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USS Monitor

USS Monitor was an ironclad warship built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War and completed in early 1862, the first such ship commissioned by the Navy.[a] Monitor played a central role in the Battle of Hampton Roads on 9 March under the command of Lieutenant John L. Worden, where she fought the casemate ironclad CSS Virginia (built on the hull of the scuttled steam frigate USS Merrimack) to a stalemate. The design of the ship was distinguished by its revolving turret, which was designed by American inventor Theodore Timby; it was quickly duplicated and established the monitor class and type of armored warship built for the American Navy over the next several decades.

This article is about the first USS Monitor, a Civil War ironclad. For the World War II vehicle landing ship, see USS Monitor (LSV-5).

History

Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

9.9 acres (4.0 ha)

1861–1862

John Ericsson

Ironclad warship

74002299[1]

11 October 1974

23 June 1986

The remainder of the ship was designed by Swedish-born engineer and inventor John Ericsson, and built in only 101 days in Brooklyn, New York on the East River beginning in late 1861. Monitor presented a new concept in ship design and employed a variety of new inventions and innovations in ship building that caught the attention of the world. The impetus to build Monitor was prompted by the news that the Confederates were building an iron-plated armored vessel named the Virginia in the old Federal naval shipyard at Gosport, near Norfolk, that could effectively engage the Union ships blockading Hampton Roads harbor and the James River leading northwest to Richmond (capital of the Confederacy). They could ultimately advance unchallenged on Washington, D.C., up the Potomac River and other seacoast cities. Before Monitor could reach Hampton Roads, the Confederate ironclad had already destroyed the sail frigates USS Cumberland and USS Congress and had run the steam frigate USS Minnesota aground. That night, Monitor arrived and, just as Virginia set to finish off Minnesota and St. Lawrence on the second day, the new Union ironclad confronted the Confederate ship, preventing her from wreaking further destruction on the wooden Union ships. A four-hour battle ensued, each ship pounding the other with close-range cannon fire, although neither ship could destroy or seriously damage the other. This was the first battle fought between armored warships and marked a turning point in naval warfare.


The Confederates were forced to scuttle and destroy Virginia as they withdrew in early May 1862 from Norfolk and its naval shipyard, while Monitor sailed up the James River to support the Union Army during the Peninsula Campaign under General-in-Chief George B. McClellan. The ship participated in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff later that month, and remained in the area giving support to General McClellan's forces on land until she was ordered to join the Union Navy blockaders off North Carolina in December. On her way there, she foundered while under tow during a storm off Cape Hatteras on the last day of the year. Monitor's wreck was discovered in 1973 and has been partially salvaged. Her guns, gun turret, engine, and other relics are on display at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia, a few miles from the site of her most important military action.

Conception[edit]

While the concept of ships protected by armor existed before the advent of the ironclad Monitor,[3] the need for iron plating on ship arose only after the explosive shell-firing Paixhans gun was introduced to naval warfare in the 1820s. The use of heavy iron plating on the sides of warships was not practical until steam propulsion matured enough to carry its great weight. Developments in gun technology had progressed by the 1840s so that no practical thickness of wood could withstand the power of a shell.[4] In response, the United States began construction in 1854 of a steam-powered ironclad warship, Stevens Battery,[5] but work was delayed and the designer, Robert Stevens, died in 1856, stalling further work. Since there was no pressing need for such a ship at the time, there was little demand to continue work on the unfinished vessel.[6] It was France that introduced the first operational armored ships as well as the first shell guns and rifled cannons.[7] Experience during the Crimean War of 1854–1855 showed that armored ships could withstand repeated hits without significant damage when French ironclad floating batteries defeated Russian coastal fortifications during the Battle of Kinburn. Ericsson claimed to have sent the French Emperor Napoléon III a proposal for a monitor-type design, with a gun turret, in September 1854, but no record of any such submission could be found in the archives of the French Ministry of the Navy (Ministre de la Marine) when they were searched by naval historian James Phinney Baxter III.[8] The French followed those ships with the first ocean-going ironclad, the armored frigate Gloire in 1859, and the British responded with HMS Warrior.[5]


