"Ironclad against ironclad, we maneuvered about the bay here and went at
each other with mutual fierceness," reported Chief Engineer Alban
Stimers following that momentous engagement between the USS Monitor and
the CSS Virginia (ex USS Merrimack) in Hampton Roads, Sunday, March 9,
1862.
The day before, the Rebel ram had obliterated two powerful Union
warships and was poised to destroy more. That night, the
revolutionary--not to say bizarre--Monitor slipped into harbor after
hurrying down from New York through fierce gales that almost sank her.
These metal monstrosities dueled in the morning, pounding away for hours
with little damage to either. Who won is still debated.
One Vermont reporter could hardly find words for Monitor: "It is in fact
unlike anything that ever floated on Neptune's bosom." The little vessel
became an icon of American industrial ingenuity and strength. She
redefined the relationship between men and machines in war. But
beforehand, many feared she would not float. Captain John L. Worden:
"Here was an unknown, untried vessel...an iron coffin-like ship of which
the gloomiest predictions were made."
The CSS Virginia was a paradigm of Confederate strategy and
execution--the brainchild of innovative, dedicated, and courageous men,
but the victim of hurried design, untested technology, poor planning and
coordination, and a dearth of critical resources. Nevertheless, she
obsolesced the entire U.S Navy, threatened the strategically vital
blockade, and disrupted General McClellan's plans to take Richmond.
From flaming, bloody decks of sinking ships, to the dim confines of the
first rotating armored turret, to the smoky depths of a Rebel
gundeck--with shells screaming, clanging, booming, and splashing all
around--to the office of a worried president with his cabinet peering
down the Potomac for a Rebel monster, this dramatic story unfolds
through the accounts of men who lived it in Unlike Anything That Ever
Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, March
8-9, 1862 by Dwight Sturtevant Hughes.
