2-356-080 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Confederate ironclad 'Merrimac' sinking the USS 'Cumberland', 1862 (c1880). The 'Merrimac' sank two Union ships in an attempt to break through their blockade, in Hampton Roads, Virginia. She then fought the Union armoured ship 'Monitor' in a battle lasting 9 hours. The outcome was inconclusive, with neither vessel able to seriously damage the other, but the nature of naval warfare had been changed for ever. A print from Cassell's History of the United States, by Edmund Ollier, Volume III, Cassell Petter and Galpin, London, c1880.