Monitor National Marine Sanctuary

In 1862, John Ericsson of Continental Ironworks helped build one of the first Ironclad ships, the USS Monitor, for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. The Ironclad ship was built to rival a similar one being constructed by the Confederate Navy, the CSS Virginia. What made these ships stand out from the rest of the fleet were their Ironclad design. Rather than being made of wood, the ships were shielded in Iron making them much stronger. This meant the ships were much more expensive to construct as well, so it took some time before congress allowed a bill to pass that would allow the Union Navy to start work on the Monitor.

On March 9th of 1862, the two ships finally met in the Battle of Hampton Roads. It took about four hours before Virginia finally managed to land a shot near the Monitor’s pilot house and temporarily blinded Captain Worden. This lead to the Monitor retreating to asses it's damages. Virginia, seeing the Monitor retreat, assumed they had won and left the battle. When the Monitor returned, they assumed Virginia had retreated and that they had won. The battle was nothing more than a draw. That was the first and last time the ships ever fought sadly. On December 31st, 1862, the Monitor got caught in a terrible storm off the coast of Cape Hatteras as they were headed further south. The waves grew more fierce and soon the ship started developing leaks which flooded the engines and slowed their progression. Many tried to escape but the intense waves and rocking of the ship made it difficult for them to leave. 16 people died from the incident and the Monitor was lost.

In 1973, some scientists on the Duke University Research Vessel, Eastward, managed to locate some of the ships remains about 16 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras. Soon after, government officials used the National Marine Sanctuary Act to designate the Monitors wreckage as the first sanctuary protected by the act. There have been many expeditions after leading to more discoveries of the ship until a full outline of the wreckage had been formed. Some parts of the ship have managed to be recovered such as the turret, which had been underwater for nearly 140 years.

USS Monitor, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. Accessed February 28th 2021. https://monitor.noaa.gov/shipwrecks/uss_monitor.html.

• The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary site provides lots of information about the USS Monitor. It lists statistics such as the size, location of wreckage, the survivors of the accident, and type of ship it was, and the history of the ship from its original conception to the storm that caused it to sink and its eventual rediscovery. The site also has many images of the ship both as blueprints and photos of the wreckage.

USS Monitor: A Cheesebox on a Raft, American Battlefield Trust. Accessed February 28th 2021. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/uss-monitor-cheesebox-raft.

• The American Battlefield Trust is an organization dedicated to preserving the history of American Battles. Their site provides lots of information about the duel between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia as well as the history leading up to their construction and use on the battlefield. The duel itself is of great importance to both American and Naval history, as it proves that ironclad ships can be effective for naval warfare and would soon replace the wood ships of the past

Vlair, Dan. Monitor, USS, NCpedia. Accessed March 28th 2021. https://www.ncpedia.org/monitor-uss.

• NCPedia is an encyclopedia managed by the North Carolina Government and Heritage Library at the State Library of North Carolina. The site goes into detail about the battle between the Monitor and Virginia, and sources to go deeper for anything relating to North Carolina. Since the National Monitor Sanctuary is just off the coast of North Carolina, they have a brief history about it, going into detail behind is development and the people behind it.

Divers Recover U.S.S. Monitor Turret, History. August 5th 2010. Accessed March 28th 2021. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/divers-recover-u-s-s-monitor-turret.

• History Channel is a site for detailed, yet brief parts of world history covering even recent events in a “on this day in history” format. One of these articles is about the divers that recovered the Monitor’s turret. It does contain a brief history of the ship and what happened as well as talking a bit about the discovery of the turret.

USS Monitor, The Madison Historical Society. Accessed March 28th 2021. https://www.madisonhistory.org/uss-monitor/.

• The Madison Historical Society located in Connecticut are an organization dedicated to showing the history of the people of Madison. While the ship was constructed in New York, Cornelius Scranton Bushnell, of Connecticut, as he helped convince politicians to pass a bill allowing for the $1.5 million investment into the construction of the USS Monitor