USS monitor
The USS Monitor was the first ironclad of the US Navy . She was built during the American Civil War from 1861 by the Swedish engineer John Ericsson in Brooklyn for the Navy of the Northern States and was launched on January 30, 1862.
The iron and rolling mills involved
On August 3, 1861, Gideon Welles (Secretary of the Navy) requested drawings and proposals for armored warships to be submitted to him. The Swedish engineer and inventor John Ericsson had already worked for Napoleon III in 1854 . an ironclad with a rotating dome designed for a cannon. Cornelius Bushnell sponsored this design from Abraham Lincoln . Ericsson won the contract - but only had 100 days to build to get paid $ 275,000. The treaty with the government was signed on October 4, 1861. The hull was built at the Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint, New York, and this is where all the companies delivered the individual parts for assembly. Thomas Fitch Rowland of Continental Iron Works agreed a material price of $ 0.07 per pound to roll sheet metal for the hull. The manufacture of plates, castings and fittings was contracted out to eight ironworks and foundries, including Holdane & Co. , Albany Ironworks and Rensselaer Hütte , New York, while four companies, including H. Abbott & Sons , Baltimore, sold 1 inch ( 2.54 cm) thick plates for the gun turret. Delamater Iron Works in New York City built the machines and boilers, including the propeller shaft. On December 30th, the boilers were heated and the steam engine tested.
Concept and construction
The ship was designed primarily for operations in shallow waters and should offer the smallest possible target. The parts of the monitor were manufactured in nine shipyards, whereby the completion of the ship could be completed within 120 days.
The ship, powered by a steam engine, had no masts; apart from a small control stand at the bow , the funnel and a fully rotating, steam-powered turret , it had no superstructures. The monitor was built extremely flat (it had less than 46 cm freeboard ) and heavily armored. The sides of the underwater hull were inclined about 50 degrees; the armored deck towered over the hull on both sides and reached below the waterline. The bow was designed and reinforced as a ram . The deck was made of 30 "(76.2 cm) thick oak and was covered with 1" thick wrought iron panels.
The armament consisted of two 279 mm Dahlgren cannons, which fired solid bullets weighing 68 kg.
Technical specifications
| Weight | 987 t |
| length | 52 m |
| width | 12.6 m |
| Draft | approx. 2 m |
| drive | Ericsson balancing machine, 235 kW (320 hp) |
| speed | 8 kn (15 km / h) |
| crew | 59 |
| Armament | 2 × 279 mm Dahlgren - smooth pipe guns |
Mission history
On March 9, 1862, at the Battle of Hampton Roads between the Monitor and the Virginia , the first battle in naval history between armored ships took place. Virginia , fighting on the side of the Confederate States of America (CSA / " Southern States ") fleet , emerged from the US steam frigate Merrimack . During the conquest of Norfolk, the withdrawing Union troops failed to completely destroy the ship. The Confederates removed the damaged part and converted the ship into an ironclad with a superstructure consisting of railroad tracks. The battle ended in a draw: neither ship could seriously damage the other.
Whereabouts
The monitor was seaworthy due to their minimum freeboard is very limited. Even in moderate seas , the deck was washed over by waves. The Monitor sank in heavy seas off Cape Hatteras , North Carolina on December 31, 1862 . She was about to be moved to Charleston. 16 men of the crew were killed.
The Monitor wreck and the surrounding area have been listed as a site on the National Register of Historic Places since October 1974 . On 23 June 1986, the received Monitor National Marine Sanctuary status National Historic Landmark granted. The ship's steam engine was recovered in 2001. In 2002 the two guns and the turret were recovered. In preparation for preservation, the recovered parts are stored in water tanks on the grounds of the Mariners' Museum in Newport News , Virginia , where a 1: 1 replica of the ship is also located.
Aftermath
The name of the monitor became a term for an entire type of ship. Ships with heavy armament that were not intended for use in naval formations, but mainly as floating platforms for coastal defense or coastal bombardment, were generally referred to as monitors in the following .
literature
- The original United States warship “Monitor”. - Internet Archive . Copies of correspondence between the late Cornelius S. Bushnell of New Haven, Conn., Captain John Ericsson and Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the United States Navy. Compiled by William S. Wells, September 1899
- James Phinney Baxter: The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship. 1933, Archon Books 1968.
- John D. Broadwater: USS Monitor: A Historic Ship Completes Its Final Voyage. Texas A&M University Press, 2012.
- Paul Clancy: Ironclad. The Epic Battle, Calamitous Loss, and Historic Recovery of the USS Monitor. Koehler Books, New York 2013.
- William C. Davis: Duel between the first Ironclads. Doubleday, 1975.
- Harold Holzer, Tim Mulligan: The Battle of Hampton Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. Fordham University Press, New York 2006.
- Angus Konstam: Union Monitor 1861-65. Osprey Publishing, 2002.
- William Marvel (Ed.): The Monitor Chronicles: One Sailor's Account: Today's Campaign to Recover the Civil War Wreck. Simon and Schuster, 2000.
- James L. Nelson Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack. Harper Collins, 2009.
- John V. Quarstein: The Monitor Boys: The Crew of the Union's First Ironclad. The History Press, Charleston SC 2011.
- Ernest W. Peterkin: Drawings of the USS Monitor: a catalog and technical analysis - Internet Archive . Historical Report Series Vol. 1, No. 1 1985. US Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service, Washington DC, Dept. of Cultural Resources, Raleigh NC.
- Gordon P. Watts jr .: Investigating the remains of the USS Monitor: a final report on 1979 site testing in the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary - Internet Archive . US Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Coastal Zone Management, Washington DC, Raleigh, NC: NC Dept. of Cultural Resources, Raleigh NC, Harbor Branch Foundation, Fort Pierce FL 1982
- USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary: management plan. February 1983 - Internet Archive . US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, Washington DC, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh NC
- William Still: Monitor Builders: A Historical Study of the Principal Firms and Individuals Involved in the Construction of the USS Monitor - Internet Archive . National Maritime Initiative, Division of History. National Park Service. Department of the Interior, Washington DC 1988
Web links
- Page about the Battle of Hampton Roads and the two adversaries
- Marc von Lüpke: USS "Monitor" vs. CSS "Virginia". Duel of the indestructible. In: one day . Spiegel Online , July 15, 2013, accessed January 27, 2019 .
- Ship data USS Monitor (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ USS MONITOR in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed February 3, 2020.
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: North Carolina. National Park Service , accessed February 3, 2020.
- ^ US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Artifacts from the USS Monitor Collection: Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. Retrieved October 8, 2018 (American English).
- ^ US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Artifacts from the USS Monitor Collection: Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. Retrieved October 8, 2018 (American English).