U.S.S. Monitor

USS Monitor was an ironclad warship constructed for the Union Navy during the American Civil War and realized in early 1862, the first such ship commissioned by the Navy.

Monitor deliver a novel concept in ship design and employed a diversity of untried inventions and innovations in ship building that caught the attention of the globe.

The incentive to construct Monitor was prompted by the information that the Confederates were building an iron-plated armored vessel called the Virginia in the aged 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).

The ship participated in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff later that month, and remained in the region giving assist 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 shipwreck was discovered in 1973 and has been partially salvaged.

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