<P> A CSS Merrimac did actually exist . She was a paddle wheel steamer named for the victor (as most Southerners saw it) at Hampton Roads . She was used for running the blockade until she was captured and taken into Federal service, still named Merrimac . Her name was a spelling variant of the river, namesake of USS Merrimack . Both spellings are still in use around the Hampton Roads area . </P> <P> A small community in Montgomery County, Virginia near the location where the iron for the Confederate ironclad was forged is now known as Merrimac . Some of the iron mined there and used in the plating on the Confederate ironclad is displayed at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth . The anchor of Virginia sits on the lawn in front of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond . </P> <P> After resting undetected on the ocean floor for 111 years, the wreck of Monitor was located by a team of scientists in 1973 . The remains of the ship were found upside down 16 mi (26 km) off Cape Hatteras, on a relatively flat, sandy bottom at a depth of about 240 ft (73 m). In 1987, the site was declared a National Marine Sanctuary, the first shipwreck to receive this distinction . </P> <P> Because of Monitor's advanced state of deterioration, timely recovery of remaining significant artifacts and ship components became critical . Numerous fragile artifacts, including the innovative turret and its two Dahlgren guns, an anchor, steam engine, and propeller, have been recovered . They were transported back to Hampton Roads to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia, where they were treated in special tanks to stabilize the metal . It is reported that it will take about ten years for the metal to completely stabilize . The new USS Monitor Center at the Mariners' Museum officially opened on March 9, 2007, and a full - scale copy of USS Monitor, the original recovered turret, and artifacts and related items are now on display . </P>

The monitor defeated the merrimac at hampton roads in the first battle of the civil war