Monitor verse Merrimac?

[bridav58]

Or should it actually be USS Monitor verse CSN Virginia? From what I understand about other similar historical perspectives it should be the latter. I mean the CSA captured the USS Merrimac then completely rebuilt her and then renamed her the CSN Virginia.
What are your thoughts?

[asnrobert]

Or should it actually be USS Monitor verse CSN Virginia? From what I understand about other similar historical perspectives it should be the latter. I mean the CSA captured the USS Merrimac then completely rebuilt her and then renamed her the CSN Virginia.
What are your thoughts?

Technically the Monitor fought the CSS Virginia, since that was the name the Confederate ship fought under. However, it could be that writers prefer using the ships' former name since it was alliterative- Monitor and the Merrimac sounds more poetic I suppose than Monitor and the Virginia.

[john964]

Or should it actually be USS Monitor verse CSN Virginia? From what I understand about other similar historical perspectives it should be the latter. I mean the CSA captured the USS Merrimac then completely rebuilt her and then renamed her the CSN Virginia.
What are your thoughts?

I depends several battles during the ACW have 2 ligitamet names, this comes from how the two sides defined the battles location the CSA usally used the name of the closest town or city while the USA usally used the closest geological feature. This is were you get the two names like Bull Run or Mannassas, Antetem or Sharpsburg, Shilo or Pittsburg Landing. For a long time the North listed the two ships as Monitor and Merrimac, while in the South they were listed as the Monitor and the Virginia, it has only been in the last 30-40 years that historians have been trying to rectifiy this and try to settle the various naming disputes.

[Smiffy]

This is very like the problem that the British had over the name Napoleon. Bonaparte styled himself Emperor Napoleon, but the British government never recognised him as the lawful ruler of France; to the British he was General Bonaparte.

In those days of a more gentlemanly form of warfare, with local truces, paroles, and other diplomatic correspondence between local commanders, many a British general or flag officer got into trouble for signing documents that referred to the Emperor Napoleon rather than General Bonaparte.

Coming back on topic, I suppose that the Union, in the belief that they still held legitimate claim to the ship, should still have referred to her as Merrimac, while the CSA, believing that they owned her by right of conquest, felt that they could call her whatever they liked.

It's like HMS Hermione, handed over to the Spanish in 1797 by her mutinous crew. She was renamed Santa Cecilia by her new owners but she was still HMS Hermione to the RN. That was until she was cut out by the boats of HMS Surprise from Puerto Caballo in 1799. Back in British hands she had to be renamed because the name Hemione was tainted by mutiny, so she became HMS Retaliation.