War, Technology, and Experience Aboard the USS Monitor

Abstract

The USS Monitor battled CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads in April, 1862. This text explores how mariners - fighting blindly beneath waterline - lived and coped with metal monster they called the iron coffin. Combining technical, personal, administrative and literay analysis, David Mindell examines experience of men aboard Monitor and their reactions to thrills and dangers that accompanied new machine. The invention surrounded men with iron and threatened their heroism, their self-image as warriors, even their lives. Mindell also examines responses to this strange new warship by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who prophetically saw in Civil War a portent of mechanized warfare of future. The story of Monitor shows how technology changes not only tools but also very experience of combat, generating effects that are still felt in modern-day era of smart bombs and push-button wars.