Naval sharks will find this graphic recreation of the historic
encounter of the Monitor and the Merrimack irresistible. Author of
The Franklin Comes Home (1974) and other naval and military dramas,
Hoehling does well by the two ironclad ships - the Merrimack
converted, the Monitor custom-made - quoting from ships' logs,
diaries, and contemporary newspaper accounts. Everyone from Navy
Secretary Gideon Welles to the Monitor's paymaster Frederick Keeler
is heard from. The Merrimack was the key to the South's naval
strategy, guarding Norfolk and Richmond. The novel design and
construction of the Monitor - a "pygmy" compared to the leviathan
Confederate ship - did not inspire confidence. The rebels called
her a "black Yankee cheese box on a raft" and a sailor pronounced
her "the worst craft for a man to live aboard that ever floated."
Yet the gallant little ship fought the Merrimack to a standstill in
a four-hour battle on March 9, 1862. It was the "marine boneyard"
off Cape Hatteras that did her in, after the Merrimack had been
scuttled and burned by a panic-stricken Confederate commander.
Hoehling covers everything: ships' measurements and design, naval
logistics, guns and armor plates, costs, and human terror and
wonderment. A final chapter relates how Duke University scientists
discovered and photographed the Monitor 111 years after it sank.
Despite the overflow of minutiae - or maybe because of it - the
clash of the "great rebel terror" and the "curious little craft" is
a gripping story. (Kirkus Reviews)
On March 9, 1862, the battle of the century took place at Hampton
Roads. The USS Monitor, the world's first all-iron fighting ship,
repulsed the Confederate ironclad Merrimack. In so doing, the
Yankee vessel demolished forever the wooden walls of the fleets of
oak and billowing canvas, and helped ensure a Northern victory in
the Civil War.
General
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