On March 8,1862, on her first test run off Hampton Roads, the Confederate ironclad Merrimac took on the Union frigate Cumberland and sank her to the bottom. In the study opposite, painted during the 1880s by Edward Moran, the artist concentrates on the striking vessel proudly flying the Stars and Stripes. Later in his career, when Moran was working on a series of paintings depicting the maritime history of the United States, he again chose this incident signaling the triumph of iron construction over wood rather than the better-known confrontation between the Merrimac and the Monitor that occurred the following day.