The Union Navy's attitude towards ironclads changed quickly when it was learned that the Confederates were converting the captured USS Merrimack to an ironclad at the naval shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia. Subsequently, the urgency of Monitor's completion and deployment to Hampton Roads was driven by fears of what the Confederate ironclad, now renamed Virginia, would be capable of doing, not only to Union ships but to cities along the coast and riverfronts. Northern newspapers published daily accounts of the Confederates' progress in converting the Merrimack to an ironclad; this prompted the Union Navy to complete and deploy Monitor as soon as possible.[9]


Word of Merrimack's reconstruction and conversion was confirmed in the North in late February 1862 when Mary Louvestre of Norfolk, a freed slave who worked as a housekeeper for one of the Confederate engineers working on Merrimack,[10] made her way through Confederate lines with news that the Confederates were building an ironclad warship. Concealed in her dress was a message from a Union sympathizer who worked in the Navy Yard warning that the former Merrimack, renamed Virginia by the Confederates, was nearing completion.[11][b] Upon her arrival in Washington Louvestre managed to meet with Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and informed him that the Confederates were nearing the completion of their ironclad, which surprised Welles. Convinced by the papers Louvestre was carrying, he had production of Monitor sped up. Welles later recorded in his memoirs that "Mrs. Louvestre encountered no small risk in bringing this information ...".[13][14]

In popular culture[edit]

The battle between the Monitor and the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia was reenacted using scale models in the 1936 film Hearts in Bondage from Republic Pictures.[221] The battle was also dramatized in the 1991 made-for-television movie Ironclads, produced by Ted Turner.[222]

Bibliography of American Civil War naval history

Bibliography of early United States naval history

List of monitors of the United States Navy

List of National Historic Landmarks in North Carolina

National Register of Historic Places listings in Dare County, North Carolina

Allen, Thomas B. (2008). . National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1-4263-0401-9.

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Anderson, Bern (1989). . Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80367-3.

By Sea and by River: The Naval History of the Civil War

(1980). The Black Battlefleet. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-924-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Ballard, G. A., Admiral

(1968) [1933]. The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books. OCLC 695838727.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

Baxter, James Phinney, 3rd

Bennett, Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, Frank M. (1900). . Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

The Monitor and the Navy under Steam

Broadwater, John D. (2012). . Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-1-60344-473-6.

USS Monitor: A Historic Ship Completes Its Final Voyage

Brown, David K. (2003). Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860–1905 (reprint of the 1997 ed.). London: Caxton Editions.  978-1-84067-529-0.

ISBN

Campbell, N. J. M. (1979). "United States of America — 'The Old Navy' 1860–1882". In Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). . Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 114–136. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905

Canney, Donald L. (1993). The Old Steam Navy. Vol. 2: The Ironclads, 1842–1885. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-0-87021-586-5.

ISBN

Clancy, Paul (2013). Ironclad; The Epic Battle, Calamitous Loss, and Historic Recovery of the USS Monitor. New York: Koehler Books.  978-1-938467-11-0.

ISBN

. Central Intelligence Agency. 7 July 2008. Archived from the original on 2 September 2016. Retrieved 25 August 2017.

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(1975). Duel Between the First Ironclads (Book club ed.). Garden City, New York: Doubleday. OCLC 1551282.

Davis, William C.

. The Harvard Crimson. 16 April 1951. Retrieved 19 June 2013.

"'USS Monitor Can Be Raised,' Says Top Underwater Salvaging Expert"

Dinsmore, David A.; Broadwater, John D. (1999). . In Hamilton, RW; Pence, DF; Kesling, DE (eds.). Assessment and Feasibility of Technical Diving Operations for Scientific Exploration. Archived from the original on 28 September 2012. Retrieved 8 January 2011.

"1998 NOAA Research Expedition to the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary"

Erickson, Mark St. John (4 January 1998). . Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011. Retrieved 15 April 2009.

"Sands of time: Part 5 of 5"

Field, Ron (2011). Confederate Ironclad vs Union Ironclad: Hampton Roads. Osprey Publishing.  978-1-78096-141-5.

ISBN

Fuller, Howard J (2008). Clad in Iron: The American Civil War and the Challenge of British Naval Power. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-1-59114-297-3.

ISBN

Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1992). Steam, Steel and Shellfire: the Steam Warship 1815–1905. Conway's History of the Ship. London: Conway Maritime Press.  978-1-55750-774-7.

ISBN

Garrison, Webb (1994). Civil War Curiosities: Strange Stories, Oddities, Events and Coincidents. Nashville, Tennessee: Rutledge Hill Press.  978-1-56865-527-7.

