Iron from the Deep: The Discovery and Recovery of the USS Monitor Hardcover - 2003

From the publisher

Robert Sheridan has been of the Monitor story since the 1970s, when his research vessel first made sonar contact with the long-lost wreck of the famous Civil War ironclad, and he collected the first identifiable artifact. In this book he combines his firsthand perspective of the Monitor's discovery and efforts to save her artifacts with an authoritative history of the ship that revolutionized naval ship design. Opening chapters discuss the ship's construction, her successful battle with the Merrimac in 1862 that spelled the end of wooden warships, and the Monitor's sinking later that year off Cape Hatteras. Comments from the secretary of the Navy who spurred the building of the Monitor, the captain who ordered her into action and the young lieutenant who survived the sinking, add color to these historically significant events. In addition to his personal account of the discovery of the Monitor, Sheridari addresses the issue of controls over the wreck and recovery proposals. He describes his nearly twenty years of lobbying to convince Congress that the Monitor's deterioration called for action The book's final chapters chronicle the raising of artifacts from this national treasure. Although several books have been written about the dramatic history of the Yankee ironclad, and several others have been published about attempts to recover her, this is the first to cover both subjects in detail.