The Union Ironclad ship was the Monitor. The Confederate ship was the Virginia.
The Union Ironclad Ship that was built to compete with the Confederate Ironclad was called the U.S.S. Monitor and the Confederate Ironclad was called the Merrimack (more accurately, the CSS Virginia).
The Merrimack
Ironclad
Ironclad.
The Confederate ship was called the Merrimack and the Union ship was called the Monitor.
Confederate States Ship
The Monitor was an ironclad ship created by the Union to battle against the Confederate ironclad called the Virginia (Merrimack).
The Confederates had a ship called an Ironclad (one of the inventions of the Civil War) and this Ironclad ship was called the Merrimac. If you don't trust this answer then don't blame me, because that's what we learned in school.
Yes, it was. It was the true name of the Confederate ironclad known as the Merrimac from the "Monitor and the Merrimac" battle. The Confederacy took a wooden ship formerly known as the Merrimac and put the iron armour on it. The ship was rechristened The CSS Virginia.
The Union ship called the USS Merrimack was captured by the South. The ship had been burned by the Union forces, but the Confederate forces took it and rebuilt it into an ironclad ship. It was renamed as the CSS Virginia.
A ship is by itself never a weapon, and that also goes for an ironclad ship. The ironclad could only be called a weapon carrier.