ISBN

Gentile, Gary (1993). Ironclad Legacy: Battles of the USS Monitor. Gary Gentile Productions.  978-0-9621453-8-4.

ISBN

Holloway, Anna (2013). (PDF). Newport News, VA: The Mariner's Museum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 December 2013. Retrieved 22 July 2013.

The Last Voyage of the USS Monitor

Holzer, Harold; Mulligan, Tim (2006). . New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-2481-4.

The Battle of Hampton Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia

Konstam, Angus (2002). Hampton Roads 1862: First Clash of the Ironclads. Osprey Publishing.  978-1-84176-410-8. 96 pages.

ISBN

Konstam, Angus (25 January 2002). Union Monitor 1861–65. Osprey Publishing.  978-1-84176-306-4.

ISBN

Leckie, Robert (1990). . New York: Harper-Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-016280-1.

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(1894). A history of the United States Navy, from 1775 to 1893. New York: D. Appleton & Company.

Maclay, Edgar Stanton

Mariners' Museum. . Newport News, Virginia: The Mariner's Museum. Retrieved 16 June 2013.

"The Naming of the Monitor"

Mariners' Museum. . Newport News, Virginia: The Mariner's Museum. Archived from the original on 1 June 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2013.

"John Payne Bankhead"

Mariners' Museum. . Newport News, Virginia: The Mariner's Museum. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2013.

"Last Voyage of the Monitor: December 24th – Forward"

Geer, George S. (PDF). The Mariner's Museum, Newport News, Virginia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2013. Retrieved 15 August 2013.

"George S. Geer Papers, 1862–1866"

Marvel, William, ed. (2000). . New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86997-1.

The Monitor Chronicles: One Sailor's Account: Today's Campaign to Recover the Civil War Wreck

McCordock, Robert Stanley (1938). The Yankee Cheese Box. Dorrance.

Mindell, David A. (2000). War, Technology, and Experience Aboard the USS Monitor. Johns Hopkins University Press.  978-0-8018-6250-2.

ISBN

(1988). Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-503863-7.

McPherson, James M.

. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS). Naval History & Heritage Command (NH&HC). Archived from the original on 3 July 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2013.

"Monitor"

. Newport News, Virginia: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Sanctuary. Retrieved 24 July 2013.

"Monitor's Artifacts"

Nelson, James L. (2009). Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack. New York: HarperCollins.  978-0-06-052404-3.

ISBN

Olmstead, Edwin; Stark, Wayne E.; Tucker, Spencer C. (1997). The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, New York: Museum Restoration Service.  978-0-88855-012-5.

ISBN

Park, Carl D. (2007). Ironclad Down: The USS Merrimack-CSS Virginia from Construction to Destruction. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-1-59114-659-9.

ISBN

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The Battle of the Ironclads

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ISBN

Quarstein, John V. (2010). The Monitor Boys: The Crew of the Union's First Ironclad. The History Press.  978-1-59629-455-4.

ISBN

Quarstein, John V. (2012). The CSS Virginia: Sink Before Surrender. The History Press.  978-1-60949-580-0.

ISBN

Rawson, Edward K.; Woods, Robert H. (1897). Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Washington: Government Printing Office.

Reed, Sir Edward James (1869). . London: J. Murray.

Our Iron-Clad Ships: Their Qualities, Performances, and Cost. With Chapters on Turret Ships, Iron-Clad Rams &c

Rhodes, James Ford (1917). . New York, Boston, London: Macmillan & Co.

History of the Civil War

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ISBN

Roberts, William H. (2002). Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.  978-0-8018-8751-2.

ISBN

Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). Civil War Navies 1855–1883. The U.S. Navy Warship Series. New York: Routledge.  978-0-415-97870-5.

ISBN

. Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Archived from the original on 27 September 2012. Retrieved 11 August 2013.

"American Civil War Issue"

Southerland, DG; Davidson, DL (2002). "Electronic diving data collection during Monitor expedition 2001". Oceans 2002. Vol. 2. :10.1109/OCEANS.2002.1192089. ISBN 978-0-7803-7534-5. S2CID 107060334.

doi

Stern, Philip Van Doren (1962). . New York: Doubleday & Company. LCCN 62-15914.

