USA HISTORY

President Lincoln used the Union navy to blockade southern ports. An important sea battle between two iron-clad ships, the ____ (Union) and the ____ (Confederate) took place in waters near Hampton and Norfolk.

(A) Monitor, Manassas

(B) ** Monitor, Merrimack

(C) Saratoga, Merrimack

(D) airplane, boat

Concept note-1: -On March 9, 1862, one of the most famous naval battles in American history occurred as two ironclads, the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia fought to a draw off Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Concept note-2: -The blockade, although somewhat porous, was an important economic policy that successfully prevented Confederate access to weapons that the industrialized North could produce for itself. The U.S. Government successfully convinced foreign governments to view the blockade as a legitimate tool of war.

Concept note-3: -Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, also called Battle of Hampton Roads, (March 9, 1862), in the American Civil War, naval engagement at Hampton Roads, Virginia, a harbour at the mouth of the James River, notable as history’s first duel between ironclad warships and the beginning of a new era of naval warfare.

Concept note-4: -The purpose of the blockade was to prevent the import of essential supplies, as well as the export of cash crops, into and out of the Confederacy. The plan was designed to weaken the South and force the Confederacy to surrender and rejoin the Union.