1862

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  • March 8: The ironclad CSS Virginia, converted from the burned out former-Federal auxiliary frigate USS Merrimac, attacks the frigates USS Cumberland and USS Congress in the James River off Newport News, Virginia, sinking both. (Campbell, R. Thomas, "Gray Thunder: Exploits of the Confederate States Navy", Burd Street Press, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, 1996, Library of Congress card number 95-47584, ISBN 0-942597-99-0, pages 25-40.)
  • March 9: The two ironclads, CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor, fight two hour artillery battle in the James River with inconclusive result. Both sides, as they withdraw, feel that they have been victorious over the other. What is conclusive is that the day of the wooden warship is over. (Campbell, R. Thomas, "Gray Thunder: Exploits of the Confederate States Navy", Burd Street Press, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, 1996, Library of Congress card number 95-47584, ISBN 0-942597-99-0, pages 43-49.)
  • March 21: A. M. Redfearn is born. He will serve as the college surgeon at Clemson Agricultural College from April 1893 to September 1920.
  • March 22: W. L. McGee is born. He will serve as a professor of Agriculture at Clemson Agricultural College from February 1894 until his death on October 22, 1896.
  • May 10: Confederate forces withdraw from the Peninsula as Norfolk, Virginia is evacuated. Major of Artillery, active volunteer forces of Virginia, Mark Bernard Hardin, assigned to duty at Craney Island since October, 1861, withdraws. While on this island he was an eye-witness of all the stirring scenes enacted in that vicinity, and among other historic happenings the destruction of the Cumberland and the Congress, and the fight between the Merrimac and the Monitor.
  • May 11: Overnight attempts to lighten the CSS Virginia so her draft will not exceed the shallow mouth of the Elizabeth River allowing her to withdraw up the James River to Richmond, fail. Reluctantly, the captain, Josiah Tattnall, grounds her off Craney Island, puts his crew ashore to evacuate, and burns the ship in the early morning hours. (Campbell, R. Thomas, "Gray Thunder: Exploits of the Confederate States Navy", Burd Street Press, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, 1996, Library of Congress card number 95-47584, ISBN 0-942597-99-0, pages 55-57.)
  • June: Mark Bernard Hardin is appointed Major of Artillery in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States, and assigned to duty as Commander of the 18th Virginia Battalion of Heavy Artillery, in the defences of Richmond.

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1861 The 1860's 1863