USS Monitor Still in the News

From the April 11, 2019, Hampton Roads (Va.) Daily Press  "Notes and Notables:  Area codes, local history and local shopping."

HISTORY AROUND US

When the gun turret from the ironclad ship USS Monitor was pulled up from the Atlantic on August 5, 2002, one historian compared its significance to that of the Apollo 11 module that delivered Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the lunar surface.

That's how much the rotating turret --  which sunk with the rest of the Monitor off the coast of North Carolina at the end of 1862 --  changed the rules and strategies of naval warfare.

That 120-ton turret now  sits at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, along with the ship's anchor, propeller and thousands of smaller artifacts that have been retrieved.  A painstakingly meticulous conservation effort continues on the turret --  this past week it was lifted about two inches so that the 17-year-old support apparatus could be replaced with a new one that will provide better access.

That Monitor.  What A Ship.  --Old Secesh