Monitor: America's First Ironclad

USS Monitor was the first ironclad ship to be commissioned into the U.S. Navy. Built during the Civil War in response to the Confederate Navy's ironclad CSS Virginia, Monitor played an integral role in the transformation of military vessels from wood to iron.

 

On August 3, 1861, Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles published an announcement calling on designers to submit plans for ironclad warships to the Navy Department. With the support of Cornelius Bushnell, who controlled several railroads in Connecticut and had entered the world of naval architecture, renowned engineer John Ericsson submitted his plans for an "impregnable iron battery" to the Navy's Ironclad Board. Ericsson's design was chosen along with two others. He was awarded a contract in the amount of $275,000 to build his planned ironclad and charged with doing so in one hundred days.

 

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