I made the drawings using sketches which were published in the magazine Harper's Weekly and which were in fact not realistic while she was armed with just 4 guns!
Her building was ordered in 1862 using a design of John L. Porter, she was laid down at the Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard financed with scrap and cash by the citizens of Virginia in March, launched on 6 May and commissioned in July all the same year and on 3 April 1865 destroyed just before the evacuation of Richmond to prevent being captured by the Union forces. The fact that she was build with the aid of the Virginian citizens caused that Southern people called her sometimes Virginia II or No. 2 and Young Virginia while the Northern people her sometimes called Merrimack no. 2, New Merrimack or Young Merrimack.
Her dimensions were 52,58 x 10 x 3,7 metres or 172’6”x 34 x 12’. She had a speed of 5-6 knots, a crew which numbered 150 men and a armament consisting of 4 rifled guns, 6 shell guns and one spar torpedo. Her roof was protected by a combination of 22” yellow pine/oak and 4” iron and further more was she protected by iron stretching to 3,5’below her load lines.
Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle author of Three months in the southern states: April-June 1863 (published New York, 1864), page 219 visited the Richmond invited by a captain Maury (1) and saw 1-7” ‘treble-banded Brook gun, weighing, they told me, 21,000 lbs, and capable of standing a charge of 25 lbs. of powder.
Note
1. This should be lieutenant John S. Maury, her commanding officer between July and 26 October 1864.
