The American Civil War was a time of transformation. Early 19th-
century battle strategies were abandoned in favour of modern
warfare, and one of the great naval changes was the move from
wooden frigates to armour-plated ironclads. For a brief time,
the Confederate Navy’s ironclad Virginia was the scourge of the
sea. To counter that threat, the Union Navy commissioned the
Monitor, building it in a mere 101 days and launching it on
January 30, 1862. It was a new ironclad design—a steamship built
with such a low profile that the large majority of its bulk
remained below the water line at all times, with only the gun
turret, pilot house and several smokestacks above water. It also
featured the very first 360o rotating gun turret. On March 9,
1862, the day following a decisive Confederate victory during
which the Virginia sank the Union frigates Cumberland and
Congress, crippled the Minnesota, and killed 250 Union sailors,
the Virginia met its match in the Monitor at the Battle of
Hampton Roads. After four and a h