PREFACE Thiss book is written at the request of the publishers as a history of the origin, career, and influence of the United States ironclad steamer Monitor. The subject is a broad one, but is limited herein by the space proposed to only a cursory treatment. Many details have by necessity been left out, and only such matmid has been used as would serve hst to indicate the important stages and events of the progressive story. It is the hopc of the author that he has presented enough to impress his readers with the magnitude of the changes in all branches of Iiulnan industry, and particularly in naval methods, that have been brought about by the steam engine during the course of the nineteenth century. In the gradual transformation of ships of war from the wooden sailing-ship to thc stccl amnored steam battleship, the Monitor occupies a midway station. Morc than half a century of steady progress in the application of steam power to the mechanic arts was necessary to make her possible, and her success in meeting the conditions for which she was built served to fix a standard for future war-vesscls, to sound the death-knell of the wooden ship of sails, and to herald to all navies the age of iron and steam. It is fitting, therefore, that the history of the Monitor should include accounts of the causes that produced her and the effects that followed after. Without these, the story would be but half told, though her brief war career was such as to were one of the most famous ships the navy of the United States has ever contained, and might fittingly become the subject of a, volume much larger than this.