alternatehistory.com

30 June

At nine in the morning, DuPont (the most senior commander the US Navy has able to fight, after Farragut's crippling during the Virginia's destruction of his command) leads his flotilla towards Gosport.
He is in the Pennsylvania, with the other three ironclads (Massachusets, New York and Connecticut) in line and his gunboats (Chocura, Katahdin, Pinola, Cayuga and Oregon) forming a scouting screen ahead. The whole formation has a fleet speed of about seven knots, and begin coming under long range (and inaccurate) fire from Fort Monroe about two miles out.

In Gosport, Semmes readies his ships for battle. The news of four Yankee ironclads gives him pause, but he has the Charleston and the Old Dominion - the former still a wooden liner, but with some of her guns replaced by 7" rifles - and a collection of gunboats of varying levels of firepower to back them up, as well as the guns protecting Hampton Roads.
As such, Semmes - always daring - elects to sally out and fight, under the protection of the guns but not relying on them to do all the work.


Meanwhile, R.Adm. Michell, commanding the Chesapeake blockade squadron from HMS Resistance, takes note of the thunder of guns some miles to the north. He orders that his flotilla concentrate on him, and sail north - but makes clear that they are not to engage without further orders.


Over the course of the next few hours, the Confederate fleet gets up steam and makes way towards the mouth of Newport News. The American ironclads and gunboats are putting up a steady if slow bombardment of Fort Monroe, which still bears the scars of the damage from nearly five months prior, and at the long range in question (over a mile) the Confederate guns are doing little damage that is not superficial - though the exception is violent, as Oregon is struck by a large rifle shell and begins to sink. (Her captain orders the crew to take to the boats, and they are picked up by Katahdin.)
It is already starting to look like the Eads boats - with their two layers of 3" hammered armour - are significantly better protected than a ship with armour like that of the Monitor (as would be expected from Dahlgren's experiments), though a few cracks have developed where wrought iron shot has struck at a near-perpendicular angle on the casemate, as the iron is still more fragile than expected.


Semmes brings his ships into play around 1 PM, with Charleston leading the line at full speed and Yorktown and Jamestown following her - all three vessels can make 12 knots, which is very creditable (the only other ship able to make 12 knots in the whole area is the Immortalite, a British frigate). Leaving behind Old Dominion as too slow to follow the fleet, Semmes starts by angling for the pair of Union gunboats a little to the south of the main ironclad force - where they are out of the arc of the water battery.
The Union gunboats react by attempting a retreat, though they are too slow to avoid being brought to action - Charleston ripples off a broadside of 24 30-lber shells, 7 30-lber rifle shells and three 7" rifle rounds, the barrage striking Chocura four times and impairing her ability to maintain speed. As she falls back behind Pinola, the two large Confederate paddle gunboats also engage her - before long the Chocura is in a sinking condition.
As Semmes pursues, however, he comes under fire from the chase guns of Massachusets and New York. Pennsylvania opens her broadside as well, and the screw liner is soon under a sporadic fire from three of the four Union ironclads and is working both of her own broadsides as fast as possible. Her 7" rifles have a few precious cast-steel shot, and these are expended at close range to do significant damage to the port side of Pennsylvania - but a few solid bolts into the fighting space, while disabling one gun, cannot render the Union ironclad hors d'combat.

At about this time, Michell - discussing matters with his flag captain Chamberlain - comes to the conclusion that, since the Union ironclads seem to be resisting fire quite well, it would be detrimental to his ability to sustain the blockade for them to be able to attack him after repairing.
It is not clear how much of this argument is genuine, and how much is simply the desire to be involved in the battle. Nevertheless, he gives the order to engage the Union ships, and Resistance begins to close in - followed by Agamemnon, Octavia, Immortalite and Medea, at a little over ten knots. (The various British gunboats are quickly set up under tow from the faster ships, as their 68-lber smoothbores and 110-lber rifles may be useful.)

