Monitor

The situation at the beginning of 1862

The American Civil War began the April 12th 1861. 11 states rocked in the confederated camp. Among them, the Virginia, where is the Arsenal Gosport, close to Norfolk, a disadvantage for the marine of the Union.

The confederated troops approach Norfolk in April 1861. The northerners evacuate the area on April 20th. They set fire to the arsenal of Gosport, but, for confused reasons, that will be so much badly carried out that the Southerners will recover a large quantity of provisioning in an arsenal quickly given in state.

North seeks to choke the Confederation. For that, it founds the Blocus its maritime frontage.

The South wants to break this blockade, as well for its trade as for the hope to see leaning in its favor the powers of the Old continent. For that it is necessary for him to obtain a navy. It decides to build armoured ships, and starts by using the reinflated carcass of a frigate destroyed by the northerners in retirement, the Merrimack

If the idea to build armoured ships had been in the air for several years, the discovery of the confederated plans accelerates the movement. The decision is made to build ships able to be opposed to those of the South, in particular the Merrimack in the course of armament with the arsenal of Gosport.

The August 3rd 1861, from the advertisements passed in the press to invite the companies to present projects of armoured ships. There will be 17 answers to the last invitation to tender. Three projects will be adopted, of which that of called an Ericsson.

John Ericsson, born in 1803, directs a building site of Naval construction to New York. Of Swedish origin , it emigrated in 1839 after having vainly tried to sell with the British marine a new model of warship. Of a difficult nature, he is badly seen staff of the US navy and it is of accuracy that its project was adopted.

Its project is radically different from both others which are, them, closer to than already the Gloire or the Warrior presents. Disappearance of the Mast S and the veils, the armoured ship is only propelled by a four-bladed Hélice actuated by a Steam engine. A bridge almost with the short-nap cloth of water and a large cylindrical turret, sheltering two guns of 12 inches (305 mm, gauge, if not power, of the guns of the Dreadnought S of the Jutland).

It is its project which is adopted. It is however conceivable that the argument which carried the decision of the authorities of the federal navy is more the speed of realization guaranteed by the manufacturer than the comprehension of the revolution than the new armoured vessel was going to bring to the naval war. The two other projects, those which were going to give rise to the New Ironsides and to the Galena , could not lead before the date envisaged by the northerners for the appearance of the battleship prepared by the Southerners.

Construction

The contract is signed the October 4th 1861. It provides that the ship must be delivered later hundred days, with the help of a price of $ 275 000.

A mark of the distrust of the staff of the US navy towards the project presented by John Ericsson can be raised in this contract: it specifies that the ship must comprise masts, veils and provisions percent men for one month, which is completely incompatible with the project presented by Ericsson. The manufacturer will be unaware of purely and simply these clauses and nobody will be concerned with it more…

Work is undertaken as fast as possible, but there will be nevertheless delay. The ship is launched the February 19th 1862. One poses then his turret to him. It is composed ultimately of an iron hull, on which is posed an armor-plated bridge. It is dealt with by the federal navy the January 30th 1862.

Characteristics

“He is nobody who does not know these cylindrical cookies of Savoy, covered with a crust of chocolate, one of the principal ornaments of the shop of our pastrycooks. That one represents this cake placed on an oblong dish, and one will have an exact idea of appearance external of the Monitor . ”

will say prince de Joinville, vice-admiral of France, in the relation which it will make of the Combat of Hampton Roads.

General pace

The project carried out is that of a pontoon flat, almost with the short-nap cloth of water, battleship of course and surmounted by a cylindrical turret carrying two strong guns.

The hull has a 52 meters length, for a width of 12,65 meters (41 feet & 6 inches). The Franc-bord is of 18 inches, that is to say 45 cm. It was built in two parts, the hull itself and the armor-plated bridge which comes to be posed above while largely overflowing. It also overflows with the back to protect propeller and Gouvernail. For the two parts, there is a reinforcement in Chêne on which plates of Fer are fixed.

