Monitor Quotes
As in modern times the Navy encouraged the media and leading writers to promote their latest weaponry. Hawthorne however shortly after the Monitor and the Merrimac battle saw the future in terms even more dramatic than most of the military.
He was not aware of it but the Union War Department had prepared well and additional ironclad ships under construction of which the Monitor was just the first. Lincoln had approved the construction of ironclads on October 4, 1861. The Confederate Merrimack was larger and to the layman was the stronger ship but the Monitor did some damage and drove the Confederate Merrimac from the field to make repairs. The Confederacy, with minimal industrial steel-making capacity could not produce enough steel to protect more ships than the one ironclad Merrimack. The Union Navy, not only were building more Monitor class ships, but also, had a few Merrimack type wooden ships being iron clad as well as their Monitors as Strong had called for. The Union soon totally dominated the seas and as important, the rivers with which they could supply Union troops and bombard Confederate cities built thereupon.
This quotation not only gives us an interesting description and reaction to the first generation of ironclad ships, but we get an insight into the amazingly open access that was available to the most important new weapon of the Union. Apparently, there was still hope of a Southern cessation of fighting and rejoining the Union, and the aim was to get as much publicity about the new weapon as possible to the Confederates to persuade them of the futility of their situation. The North could manufacture as many of these vessels as they needed, while Confederates could only refit wooden ships with metal siding. There were few ships that were suitable for such refitting and the ironworks of the South were limited and needed for cannon, railroad tracks and other uses all competing for limited production capacity. Hawthorne went on board the Monitor without making any special arrangements at all. He just showed up and went aboard.
