CSS Albemarle: The Ironclad That Sank the Southfield

About one mile northeast of this spot, in the channel of the Roanoke River, one of the Civil War's most dramatic naval moments unfolded on April nineteenth, eighteen sixty-four. The Confederate ironclad ram CSS Albemarle had been built in a North Carolina cornfield upstream, rushed to completion in time for the assault on Plymouth.

The Union had chained two of its most powerful wooden gunboats together, the Miami and the Southfield, hoping to snare the ironclad between them and batter it with their combined guns. Commander James Cooke saw the trap, swerved past the Miami, and drove his iron ram directly into the Southfield's hull. The federal ship flooded so fast it nearly dragged the Albemarle to the bottom with it, the prow stuck deep in the stricken vessel's side. Only when the Southfield rolled and sank did the ram pull free. A point-blank Union shell bounced off the ironclad's sloping armor, killing the Miami's own captain on the ricochet. With the river cleared, Plymouth's fate was sealed.