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EWPORT NEWS, Va.--News that a recent underwater survey might have found remnants of the ironclad Merrimack touched off fervor among Civil War buffs already stirred up by the recoveries of two other legendary warships, the Monitor and the Hunley.
A follow-up survey is planned, but the myth of the wreck might be all that's there. After more than a century of burning, exploding, salvaging, scavenging and souvenir hunting, there's not likely to be much more.
The survey, performed by a shipping company looking to extend its piers, turned up the latest report in a century's worth that a boiler from one of the more famous naval battlers in history might be in the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk.
But the ironclad's boilers were square, and the one the survey found is round. The round one has been "discovered" before, said John Broadwater, manager of the federal Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. "We've heard about the so-called...