Early in 1861, Buncombe County farmer William Riley Powers joined the Rough and Ready Guards, Company F of the 14th North Carolina Infantry, and went with the regiment to southeastern Virginia. There Confederate General Benjamin Huger discharged Powers and fellow Buncombe soldier William Pleasant Craig from the army and ordered them on February 18, 1862, to go aboard the Merrimack, an abandoned Union frigate that the Confederates had raised, refitted with four-inch iron plates and a gun turret, and renamed CSS Virginia. Because the Confederates lacked qualified sailors, they transferred soldiers to the navy to man the vessel, and Powers and Craig received the rank of landsman as unskilled recruits assigned the dirtiest, heaviest, and most menial tasks. Virginia was poorly ventilated and very crowded, and Surgeon Dinwiddie Phillips wrote that most of the crew were volunteers from the army unused to ship life, with about twenty percent usually in the hospital ashore and an effective force on March 8 of about 250 or 260 men. On March 7-8, 1862, Virginia successfully engaged the Union warships Cumberland and Congress, part of the blocking force at Norfolk. On March 9, Monitor engaged Virginia at Hampton Roads in the first battle ever between armored vessels, and the fight ended in a draw. In May, Virginia's crew scuttled her to avoid capture. Powers served with Virginia from launch to destruction, later returned to Buncombe County after the war, and was buried in the churchyard across the street.