Editing CSS Virginia (section)

==Historical names==
Although the Confederacy renamed the ship, she is still frequently referred to by her Union name. When she was first commissioned into the United States Navy in 1856, her name was ''Merrimack,'' with the ''K''; the name was derived from the [[Merrimack River]] near where she was built. She was the second ship of the U. S. Navy to be named for the Merrimack River, which is formed by the [[confluence]] of the [[Pemigewasset River|Pemigewasset]] and [[Winnipesaukee River|Winnipesaukee]] rivers at [[Franklin, New Hampshire]]. The Merrimack flows south across [[New Hampshire]], then eastward across northeastern [[Massachusetts]] before finally emptying in the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] at [[Newburyport, Massachusetts]].

After raising, restoring, and outfitting as an ironclad warship, the Confederacy bestowed on her the name ''Virginia''. Nonetheless, the Union continued to refer to the Confederate ironclad by either its original name, ''Merrimack'', or by the nickname "The Rebel Monster". In the aftermath of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the names ''Virginia'' and ''Merrimack'' were used interchangeably by both sides, as attested to by various newspapers and correspondence of the day. Navy reports and pre-1900 historians frequently misspelled the name as "Merrimac", which was actually an unrelated ship,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-91000/NH-91880-KN.html|title=Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack C.S.S. Virginia Civil War Naval Battle|work=nps.gov}}</ref> hence "the Battle of the ''Monitor'' and the ''Merrimac''". Both spellings are still in use in the Hampton Roads area.