USS Monitor

“ The invention of the Monitor revolutionized naval warfare, and set European nations to building the ponderous iron-clad navies of the present day. The United States Government soon contracted for twenty single-turret monitors, and four double-turreted ones with fifteen-inch guns. ”

“ The exigencies of fighting ships at sea and in all weathers seems to have pronounced against the monitor type with its low freeboard as unsuitable for use on the open sea, while the enormous advances in modern guns and armor have made a totally different problem of the distribution of means offensive and defensive. Again, the monitor type was never intended for long cruising, or indeed for other service than the defence of coasts and harbors. ”

“ Standing in the little pilot-house, Captain Worden peered through the chinks left for eye-holes between the iron logs of which it was built. He saw that the shot first fired against the broad wall of the Merrimac bounded away without doing material harm, so he lessened the range—laid the Monitor so close beside her that an active man might have leaped from ship to ship. Still the Monitor’s shot failed to penetrate, and he then went cruising to and fro, seeking a vulnerable point, but finding none, although a single well-directed shot would have sunk the Merrimac out of sight. ”

“ In the morning she aimed to clear out the balance of the Union fleet. That night, however, the Monitor, a flat little craft with a revolving tower, invented by Captain Ericsson, arrived, and in the morning when the Merrimac started in on her day's work of devastation, beginning with the Minnesota, the insignificant-looking Monitor slid up to the iron monster and gave her two one-hundred-and-sixty-six-and-three-quarter-pound solid shot. ”

“ If all this secondary battery is stripped off, leaving nothing but the turrets with the big guns, and these are brought down close to the water, and the armour belt is reduced to seven or eight inches in thickness, the type of vessel known as the monitor is reached. It is simply a battle-ship on a reduced scale. Such vessels are very slow and cannot stand rough weather, on account of their low freeboard. The speed of the monitors is seldom more than twelve or fourteen miles an hour, and they are intended to act in coast defence, usually in connection with shore-batteries. ”

“ Thick and fast came the blows on the iron mail of the Monitor, and still the brave little vessel held her own, until, at half-past eight, the engineer, Waters, faithful to the end, reported a leak. The pumps were instantly set in motion, and we watched their progress with an intense interest. She had seemed to us like an old-time knight in armor, battling against fearful odds, but still holding his ground. We who watched, when the blow came which made the strong man reel and the life-blood spout, felt our hearts faint within us ”

“ Admiral Farragut’s fleet had compelled the surrender of the city of New Orleans, the great forts which had defended it, and the Federal Government obtained control of the lower Mississippi.
“The Old Man of the Sea” was therefore, not a drag or a weight upon President Lincoln, and the Navy was not so far behind in making a good record as the picture would have the people of the world believe. It was not long after the Monitor’s victory that the United States Navy was the finest that ever plowed the seas. The building of the Monitor also revolutionized naval warfare. ”

“ Ericsson, her designer, the new ship was named the Monitor. Until the very hour of her departure from New York the workmen were busy upon her, and several things remained unfinished or incomplete when she sailed. The government was aware of the changes that had been made in the Merrimac, and there was great anxiety to have the Monitor at Hampton Roads at the earliest possible date. She left New York in the forenoon of March 6th in tow of the tug-boat Seth Low and using her own engine. ”

“ The first bold advance of this diminutive vessel against a giant like the Merrimac was superlatively grand. She seemed inspired by Nelson's order at Trafalgar: 'He will make no mistake who lays his vessel alongside the enemy.' One would have thought the Monitor a living thing. No man was visible. You saw her moving around that circle, delivering her fire invariably at the point of contact, and heard the crash of the missile against her enemy's armor above the thunder of her guns, on the bank where we stood. ”

“ In the fleet mobilized the Monitor spoke several vessels that had accompanied the Dewey across the Atlantic on her first voyage into the war zone; there, also, were many other submarines built in American shipyards and now in commission in the North Sea activities. It was a wonderful picture well calculated to stir the blood of indomitable spirits like Jack Hammond and Ted Wainwright.
In response to a call from the flagship the Monitor came alongside and Lieutenant McClure with his executive officer and his aide went aboard. ”

