This brass lantern atop the USS Monitor was the last thing the "Monitor Boys" saw when they abandoned the ship sinking in a sudden squall  on December 31, 1862,  nine months after the epic battle.

       It was the first object recovered in 1977 by divers who had descended 240 feet to the wreck site. Now this lantern has its own room in the exhibition.

       Once again glowing bright red as in the old days.

Confusion and fear in the North and South at the war's beginning

       Within days of the South's firing at Fort Sumter, the Confederate forces seized the first rate Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia and an unusual prize - a powerful steam frigate named the Merrimack.  There was only one catch. The fleeing Union soldiers had set fire to the ship and it sank in a sea of deep mud.

          The Confederates raised the Merrimack  and turned it into a new kind of warship, an "ironclad."   The ship was 170 feet long with a huge casement on top resembling an iron tent that slanted at a 35 degree angle from the peak to just above the waterline. It was covered with iron rail tracks. Detractors called it a "floating house."  Union sailors when they first heard of it called it the "monster."

         The U.S. Government was shocked when they learned that   own prized warship had been  given new life as a Confederate ironclad that could pose great dangers to the entire Union wooden fleet. To add insult to the potential disaster, the Confederates had renamed the ship, the CSS Virginia!

 The Union swung into crisis mode, advertising for designs for a new kind of ironclad ship. The result was the USS Monitor, here being launched January 30, 1862 from Greenpoint,  Long Island.

                        Courtesy of Mariners' Museum

         The USS Monitor resembled the shape of submarines that were to follow many decades later. It was 172 feet long topped by a thick-armored revolving turret with two powerful and accurate eleven-inch Dahlgren cannons.  Some detractors called it a "cheese box on a raft," but a crowd of the curious and the patriotic gave lusty cheers  as  she slid into the water.          

Courtesy of Mariners' Museum

       The young crew on board began to call themselves the "Monitor Boys." One later wrote home,   "She was a little bit the strangest craft I had ever seen, nothing but a few inches of deck above the water line."

The Virginia (Merrimack) and the Monitor were sailing to a date with history.

Iron ships and iron wills

March 8, 1862

 Franklin Buchanan, captain of the  CSS Virginia,  stood on the deck of his ship, growing more nervous with each moment. The day was calm and sunny with a  Federal fleet a few miles away blockading the Hampton Roads harbor. He knew these wooden vessels were vulnerable to his powerful cannons and that the Virginia was virtually invulnerable to cannon fire. But he had also just heard that the Union's answer, the USS Monitor, was steaming toward the harbor. He couldn't know that this Federal ship was delayed by a fierce squall that almost sank her.

Finally a tugboat pulled the Virginia away from the dock and into the harbor. Captain Buchanan steered his "floating iron house" at the most powerful frigate in the Union fleet, the USS Cumberland.

Despite many advance warnings, the Cumberland was caught off guard.  After the ship's drums sounded the alarm, her sailors manned the guns that sent dozens of shells flying at the Virginia. The shells bounced off the armored ship, leaving only scratches.

The Virginia returned fire and then unleashed an even more deadly weapon. Traveling at more than 7 knots, the Mariner buried an iron ram into the wooden heart of the Cumberland. In moments the ship began to list and sink.

Several Union ships near the shore tried to come to the rescue. But sailing without the aid of tugs around the sandbars, they were quickly grounded.

Now the other major Union ship, the Congress, faced the "monster." Soon its shattered deck was lined with splinters and dead and dying sailors.  Later the raging fires reached the magazine and the ship exploded into thousands of pieces.  

March 9, 1862

      The CSS Virginia resumed its deadly cruise of the harbor, on the hunt for the Union's grounded ships.  Suddenly a Virginia sailor began to shout when he saw a strange ship , low in the water with a strange turret swinging slowly around and around. The  Monitor, headed right for the Virginia.

         For several hours each ship flung shell after shell at each other, almost a warlike tennis match with the shells bouncing off iron casings like errant serves. 

           Then it was over. Both ships finally sailed away from each other, not in victory or defeat.  But it was a battle that proved the wooden ships of every navy in the world would become extinct in the near future, unable to stand assaults by ironclads. It was the birth of the modern battleships.

Come on board at The Mariners' Museum

Imagine being on board  the Monitor or the Virginia. It all begins with a walk through the awesome  new USS Monitor Exhibition (opening March 9, 2007).  Here are some to the historic moments that come to life all around you.

You walk into a space that brings to life the final day of the Monitor. Audio and lighting effects create a huge ocean squall.  Over the storm you hear the voices of officers and crew recounting their experiences that fateful night.

Then you see that famous red lantern, bobbing in twenty-foot waves and disappearing.  Fast forward to 1977 when the first object from the Monitor was recovered from the sea floor  and brought to the surface. The red lantern.

Now walk along a recreated gun deck of a wood warship. Along this deck you can see the technological advances in the design of ships and naval warfare that ultimately led to the first ironclads.

Courtesy of Mariners' Museum

Now visit a recreated pier at the Gosport Naval Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia. On your left will be an actual size portion of a model of the CSS Virginia. On your right, a full size section of an 1812 wooden warship. Compare and see how far naval architecture advanced in fifty years.

Courtesy of Mariners' Museum

Now enter the darkened "Battle Theater" where a multi-media presentation will show you what happened March 8 when the CSS Virginia surprised and sank major Union warships and March 9 when the Virginia and Monitor fought on "no winner" battle.  The room and even the floor will reverberate with the sound of the battle.

 . Courtesy of Mariners' Museum

Walk outside to a life size model of the Monitor deck. What if you were standing on the bow 145 years ago, watching the Virginia heading right toward you!

Photo Hal Gieseking

        And that's just the beginning of your naval adventure.

    The Mariners' Museum and its extraordinary new Monitor Center Exhibition belong in your planned trips this Spring during the Jamestown 2007 commemoration.

 Your ship just came in.

The USS Monitor.

By Hal Gieseking