minnesota, and Merrimack.