Without a doubt, Galena had borne the brunt of the exchange, leading Rodgers to remark in a quiet understatement, ‘We demonstrated that she was not shot proof.’ She would be repaired and fight in several more engagements in the Peninsula campaign, most notably off Malvern Hill on August 1. An examination in 1863, however, showed Galena’s armor to be so badly cracked that it was removed, turning her back into an ordinary wooden screw sloop with a three-mast rig.

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Monitor was hit three times during the advance on Richmond but escaped completely unharmed. Port Royal and Aroostook suffered only light damage. Naugatuck was judged to be so useless that she was returned to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service.

Richmond celebrated, although everyone felt that her deliverance was temporary. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac still lay about 23 miles from the Confederate capital and was advancing against Johnston, who was rapidly running out of space in which to conduct his fighting retreat. On May 31, Johnston was wounded during the Battle of Seven Pines. Major General Gustavus W. Smith briefly took charge of the Confederate Army but proved to be unsuited to the task. Command was then reluctantly handed over to the most senior officer left in Richmond–General Robert E. Lee.

Nobody in the Confederate capital would have suspected it at the time, but their army, which Lee christened the Army of Northern Virginia, was about to undergo a profound change–and so was the conduct of the war. The days of retreating were over.

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