01/30/2023
On January 30th, 1862, the USS Monitor was launched from Brooklyn, New York. The moment she bobbed afloat and began steaming toward the East River, all other Navy vessels in the world were immediately obsolete.
The USS Monitor sported a unique design that would revolutionize naval combat: atop her low freeboard, ironclad hull was a rotating turret, inside of which were two giant 11-inch Dahlgren guns. This design allowed the Monitor to traverse her guns 360 degrees without re-orienting the ship, while simultaneously sitting so low in the water so as to present the smallest possible target to the enemy. The vessel also featured over 40 other patentable inventions designed by Swedish-born inventor John Ericsson.
The Union Navy's need for ironclad warships was underscored by President Abraham Lincoln in July, 1861. Subsequently, the Navy issued a contract for "iron-clad, steam vessels of war," to be built as quickly as possible. Ericsson confidently guaranteed that he could have the Monitor laid down and launched in just 100 days- a deadline that some sources claim he beat by two days. As the peculiar-looking vessel steamed up and down the East River on its first sea trials in February, curious onlookers described it as a "cheesebox on a raft."
On March 6th, 1862, the USS Monitor took to sea, bound for Fort Monroe, Virginia. As she steamed into the Chesapeake Bay two days later on March 8th, the Confederate-built ironclad CSS Virginia brawled into Hampton Roads, intent on clearing Union vessels from the mouth of the James River. The rebel ironclad rammed and sunk the USS Cumberland and set the USS Congress aflame with hot shot, killing 250 Union sailors at a loss of only two of her own. Union cannon shot bounced harmlessly off the ironclad hull of the Virginia; the only damage she sustained was to her smokestack.
Were it not for the timely arrival of the USS Monitor to intercept the Virginia, the Confederate ironclad may have made short work of the rest of the wooden-hulled U.S. fleet in the Chesapeake. On March 9th, the USS Monitor met her nemesis in a battle unlike any other that had been fought upon the waves. It was the first duel between ironclad ships in naval history. For more than four hours. the gunboats fired at each other. Solid shot clanged against the turret of the Monitor, rupturing her gunners' eardrums; she returned fire, but was likewise unable to pe*****te the armor of the Virginia. After being rammed by her adversary, an explosive shell slammed directly into the Monitor's pilothouse. Bits of iron and paint burst through the viewing slits, temporarily blinding the Captain, and forcing the Monitor to pull away from the fight while command of the ship was reassigned. Meanwhile, the Virginia steamed back toward Norfolk, believing that she had defeated the Union ironclad.
The two ships would never again meet each other in battle. After returning to dry dock for repairs, the CSS Virginia fled upriver when its home port of Norfolk fell to the U.S. Army on May 10th, 1862. Her Captain ordered the vessel destroyed shortly thereafter so that the warship would not fall into the hands of the enemy. The USS Monitor would go on to support the Army of the Potomac during General George B. McClellan's Peninsular Campaign, and afterward would be ordered to the Washington Navy Yard to be repaired. On New Years Eve, 1862, while steaming to support the joint Army-Navy expedition in North Carolina's outer banks, the Monitor sank in heavy seas off the coast of Cape Hatteras.
In 1937, forty years before the shipwreck of the Monitor was discovered, Winston Churchill declared the duel between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia "The greatest change in sea-fighting since cannon fire by gunpowder had been mounted on ships about four hundred years before."
