Item  #  B1803

CSS Virginia Limited Edition 34"

• 34" long x 7 " Wide x 9 " High (1:96 scale). 5 Lbs.
• Museum quality handcrafted wooden model ship.
• Amazing details: planked deck, metal anchors, brass cannons, cloth flags and more.
• Includes a numbered Certificate of Authenticity as only 100 will ever be made.
• Meticulously painted to the actual CSS Virginia.
• Authentic lifeboats - not flat bottomed.
• Requires over 100 hours to carve the wood from scratch (not from a model kit) by our master artisans.
• Built with rare, high quality woods such as rosewood.
• The model rests perfectly on a large wood base.
• To build this ship, extensive research was done using various sources such as museums, drawings, copies of original plans and photos of the actual ship.

On 20 April 1861, when Virginia authorities took over the Norfolk Navy Yard after its evacuation by Federal forces, they found, among other valuable items, the hulk of the steam frigate USS Merrimack. Though burned to the waterline and sunk, the big ship's lower hull and machinery were intact. During the remainder of 1861 and the first two months of 1862, the Confederate States Navy raised, dry-docked and converted her into a casemate ironclad ram, a new warship type that promised to overcome the Union's great superiority in conventional warships. Placed in commission as CSS Virginia in mid-February 1862, the ship's iron armor made her virtually invulnerable to contemporary gunfire. She carried ten guns of her own, a seven-inch pivot-mounted rifle at each end and a broadside battery of two six-inch rifles and six nine-inch smoothbores. Affixed to her bow was an iron ram, allowing the ship herself to be employed as a deadly weapon