Its displacement is of 987 tons, the quarter of that of the Merrimack . Its Draft of 3,35 meters (11 feet), half of that of the Merrimack .

The swivelling cylindrical turret of 120 tons has an iron reinforcement, on which were superimposed 8 armor-plates a 2,5 centimetres thickness (1 inch) each one, maintained by Rivet S. It has a diameter of 6 meters (20 feet), for a 2,75 meters height (9 feet). Two embrasures were bored for the guns, by superimposing 3 holes 20 inches in diameter (51 cm). To protect the interior and serving them, two pendular mantelets can be operations laterally to seal the embrasures. Their weight makes the operation difficult and requires the force of the totality of serving as the guns.

To the base of the turret, a large toothed wheel is connected by gears to a particular steam engine: it takes him 30 seconds, at full speed, to carry out a full rotation. An officer and his garage hand are especially charged to ensure rotation.

To ensure the sealing, the turret is posed on its support, a ring of Cuivre. For combat, a mechanism makes it possible to raise it slightly, authorizing rotation then.

To direct the ship, there is a Timonerie on before ship. It is a kind of small cube armor-plated which exceeds bridge, of 1,20 meters (4 feet), on before Monitor . Its shielding is of 23 cm (9 inches). The only openings are slits of aiming of 6 mm (¼ inch).

Installation

Heat, wet, narrow, the Monitor does not have anything a de luxe hotel.

Let us look more in detail its installation, before with the back. All that follows finds with the lower part of the level of water. Therefore, nothing which makes it possible to see what occurs outside.

All with front, one finds a space making it possible to throw or to go up the anchors. This provision avoids exposing the crew during this operation. It also makes it possible to protect this essential element.
Behind, one finds the room and the office of the captain. This one with starboard, that one with port side.
There are eight cabins for officers, four on each side, in two lines of two. Central space between the cabins is used as square, with a table in oak and seats. The size of the cabins is of 6 feet out of 4 (1,80 out of 1,20 meters) for most central, the others have a double width, but they more roomy because of are not rounded a hull.
Aménagement Spartan, a bed of 1,80m length, 2 drawers below and two wall cupboards above, difficult to reach says one, in a corner, two racks superimposed to lay out the elements necessary to the toilet. Each cabin has a small port-hole through the bridge making it possible to get a little light. This Hublot can be covered of a shielding.
Ces cabins, as those of the captain have the partitions painted in white; they are decorated with mouldings of oak and walnut tree.
Two other cabins are used with the infirmary and the reserve with alcohols ( spirit-room ) on other side.
the flight compartment: on each side, reserves, holy-bores it. The crew can hang there his Hamac S with hooks of the ceiling. But in general, the sailors prefer to sleep on the wood floor. They take their meals also there. However, they will prefer, with each time possible, to eat with the free air on the bridge. It is from there that one can gain the turret, then the bridge, while passing by one of the two trap doors at the top of this one.
Behind the central partition, the store-room, WC and reserves.
the machines occupy the back half of the hull; they are thus also under water surface. The Monitor has 2 coal-fired boilers. The produced vapor actuates an engine of 320 horses. For lack of place in height, the pistons is horizontal, it is an innovation. There is no chimney itself. Pulling is ensured by ventilators which aspire the air inside, making it leave by two openings placed at the strong current the bridge behind the turret. It carries 18 tons of coal, in 2 compartments located on both sides of the chaudières.
On does not see very well in these machines, lighting being completely artificial. One will paint even the partitions in white to accentuate the luminosity.

On the other hand, the weather is hot, very hot, even, in the battleship of Ericsson. One manages to note 100°F (38°C), at the flight compartment, when the ship is not anchored to the sun; that can go up until 150°F (65°c) in the room machines. There is however a circulation of Air Force in all the ship, but it is not very effective.

Reception of “Ericsson Folly”

Thus certain journalists will call the new ship of Ericsson, thus showing the value that one allots to him.