“ If ramming was to be done he wanted to do it himself. So all the large vessels steamed head on for the iron-clad, butting her right and left. They hit one another, too, and the Hartford came near being sunk. Then came the monitors, as the first Monitor had come against the Merrimac. There were three of these left, but one did the work, the Chickasaw. She clung like a burr to the Tennessee, pouring in her great iron balls, and doing so much damage that soon the great ship was like a floating hulk. It could not be steered nor its guns fired. ”

“ It ended in a triumph, not for either ship, but for armor over guns. The Monitor fired 41 solid shot, 20 of which struck home, but merely cracked some of the Merrimac's outer plates. The Monitor was hit 22 times by enemy shells. Neither craft was seriously harmed and not a man was killed on either side, though several were stunned or otherwise injured. Lieut. Page 292 Worden, in command of the Monitor, was nearly blinded by a shell that smashed in the pilot house, a square iron structure then located not above the turret but on the forward deck. ”

“ The Monitor (she had been named for the famous fighting craft with which the American navy ushered in a new age in the history of war) now stood near the center of the flying field at the Philadelphia airport—a long, projectile-like vessel with gleaming metal sides, set with heavy windows, ten feet in diameter and nearly twice as long. At her stern a funnel-like opening led to the interior. This was the exhaust for the power-plant. ”

“ The monitor idea, which refused to utilize the broadside for developing fire, and aimed chiefly at minimizing the target, evidently needed qualification after a certain moderate limit of size was passed; and that limit of size was when the entire weight of battery the ship could carry sufficed only for two, or, at the most, four guns of power great enough to pierce heavy armor. Strictly, in the opinion of the writer, the monitor type should not prevail beyond the size that can bear only one turret. ”

“ The deck was about six inches above water. There were four monitors anchored in line in the middle of the Ohio river off Cairo. The names of them were as follows: Oneota, Catawba, Manyyunk and Tippecanoe. The officers of all these vessels messed aboard the U.S. monitor Oneota. Acting Lieutenant Commander Wells was the captain of the Oneota. He was afterwards relieved by Acting Master H. E. Bartlett. Thomas Cook was her chief engineer, and Don Carlos Hasseltino was chief engineer of the monitor Catawba. ”

“ Our Navy does contain, however, a considerable number of ironclads of the monitor class, which, though not properly cruisers, are powerful and effective for harbor defense and for operations near our own shores. Of these all the single-turreted ones, fifteen in number, have been substantially rebuilt, their rotten wooden beams replaced with iron, their hulls strengthened, and their engines and machinery thoroughly repaired, so that they are now in the most efficient condition and ready for sea as soon as they can be manned and put in commission. ”

“ They believed that no warship could come sufficiently near to the coast to get within range of their trenches.
Now it happened that when the war broke out there lay at Barrow three ships of light draught but very strong gun power which had been built for the Brazilian Government. Such ships are known as monitors, after the name of the first of the type, which was built in 1862, during the American Civil War. Really, a monitor is little more than a low, moving [92] gun platform, carrying a little fort, in which one or two heavy weapons are mounted. ”

“ An order was despatched to San Francisco to prepare the Monterey for a voyage to Manila, where she would join Commodore Dewey’s fleet. The Monterey is probably the most formidable monitor in the world; technically described she is a barbed turret, low freeboard monitor of four thousand tons displacement, 256 feet long, fifty-nine feet beam, and [pg 145] fourteen feet six inches draught. She carries in two turrets, surrounded by barbettes, two 12-inch and two 10-inch guns, while on her superstructure, between the turrets, are mounted six 6-pounders, four 1-pounders, and two Gatlings. ”

