They are the first ironclad, steam powered, warships. They made wooden sailing vessels obsolete.
Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel was created in 1992.
The fight between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (which you have called the Merrimac) was a draw (a tie).
The address of the Monitor Merrimac Memorial is: 218 Florida Ave, Portsmouth, VA 23707-1617
The Merrimac,
Lincoln won
The USS Monitor and the USS Merrimac were both vessels in the US Navy. They did not fight. The Merrimac was sunk at the beginning of the war. The Confederate Navy took the remains of the Merrimac and used it to create the Ironclad CSS Virginia. The USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia fought a battle near Hampton Roads Virginia.
monitor and merrimac were in a draw
It was a draw.
There were several dozen, maybe twice as many in the Union Navy as in the Confederate. But the two most famous were among the very first, and fought each other in 1862, revolutionizing naval warfare for all nations. This is remembered as the Monitor versus the Merrimac. The USS Monitor was the northern ship, and the other was the CSS Virginia. The Virginia was built on the remains of the old USS Merrimac, a ship burned by the Union Navy when they had to abandon the Norfolk Navy Yard. But Monitor versus Merrimac sounds better than Monitor versus Virginia, so that's how newspapers reported it.
Lt. John L. Worden commanded the Monitor for the Union and the Merrimac (which had been renamed the Virginia by the time of Hampton Roads) was led by Franklin Buchanan, however the Merrimac (pre-ironclad and Civil War) was led by Capt. Garrett J. Pendergast.
Catesby Jones
1862