It is its manufacturer who will propose, says one, his Christian name. The word of “Monitor” has the direction of “that which teaches”, “that which admonishes and corrects the bad subjects”. The intention was to proclaim that the new boat was going to learn with confederated what it was going to cost them and, incidentally, to show with the European powers tried by a benevolent neutrality the error which they would make by supporting the secessionists. The proposal is accepted, and the ship becomes officially the Monitor .

It is dealt with by the US Navy on January 30th, 1862, 15 days before the launching of the Merrimac . Characteristic of the contracts of this time, the manufacturer is not entirely paid. The balance, 25% nevertheless, are retained until the commander of the Monitor, in person, certifies that the ship sails well and is ready to hold the role with him reserved. In other words, when the Monitor combat the Merrimack , it still belongs to some extent to the civilian who built it…

Implementation

The Monitor is a revolutionary ship for the time. The other steamers always have masts and veils. Their artillery is placed mainly out of side batteries, even if they have some guns on pivot.

And, especially, they are built out of wood and do not have shielding.

Operation

The Monitor includes/understands 10 officers among whom the commander, the lieutenant John L. Worden (1818-1897), and its assistant lieutenant Samuel D. Greene (1839-1884), an engineer officer, five signs, a doctor and the officer-payer.

The crew is composed of volunteers. The commander Worden was authorized to recruit in all the ships present in New York. There are much more volunteers than of stations, although, known as lieutenant Greene, “they were duly informed risks which they would run. ” 53 sailors are selected. The commander assigns 16 of them to the turret, 11 for the supply powder, one with the steering gear. Twelve remainders being assigned to the machines and being able to possibly compensate the losses of the preceding teams.

The turret had been drawn to contain two parts of the Dahlgren type twelve inches. The services of the navy affirmed to be able to provide only parts of eleven inches and these are the guns which will be installed. Each part weighs a little more than 7 tons (15 700 pounds).

By precaution, fearing the devastating effects of a tube exploding in the turret, the office charged with artillery ordered to limit the load of powder to 15 pounds (6,80 kilos) instead of 30 books (13,60 kilos) envisaged. Consequently, the fire power is limited.

The guns can draw from the conical Obus of 136 pounds (61,67 kilos) or from the balls of cast iron which weigh 77 Kilogram S each one. One needs two men to handle one and to charge it with them in the tube with the gun. If a certain number of projectiles are already stored in the turret, they should then be assembled reserve which is on the side of the flight compartment.

The rate of shooting is weak, a blow all the eights to ten minutes. In theory, rate should be 2 or 3 minutes, but the provision of the turret, the number of being useful and, especially, the absence of drive of the crew explain this slowness.

The Dahlgren guns take care, not by the Culasse like the modern guns, but by the mouth. When the blow left, one flue brush to clean the tube of the extreme particles which can remain before charging the following load. To protect serving them, of the steel mantelets were placed in front of the embrasures. These mantelets are borers small openings to allow the passage of the flue brush.

To draw, the chief of part must try to see by the embrasure, with the top of the tube of the gun. He does not have an other possibility of seeing what occurs outside. When it aimed, it starts the shooting. Lieutenant S.D. Greene, second in command who is in charge of the shooting, told his fear to draw on the steering gear from his own building. It is him which aims and draws, a part after the other.

And the cycle starts again. The size and the weight of the mantelets protecting the embrasures make of their operation a task exhausting for the sailors of the turret. As it is difficult to precisely operate the engine which makes turn the turret, lieutenant Greene decides to leave the turret in continuous rotation, the raised mantelets, choosing to draw with stolen on the Merrimack . This solution ensures a good protection, the adversary seeing only very little time the embrasures, but it prohibits a precise and effective shooting like hammering the same place of the armor of the adversary to destroy it. The commander of the Merrimack , Catesby Ap Roger Jones, will recognize later that the little of precision of the northerner shooting was a chance.