The Confederate Navy

(1988). Hill, Dina B. (ed.). Ironclad Captains: The Commanding Officers of the U. S. S. Monitor. Washington, D.C.: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 978-0-16-003560-9. 83 pages.

Still Jr., William N.

Sutherland, Jonathan (2004). African Americans at War: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO.  978-1-57607-746-7.

ISBN

Thompson, Stephen C. (1990). "The Design and Construction of the USS Monitor". Warship International. XXVII (3).  0043-0374.

ISSN

Thulesius, Olav (2007). The Man who Made the Monitor: A Biography of John Ericsson, Naval Engineer. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company.  978-0-7864-2766-6.

ISBN

Tomblin, Barbara (2009). Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans and the Union Navy. University Press of Kentucky.  978-0-8131-7348-1.

ISBN

Tucker, Spencer (2006). Blue & Gray Navies: the Civil War Afloat. Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-1-59114-882-1.

ISBN

Varhola, Michael J (1999). . Writer's Digest Books. ISBN 978-1-58297-337-1. 292 pages.

Everyday Life During the Civil War

Wagner, Margaret E.; ; Finkelman, Paul (2002). The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86350-4.

Gallagher, Gary W.

Ward, Geoffrey; Burns, Ric; Burns, Ken (1990). The Civil War: An Illustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.  978-0-394-56285-8.

ISBN

Wilson, H. W. (1896). . Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown.

Ironclads in Action: A Sketch of Naval Warfare From 1855 to 1895

Bennett, Frank Marion; Weir, Robert (1896). . Pittsburgh: Warren & Company; Press of W. T. Nicholson.

The Steam Navy of the United States: A History of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U.S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps

Gott, Kendall D. (2003). Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry–Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862. Stackpole books.  978-0-8117-0049-8.

ISBN

Holloway, Anna Gibson and White, Jonathan W. (2018). "Our Little Monitor": The Greatest Invention of the Civil War. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press.  978-1-60635-314-1

ISBN

Holloway, Anna Gibson (2023). "Encounters with the Monitor Boys", in Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan White, eds., Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves, Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2023, pp. 54–75.

Holzer, Harold (2013). The Civil War in Fifty Objects. New York: Penguin Books: New York Historical Society. 416 pages.

; Buel, C.C., eds. (1887). Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Vol. I. New York: Century Company.

Johnson, Robert Underwood

Mokin, Arthur (1991). . Presidio Press. ISBN 978-0-8914-1405-6.

Ironclad: the Monitor and the Merrimack

Peterkin, Ernest W. (1985). . National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Drawings of the U.S.S. Monitor: A Catalog and Technical Analysis

Quarstein, John V. (2000). C.S.S. Virginia, Mistress of Hampton Roads. self-published for the Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders Series.  978-1-56190-118-0.

ISBN

Quarstein, John V. (1997). . Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-4438-0.

The Civil War on the Virginia Peninsula

Sheridan, Robert E. (2004). Iron from the Deep: The Discovery and Recovery of the USS Monitor. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-1-55750-413-5.

ISBN

Snow, Richard (2016). . Scribner. ISBN 978-1-4767-9420-4..

Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle that Changed History

(1988) [1971]. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads (Reprint ed.). Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-87249-616-3.

Still, William N. Jr.

Still, William N. Jr. (1988). . Washington, DC: National Park Service.

Monitor Builders: A Historical Study of the Principal Firms and Individuals Involved in the Construction of USS Monitor

(1911). Thaddeus Welles (ed.). Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson. Vol. 2. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Welles, Gideon

(1911). Thaddeus Welles (ed.). Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson. Vol. 3. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Welles, Gideon

Archived 22 October 2004 at the Wayback Machine at the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia

The Monitor Center

Archived 21 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine

Battle of Hampton Roads schematic map

Seattle Pilot mentioning the depth charging of the Monitor

Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA official website

The American Civil War Museum

US Navy Library on USS Monitor

Naval History and Heritage Command: USS Monitor

Video of model vibrating-lever engine of USS Monitor

Project Cheesebox vol. 1

Project Cheesebox vol. 2

Project Cheesebox vol. 3

. NOAA Ocean Explorer. March–August 2001. Retrieved 24 February 2015.

"Preserving the USS Monitor 2001"

. NOAA Ocean Explorer. June–December 2002. Retrieved 24 February 2015.

"Monitor Expedition 2002"