Gosport Navy Yard

Gosport Navy Yard. Birthplace of the CSS Virginia. Before you is the Gosport Navy Yard (Nor­folk Naval Ship­yard). Gosport is the old­est Navy ship­yard in the nation. Here is where the USS Mer­ri­mack was burned and then trans­formed by the Con­fed­er­ates into the pow­er­ful iron­clad ram, the CSS Vir­ginia., Gosport Navy Yard was first estab­lished in 1767 by British naval agent Andrew Sprowle. It was occu­pied by patriot forces in 1775 and oper­ated as a ship­yard by the Vir­ginia State Navy. Gosport, the largest ship­yard in Amer­ica, was burned by the British in 1779 when they occu­pied Portsmouth., In 1794 the yard was loaned to the U.S. Gov­ern­ment and pur­chased by the U.S. Navy Depart­ment in 1801. The USS Chesa­peake was one of a group of six frigates authorized by Con­gress to “Pro­vide a Naval Arma­ment,” and was the first ship built at Gosport Navy Yard in 1798 – 1799. On June 17, 1833, the 74-gun ship-of-the-line USS Delaware entered the newly com­pleted Dry Dock No. 1. The Delaware was the first ship to enter a dry dock in America., When Vir­ginia left the Union, the U.S. Navy evac­u­ated and burned the yard. Gosport was imme­di­ately occu­pied by local Con­fed­er­ates. Sal­vaged stores and equip­ment, includ­ing 1,085 can­nons, were used to equip and fortify the many land bat­ter­ies erected in the Tidewater region and at other loca­tions through­out the South., The steam frigate Mer­ri­mack, with 40 guns, had been under repair at Gosport and dur­ing the Fed­eral evacuation was burned and sunk. The Con­fed­er­ates raised it, placed it in Dry Dock No. 1 and from designs drawn by Naval Con­struc­tor John L. Porter, a Portsmouth native, con­verted it into the ironclad CSS Vir­ginia. While on its trial in Hamp­ton Roads, Virginia sank the USS Cum­ber­land and USS Con­gress on March 8, 1862. On the next day it fought the iron­clad USS Mon­i­tor, prov­ing that wooden war­ships were obsolete., Gosport Navy Yard pro­duced sev­eral other gun­boats and part of another iron­clad, the CSS Richmond. On May 10, 1862, the yard was burned again, this time by the evacu­at­ing Con­fed­er­ates and imme­di­ately reoc­cu­pied by the U.S. Navy. The Union con­trolled Gosport dur­ing the rest of the war.