“ The Monitor should be in Hampton Roads now. She left New York eight days ago.”
After the captain had again presented what he considered the possibilities of failure the President replied, “No, no, Captain, I respect your judgments as you have reason to know, but this time you are all wrong.
“The Monitor was one of my inspirations; I believed in her firmly when that energetic contractor first showed me Ericsson’s plans. Captain Ericsson’s plain but rather enthusiastic demonstration made my conversion permanent. It was called a floating battery then; I called it a raft. ”

“ Rushing on deck, I found we were passing Craney Island on our way to Norfolk, and were being cheered by the soldiers of the battery.
Our captain had consulted with some of his lieutenants. He explained afterward that as the Monitor had proved herself so formidable an adversary he had thought best to get a supply of solid shot, have the prow replaced, the port shutters put on, the armor belt extended below water, and the guns whose muzzles had been shot away replaced, and then renew the engagement with every chance of victory. ”

“ So the conning tower of the Monitor was opened and the officers climbed on deck to watch the death struggle of the Bergerhof. The Monitor's torpedo had done its work well, for it was quite evident, as the American craft drew near the scene of the explosion, that the German vessel had been blown out of the water.
"Probably a half dozen men were out on deck when we hit them," said McClure. "Suppose we get right up close and see whether we can fish a few of them out of the water." ”

“ The following vessels of the new Navy have been completed and are now ready for service: The double-turreted coast-defense monitor Miantonomoh, the double-turreted coast-defense monitor Monterey, the armored cruiser New York, the protected cruisers Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Newark, San Francisco, Charleston, Atlanta, and Boston, the cruiser Detroit, the gunboats Yorktown, Concord, Bennington, Machias, Castine, and Petrel, the dispatch vessel Dolphin, the practice vessel Bancroft, and the dynamite gunboat Vesuvius. ”

“ It had been decided, in view of the other monitors that were building, to make the trial trip of the second rocket-cruiser also a training voyage, with Beeville and Yoshio replacing Murray Lee and Gloria in her crew. They climbed in; the spectators stood back, and with a thunderous rush of explosions and a cloud of yellow gas, the second Monitor plunged into the blue.
"Where shall we go?" asked Sherman, as the ship swooped over the plains of New Jersey.
"How much speed is she making?" asked Ben Ruby. ”

“ Consequently she inflicted no damage on the Monitor, and the action continued, the turret-ship directing her fire at the iron roof of the ram, while the latter pointed her guns especially at the turret and pilot-house of the Monitor. At length, after a battle which had lasted six hours, the Monitor withdrew, one of the plates of her pilot-house being seriously damaged and her commander injured in the eyes. ”

“ Monitors, most efficient and safest style of coast-defence ships, iv. 194. Monongahela, Federal gun-boat, passes the batteries of Port Hudson, iv. 358; Commander James H. Strong, 389. Monroe, ——, Mayor of New Orleans, objects to surrendering the city to Farragut, iv. 338. Monsieur, French privateer, in the fleet of Paul Jones, i. 234; captures a Holland ship, 235. Montagu, British frigate, rescues the Bonne Citoyenne from the Hornet, ii. 180. Montauk, Federal monitor, shells and burns the Confederate ironclad Nashville, iv. 480. Monterey, Cal., Captain Catesby Jones takes possession of, iii. ”

“ This conference recommended a plan of observations which has been generally adopted by all sea-faring people. It was approved by Congress. A resolution was adopted directing the Secretary of the Navy to place three Government vessels under the direction of the Superintendent of the National Observatory, to aid in perfecting the system of observations so cheerfully undertaken by the commanders of nearly all the merchant ships and ships of war afloat on the ocean without cost to their respective Governments. ”

“ U.S.S. PATHFINDER arrived in the South Pacific a new ship with an untrained crew. No one aboard except the six U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Officers had ever had any experience in hydrographic surveying and they had none in planning and laying out of surveys, chart compilation and publication, or the establishing of aids to navigation such as beacons and buoys. The Commanding Officer was the only officer who had any experience in Navy organization, operations and procedure other than short training courses. A majority of the crew had never been to sea. ”