Ironclads

Ironclads is a 1991 made-for-television movie produced by Ted Turner's TNT company about the events behind the creation of from the remains of and the battle between Virginia and in the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8, 1862 – March 9, 1862. Noel Taylor received an Emmy Award nomination for his costume designs for the production. Plot Quartermaster's Mate Leslie Harmon is awaiting a court martial when he is brought to Commodore Joseph Smith (E.G. Marshall) and his son Lieutenant Joseph B. Smith, Jr. (Kevin O'Rourke). He deliberately interfered with the militarily necessary demolition of the dry dock at Hampton Roads Naval Base to prevent collateral damage and civilian casualties, as Confederates overran the base. Harmon is introduced to Miss Betty Stuart, a Virginia belle educated in Baltimore who wishes to help Harmon spy on the Confederate States Navy at Gosport on the raised and refitted Merrimack, now the ironclad Virginia. Once in the South, Harmon encounters many key naval officers and learns that the armor test on of iron plate is staged to offer misinformation to any Union spies—like him. In reality, the Virginia boasts of armor and cannot be pierced by any Union guns. Harmon and Betty realize that this information must make it to Washington, D.C. to improve firepower to sink Virginia. However, Betty has a change of heart upon learning that her childhood friend and lover, Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones, has been reassigned as the second-in-command of Virginia and is now in danger of death due to the very intelligence she intended to send North. She tries to stop Harmon from going north with the intelligence, but he goes anyway. At the commissioning ceremony for Virginia, she confesses to her now-fiancé Lt. Jones that she had helped Leslie Harmon infiltrate the shipyard and spy for the Union, warning him of the possible increase in firepower. He is stunned and distraught at her betrayal, yet sails to war without turning her in as one final act of love for his traitorous fiancé. Virginia sails off to break the Union blockade at Hampton Roads. Betty is promptly arrested by Lt. Guilford (Philip Casnoff), an admiral's aide and spy hunter, on suspicion of espionage.