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Underwaterpictures: Dag Deberitz

 

 

A short history of the first Monitor, USS Monitor;
( information from Historic Naval Ship Visitors' Guide )

USS Monitor was the first ironclad ship to be commissioned into the U.S. Navy. Built during the Civil War in response to the Confederate Navy's ironclad CSS Virginia, Monitor played an integral role in the transformation of military vessels from wood to iron. On August 3, 1861, Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles published an announcement calling on designers to submit plans for ironclad warships to the Navy Department. With the support of Cornelius Bushnell, who controlled several railroads in Connecticut and had entered the world of naval architecture, renowned engineer John Ericsson submitted his plans for an "impregnable iron battery" to the Navy's Ironclad Board. Ericsson's design was chosen along with two others. He was awarded a contract in the amount of $275,000 to build his planned ironclad and charged with doing so in one hundred days. USS Monitor was launched on January 30, 1862. Under the command of Lieutenant John L. Worden, Monitor was ordered to Hampton Roads, Virginia, where she fought the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia in the first battle between ironclad ships. The two ships engaged each other for nearly four hours with neither inflicting serious damage on the other. The battle ended in a draw, although both sides claimed victory. On December 31, 1862, while in tow by USS Rhode Island to Beaufort, North Carolina, Monitor sank during a severe storm off the coast of Cape Hatteras. Four officers and twelve crewmen lost their lives.
In August 1973, Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Geographic Society, the University of Delaware, and the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources participated in an expedition using Duke University's research vessel Eastward. On March 8, 1974, after extensive examination of video and photographic images, a formal announcement was made that the Duke University team had located the wreck of USS Monitor. On September 26, 1974, the governor of North Carolina nominated the Monitor wreck as the nation's first marine sanctuary. Currently, the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Sanctuary Program. In 1987 The Mariners' Museum was chosen by NOAA as the principal museum for the Monitor collection, which includes artifacts from the Monitor Sanctuary. As items from the ironclad are recovered, they are brought to the Museum for conservation, interpretation, and exhibition. Currently, Monitor's anchor, red lantern, oarlocks, and various other artifacts are on display as part of The Mariners' permanent exhibition Defending the Seas, which recounts the history of the U.S. Navy. In conservation on Museum grounds are Monitor's skeg, propeller and shaft, and pieces of iron plating from the deck and engine room floor. The Museum currently has plans to build a USS Monitor Center that will open by 2006, and serve as a centerpiece for the many Civil War attractions in Hampton Roads.

Information from www.wikipedia.org

Monitor was one of three ironclad warships ordered by the U.S. Navy, after Galena and New Ironsides. Designed by the brilliant but choleric Swedish engineer John Ericsson, Monitor was described as a "cheesebox on a raft", consisting of a heavy, round iron turret on the deck housing two large Dahlgren cannon. The armored deck was barely above the waterline. Aside from a small, boxy pilothouse, a detachable smokestack and a few fittings, the bulk of the ship was below the waterline to prevent damage from cannon fire. Monitor's hull was constructed at the Continental Iron Works in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York, and the ship was launched there on January 30, 1862. Monitor was innovative in construction technique as well as design. Parts were forged in nine different foundries and brought together to build the ship, with the entire process taking less than 120 days. In addition to the "cheesebox", its rotating turret, Monitor was also the first naval vessel to be fitted with Ericsson's marine screw. Ericsson anticipated some aspects of modern submarine design by placing all of Monitor's features except the turret and pilothouse underwater, making it the first semi-submersible ship. In contrast, Virginia was a conventional wooden vessel covered with iron plates and bearing fixed weapons. Virginia attacked the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 8, 1862, destroying USS Cumberland and Congress and forcing Minnesota aground before withdrawing. That night, Monitor, under command of Lt. John L. Worden, arrived under tow from Brooklyn. When Virginia returned the next day, March 9, 1862, to finish off Minnesota and the rest of the U.S. fleet, Monitor sailed forth to stop her. The ironclads fought for about four hours, neither one sinking or seriously damaging the other. Although the battle was essentially a draw, it was a tactical victory for Monitor. Virginia had failed in her mission to destroy the U.S. fleet and raise the blockade, while Monitor succeeded in defending the fleet. The ironclads never again fought each other. USS Monitor became the prototype for the monitor warship type. Many more were built, including river monitors and deep-sea monitors, and they played key roles in Civil War battles on the Mississippi and James rivers. Some had two or even three turrets, and later monitors had improved seaworthiness. Just three months after the famous Battle of Hampton Roads, the design was offered to Sweden, and in 1865 the first Swedish monitor was being built at Motala Warf in Norrköping; she was named John Ericsson in Honor of the engineer. She was followed by 14 more monitors. One of them, Sölve, is still preserved at the marine museum in Gothenburg. The last U.S. Navy monitor-class warship was struck from the Navy List in 1937.