Virtual Civil War Lecture: Battle of Wassau Sound, Georgia

Join us for a virtual lecture with author and historian John V. Quarstein, director emeritus of the USS Monitor Center, when he gives a presentation on the Civil War naval battle between the Confederate ram CSS Atlanta and the Passaic-class ironclad monitors USS Weehawken and USS Nahant.

Viewers are welcome to send any comments or questions to John Quarstein, and he will answer them following his talk.

About the presentation: When the British-built blockade-runner Fingal could not escape from Savannah, Georgia, in 1862, the Confederates transformed the iron-hulled vessel into the ironclad CSS Atlanta. The Atlanta was equipped with four Brooke rifles, a 20-foot ram, and a spar torpedo. Many Southerners believed that this ram could be a match for any Union monitor. When the test came on June 17, 1863, in Wassaw Sound, Georgia, Atlanta was captured by two Passaic-class monitors, Weehawken and Nahant, in a brief encounter. The captured ironclad was repaired and commissioned as USS Atlanta, serving in the James River against its former Confederate owners. The ram was eventually sold to Haiti, but sank en route to the Caribbean Sea.