Did both the union and and confeds use ironclds???

Question

Did both the union and and confeds use ironclds???

Answer 1

yes

Answer 2

Yes.  Monitor is one sort of Union ironclad, forming the type model for the bulk of the seagoing Union ironclads.  An exception to the monitor type was the New Ironsides, which was a ship with a belt of armor.  Confederates put together CSS Virginia, on the wreck of the old steam frigate Merrimack, near Hampton Roads, as well as CSS Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama at various points in western waters.  All of these were armored broadside vessels powered by steam.  Union put together a number of river ironclads, or tinclads as they were sometimes called.  One of these, Cairo, struck an explosive mine and sank, was recovered through salvage archaeology, and is now on display at the Vicksburg National Battlefield.

Some years ago, the U.S. Naval Institute Press, the publishing arm of the Naval Academy, published a reference book of all of the ships of any sort which participated in the Civil War and shortly thereafter.  I do not have the reference directly before me, but it should be easy enough to find.