INFOGRAPHICS #6: American Civil War ironclads - Major combatants, cutaways and photos

USS Monitor

The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 between the United States of America, consisting of the Northern States and California (known as the North or Union), under President Abraham Lincoln and the Confederate States of America, consisting of the Southern States and Texas (known as the South or Confederacy), under President Jefferson Davis. Some of the vessels that are depicted on the images are either unique vessels such as USS Monitor or lead-ships of a class such as USS Passaic while there are different kinds of ironclads such as monitors, gunboats, riverboats, floating batteries screw steamers and others. The Battle of Hampton Roads (March 8–9, 1862) was the first battle between ironclad warships, i.e. the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. This naval battle was the most noted and arguably most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies. Another first during this war, was the loss of the USS Cairo, an ironclad gunboat that sunk by a naval mine, on 12 December 1862 in the Yazoo River. Some very good and rare photos from this war can be seen here, a large collection of photos collected by the Trans-Mississippi Theater Photo Archive.

The first two images are created by Steve Freeman (sfreeman421 for deviantart) and illustrate the major surface combatants of the two opponents of the American Civil War.