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USS Merrimack; Engraving by L.H. Bradford & Co., after a drawing by G.G. Pook.
Career (US)
Name:	Merrimack
Ordered:	6 April 1854
Launched:	15 June 1855
Commissioned:	20 February 1856
Decommissioned:	16 February 1860
Fate:	Burned and sunk in dock, 20 April 1861 Raised and converted into ironclad CSS Virginia
General characteristics
Displacement:	3,200 tons
Length:	275 feet (84 m)
Beam:	38.5 feet (11.7 m)
Draft:	24 feet (7.3 m)
Propulsion:	sail, steam engine
Speed:	12 knots
Armament:	14 × 8-inch guns, 2 × 10-inch guns, 24 × 9-inch guns

USS Merrimack was a screw frigate of the United States Navy, best known as the hulk upon which CSS Virginia was built during the American Civil War and then took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads (often called "the Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack").

Merrimack was launched by the Boston Navy Yard 15 June 1855; sponsored by Miss Mary E. Simmons; and commissioned 20 February 1856, Captain Garrett J. Pendergrast in command. She was the second ship of the Navy to be named for the Merrimack River, which is formed by the junction of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee Rivers at Franklin, New Hampshire. The Merrimack flows south across New Hampshire, and then eastward across northeastern Massachusetts before emptying in the Atlantic at Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Shakedown took the new screw frigate to the Caribbean and to western Europe. Merrimack visited Southampton, Brest, Lisbon, and Toulon before returning to Boston and decommissioning 22 April 1857 for repairs. Recommissioning 1 September 1857, Merrimack got underway from Boston Harbor 17 October as flagship for the Pacific Squadron. She rounded Cape Horn and cruised the Pacific coast of South and Central America until heading for home 14 November 1859. Upon returning to Norfolk, she decommissioned 16 February 1860.

USS Merrimack aflame during the burning of the Norfolk Navy Yard, 20 April 1861.

Merrimack was still in ordinary during the crisis preceding Lincoln's inauguration. Soon after becoming Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles took action to prepare the frigate for sea, planning to move her to Philadelphia. The day before the firing on Fort Sumter, Welles directed that "great vigilance be exercised in guarding and protecting"; Norfolk Navy Yard and her ships. On the afternoon of 17 April, the day Virginia seceded, Engineer in Chief B. F. Isherwood managed to get the frigate's engines lit off; but the previous night secessionists had sunk lightboats in the channel between Craney Island and Sewell's Point, blocking Merrimack. On the 20th, before evacuating the Navy Yard, the U.S. Navy burned Merrimack to the waterline and sank her to preclude capture.

The Confederates, in desperate need of ships, raised Merrimack and rebuilt her as an ironclad ram, according to a design prepared by Lt. J. M. Brooke, CSN. Commissioned as CSS Virginia 17 February 1862, the ironclad was the hope of the Confederacy to destroy the wooden ships in Hampton Roads and to end the Union blockade which had already seriously "crippled" the South.

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

• history.navy.mil/danfs: USS Merrimack
• history.navy.mil/photos: USS Merrimack