With the combat

Piloting

The steering gear makes only 1,10 out of 0,90 meters (45 out of 35 inches) but will pile up there 3 people, the commander Worden, Samuel Howard, the Timonier and Peter Williams, Quartier-maître. One reaches it by small scales, which give on before cabins of the officers.

The commander, in the steering gear, is then isolated from the remainder of the ship. To pass its orders (with the machines, with the turret), it has a pipe Acoustique. Unfortunately, this one does not function. To replace it, two officers will make office of dispach riders between the bottom of the scale which leads to the steering gear and that which leads to the turret. It is about the officer-payer, William F Keeler, and of the secretary of the captain, Daniel Toffey. As they are not really sailors, the transmission of the messages will be sometimes hard.

The shooting

; To charge the guns: In theory, one 11 Dahlgren inches claims 17 being useful to implement it. But the size of the turret led the commander Worden to affect to assign only 7 men per part with two officers.

; To aim: The only openings in the turret making it possible to see with the outside are the embrasures. There is only one space of a few centimetres to the top of the guns. What wants to say that it is not easy to see what does without to the outside and good viser.
Il has there many white marks which had been placed on the ground to be used as reference mark (where is the front one, where is the back), but these marks quickly became indistinguishable.

When the commander Worden says that the Merrimack is by through starboard, the Greene captain does not know exactly where it is, and how much to make turn the turret.

When the direction was found, it is necessary to open the embrasures by raising the mantelets. Considering their weight, that requires the force of all the artillerists. This exhausting work will not have nothing to do with the decision which will be made to let the turret turn without stop and to draw with the flight.

; To draw: The Samuel, second in command D. Greene, reserved this function. He draws on the cord and the blow leaves, the retreat making slip the gun on its rails, blocked by large ropes, the bragues. The Monitor will draw, throughout all combat, 41 balls of cast iron, approximately 77 kilos each one. These shootings will be with short, even very short, range. It will touch twenty times the Merrimack . Six of the armor-plates of this one will be fissured. That seems little, but it should be remembered that the powder load envisaged in the beginning to send the ball was of 30 books; however, to decrease the risks of bursting of the tube, it, on order, was limited to 15 pounds with the loss of power which one can imagine. It is allowed to wonder about the effect which would have had of the shootings with full power on the shielding of the Merrimack] .

The voyage until the places of the combat

Hardly taken charges some by the navy, without the crew being able to involve itself, the Monitor is sent in the Baie of Chesapeake, with the entry James River, to be opposed to the monster which the South is assembling.

The voyage since New York lasts three days, from March 6th to 8th, and proves to be full with adventures. Nautical qualities of the Monitor are beyond the poor one. It meets heavy weather and passes well close to the shipwreck. The confidence of the commander in his ship seems limited: it, for example, chose to sail raised turret, without taking account of the recommendations of Ericsson ensuring a total sealing with the lowered turret. The base of the turret was furnished with packing but that will not be enough to avoid true cascades.

Water also returns by the openings of evacuation of smoke and by those of the ventilators. It will soak the belts of the ventilators ensuring the pulling of the boilers, making them inoperative. From where lack of power and release of Carbon monoxide which poisons the crew, making the situation perilous. Fortunately, a Remorqueur accompanies it, which will enable him to arrive at good port.

It arrives at Hampton Roads at the night of March 8th, 1862 and starts by attending the explosion of the frigate Congress . It is there that Worden learns what CS Merrimack in the day with the squadron of the blockade made undergo.

For the little story, let us note that orders were sent so that the Monitor leaves, immediately, Hampton Roads to go to protect the capital, Washington, against a possible arrival of the Merrimack . The same orders had been sent to New York, but had arrived only after its departure. It is the commander of the Roanoke , directing by interim the northerner squadron, which takes the responsability to keep the battleship to fight the Merrimack . When it is known that the draft of the battleship Southerner would have prohibited to him, in any case, to go up the Potomac to Washington, one can measure the concern of the northerner leaders.