At 2:30, the Charleston has taken a hell of a battering. Her engine is below the waterline, so she has not taken any serious mobility damage, but the large shells hitting her as fast as the Union gunners can serve their guns are causing significant casualties and have rendered much of her broadside unusable. Jamestown has blown up, and Yorktown is retreating with most of her guns disabled.
Old Dominion has waded in, the slow Confederate ironclad using her own few steel shot to hit the Connecticut (and taking heavy damage in return) and the Union ironclad Massachusetts has been so battered by the repeated broadsides of Charleston that her upper layer is starting to crack apart under the impacts - even without the ability to pierce, the Charleston has such a large broadside of comparatively fast-firing weapons that she can cause substantial progressive damage.

The broadside of the Resistance comes as a surprise. At such a range - 800 yards - the angle of the armour means that the two hits from her 68-lber heavy guns do not penetrate, but the concussion is still considerable (Resistance is using 'far' charges, which mean the muzzle velocity is nearly twice the speed of sound, and she also has a large supply of steel shot which transfer more of their energy to the target.) Her 110-lber rifles do little damage, with a much lower muzzle velocity, but the two hits scored sound just as bad and add to the confusion.
The Pennsylvania and the Connecticut, as the ships with the more powerful armour piercing rounds, break off to focus on the British ships. Pennsylvania's 15" smoothbore scores a hit with the first shot, though at a comparatively long range this does not penetrate either, and the crew begin reloading the unwieldy gun as fast as possible - covered by the three smoothbores on the same broadside, and the four 9" sleeved rifles the Connecticut can supply on her relatively undamaged broadside.

The battle from this point degenerates into a brawl. Fort Monroe's guns are largely silenced - in some cases simply out of solid shot that can harm ironclads at this range - and the Charleston continues stubbornly resisting, using her higher speed to try and steer for a good angle on the Union ironclads (though even this starts to go as her engine is overstrained). Meanwhile, the British line starts to unravel as ships open their broadsides, and Medea abruptly loses way when her port paddle is destroyed by 8" rifle fire from the damaged Massachusets - which is herself then battered by the forty-six projectiles thrown by a single broadside from Agamemnon and pierced once.
Resistance takes considerable damage over the course of the battle, with her being the obvious target for heavy fire, and her side is pierced at close range by Pennsylvania's 15" (once, knocking out an Armstrong rifle) and Connecticut's 9" (twice, though the powder load required also causes one of the guns to burst). Michell is killed in the fighting when an 8" shell cuts down some of the masthead, and she also takes on some water from hits afore her armoured belt (though this does not put her at risk of sinking). At such a close range, however, her steady thunder of 68-lbers repeatedly pierces the Union ironclads, both battering their armour into shattering and simply punching straight through.

When the smoke has cleared late in the afternoon, the only capital ship to escape almost unscathed is the Immortalite. Near the back of the British line, she was not targeted by any major concentration of fire, and indeed only took one hit - a 10" shell near the bows which killed five men and disabled two guns, but passed through the ship before exploding and as such acted like a round shot.
All the other ships are damaged, in some cases seriously - Charleston is a wreck above the water line, though Semmes has not even been injured, and the Medea burns before exploding - and of the four Union ironclads only the New York manages to escape by withdrawing into shoal water and limping upriver overnight.


All three nations involved (when they hear about this battle) react with a mix of emotions. In the Confederacy there is relief, and a little shame that their navy could not defeat the Union navy alone (even Confederate pride cannot ignore that Charleston is barely able to fight a gunboat and Old Dominion has lost three of her five guns); in the British Empire the whole engagement is viewed with suspicion (Bright asks the First Lord whether the actions of Michell have materially contributed to the independence of the Confederacy) - though also pride that the Resistance was so heavily involved - and the Union's reaction is essentially one of shock, as the results come in the middle of the news of the battles in the Shenandoah Valley.