Gordon Calhoun
The Battle of Hampton Roads: The ships that sank, the ships that prevailed and the New Bedford-born men who were the junior officers in the newly expanding Navy were among the topics of our April Meeting.
Presented by Gordon Calhoun, who has 25+ years of experience working for the U.S. Navy’s Museum system, including 20 years at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, we learned about this famous battle between the USS Cumberland, and the newly ironclad CSS Virginia (aka Merrimack).
We learned of Acting Master William P. Randal, a whaleman who joined the Union Navy in 1861 and, later, gained lasting fame for the role he played during the battle—refusing to surrender and, as the on-the-sail sloop-of-war USS Cumberland sank, taking over the firing of the pivot guns.
We saw images of the sunken skeleton of the Cumberland which still rests on the bottom of the harbor. We learned that the Virginia used its ram to sink the Cumberland, and despite reports that the ram broke off and sank with the frigate, no trace of such iron can be found today.
We also had our usual book raffle for preservation and the lucky winners below received the book selected for this month’s topic.