The Combat of Hampton Roads, seen Monitor

“then the duel started about which one spoke so much, and who seems invited to make a so great revolution in naval art. ”
(François Ferdinand Philippe of Orleans, Prince de Joinville).

Unfolding

In the morning of the March 9th 1862, the Minnesota , always failed, the flotilla Southerner sees which approaches. It announces to the Monitor to engage the Merrimack.

; 8:25: First exchanges of gunfire, without effect. The duel will last nearly 2 a.m. and half. Nimbler, the Monitor turns around its adversary. It has only 2 guns against 10 but its turret enables him to draw in all the directions; whereas its adversary must evolve/move so that its side guns can carry.

; 10:55: The Monitor tests the éperonnage, seeking to damage propeller and rudder of the Southerner. It misses, of little, its target.

; 11:05: The Monitor must go up ammunition in the turret. It deviates out of not very deep water, where the Merrimack , whose draft is double, cannot follow it. To be able to ensure the passage between the bottom and the turret, it is necessary to operate this one to align the trap door which is at the base of the turret and that of the bridge. Then, one mounts the balls (77 kg part, let us recall it). It is a task exténuante, even if there exist kinds of cradles out of wooden to carry these balls.

; 11:30: The combat begins again between the 2 battleships.

; 11:35: The Merrimack is failed on a mud bank, always under the fire of its adversary.

; 12:05: The Merrimack gets clear and tests éperonner the Monitor . Without success. In his relation of the combat, Prince de Joinville will write: “… only once, the Merrimack succeeds in striking with its before through Monitor : but this one pirouetta under the blow like a floating bucket, and a very light endenture left in its wall was the only damage caused by this formidable shock…”

; 12:10: The commander Worden is wounded: a shell bursts on the slit of aiming behind which it looked at. The shielding resists but of the particles are projected in its eyes. Plugged, it leaves the command to its second, who is in the turret where it directs the shooting. Time that it arrives and gives its orders, the Monitor moves away, course in north, on a shallow water.

; 12:30: The downward tide makes give up the Merrimack and it regains the lines Southerners.

; 13:30: The Monitor, without adversary, damping in front of Strong Monroe.

Consequences of the combat for the Monitor

He is persuaded, like all the northerners, which he made flee his adversary.

Not killed, just some casualties, commotionnés by the shock of a shell on the shielding of the turret against which they rested at this time. More reached is the commander Worden. No notable damage is to be regretted. The ship is ready to continue the combat.

The comparison is easy with the losses and the damage undergone by the ships out of wooden, the day before.

In the light of the combat, one will make some modifications like the reinforcement of the steering gear by a tilted additional shielding, the displacement of the aforesaid the steering gear on the later models, while placing it on the turret, to support the direction of shooting. One will add also a telescopic chimney to him.

End

At the date of the December 29th 1862, the Monitor receives the order to join the squadron carrying out the blockade in front of Wilmington, in North Carolina. It is accompanied by the tug boat Rhode Island . As with the outward journey, it meets a storm. The December 31st 1862, it runs, losing 12 sailors and 4 officers.

It to lie by 11 pitch-stirrers (70 meters) basic with broad of the Cap Hatteras. The place of its shipwreck was set up in 1973 in “marine sanctuary”, managed by NOOA.

The continuation

The name “Monitor” will become a generic name for river families of Cuirassé S. The Union will put some more than 50 in building site during the war. In the near total, they will be Cuirassé S with turrets. For its part, Ericsson will continue to create monitors with 2, even 3 turrets.

The formula will allure the European navy but poor nautical qualities of these ships will quickly make them disappear with the profit from the battleships from open sea. The name will remain however until after the First World War. Let us quote for example the monitors the Mersey and Severn which will contribute, in 1915, with the destruction of the German cruiser Könisberg , in Africa. A specimen of this kind of building is currently in the course of restoration with the maritime museum of Portsmouth.

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