150-Year Anniversary ยท March 1862
On March 9, 1862, the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly the Merrimack) fought their famous duel at Hampton Roads. Their inconclusive battle, the first between ironclad warships, instantly rendered the world's wooden navies obsolete.
On March 7 and 8, Union forces won the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas, securing Missouri for the Union and ending the major Confederate threat in that quarter.
Late in the month McClellan began shipping the Army of the Potomac to Fort Monroe to advance on Richmond by way of the Virginia Peninsula, launching the great campaign of the spring.
The Monitor and Merrimack and the move on the Peninsula opened a new year of fighting. That year is surveyed from the main Civil War archive.