On Monday, 5 August 2002, the Monitor's 235-ton turret and its two smoothbore Dahlgren guns broke the surface of the waters off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. One day later, archaeologists, scientists, and conservators realized their hopes of getting a glimpse back in time to 1862 and into the ship that forever changed naval history.
In summer 2002, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Navy, and the Mariners' Museum joined for the last planned major recovery expedition to the wreck site of the USS Monitor. This partnership has generated five years of successful recoveries from NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. Through a plan that NOAA carefully crafted, the partnership has surfaced the Monitor's propeller, skeg, propeller shaft, engine, condenser, and hundreds of fragile artifacts now being conserved and displayed at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia. More than $10 million of support for Monitor expeditions has come from the Legacy Resource Management Program, which funds natural and cultural resource projects within the Department of Defense.
On 26 June 2002, with more than 100 feet of visibility at the Monitor wreck site, the first Navy diver made his way 240 feet below the surface and began removing debris from the deck above the turret. For 41 days, representatives from the three participating organizations lived on board the 300-foot derrick barge Wotan—the same barge used to recover the steam engine last year. Outfitted with saturation and surface diving equipment, berthing, a 500-ton-capacity lifting crane, more than 116 personnel, and an underwater remotely operated vehicle, this floating city was dedicated to the task of raising—and making—history.
The major objectives of Monitor Expedition 2002 were to remove a section of the Monitor's armor belt and hull that lay atop the turret, partially excavate the turret, and rig and recover the turret and all of its contents. Despite battling strong underwater currents and the same forces of nature that sent the Monitor to her watery grave 140 years ago, the expedition was completed in 41 days. Under the command of U.S. Navy Commander Barbara L. "Bobbie" Scholley, Navy divers worked around the clock to recover not only an ancestor to ships they serve on today, but some of the men who died serving their country—men whom the Navy divers considered "shipmates."
Fabricated at the Novelty Iron Works in New York City, the Monitor's turret was truly revolutionary. It was nearly 22 feet in diameter and 9 feet tall and consisted of 8 layers of 1-inch-thick iron plates bolted and riveted together. Two gunports pierced the armor, making way for the ship's two XI-inch Dahlgren guns. Weighing approximately 120 tons, this innovative armored housing rested on a brass ring on the deck of the vessel and rotated by means of two steam engines. Naval commanders later insisted on caulking the brass ring seal with a plaited hemp gasket. When the Monitor sank, high seas quickly penetrated the hemp gasket, clearing the way for hundreds of gallons of seawater to enter the ship's hull.
According to NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary Manager Dr. John Broadwater, when the Monitor sank, the stern end of the vessel was the first to hit the ocean floor. This impact caused the turret to fall upside down on the seabed. The port side of the Monitor's armor belt came to rest over a portion of the bottom of the turret. This process not only forced the two Dahlgren cannon and their carriages off their slides, but over time allowed hundreds of pounds of coal from the Monitor's engine room to fall into the turret. Eventually, the remainder of the turret filled with silt, locking many mysteries inside.
On 11 July 2002, the first mystery was solved when the divers uncovered the first of two cannon. "No one ever knew if the Dahlgren guns were still inside," said Broadwater. "We felt pretty confident they might be since they never revealed themselves over the years NOAA and the Navy have conducted dives on the Monitor. But it had always been one of those mysteries historians and Civil War buffs had speculated on over the years."
On 24 July, a Navy saturation diver solved the second mystery when he uncovered railroad rails that made up part of the turret's roof. "For years, historians had debated on whether or not the roof would still be in place because the Monitor's designer and builder, John Ericsson, wrote that the turret roof was designed for quick removal in two sections," said NOAA Historian Jeff Johnston.
Just two days later, divers uncovered the answer to the biggest mystery of all—were any crew members trapped inside the turret when the ship sank? Navy divers discovered possible human remains on 26 July, momentarily bringing life on the Wotan to a standstill. NOAA and museum historians, archaeologists, and conservators worked day and night with Navy divers to map the entire area where the remains were found. NOAA immediately put into action a plan to work with the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI). CILHI's primary mission is to search for, recover, and identify remains of U.S. military personnel, U.S. civilian personnel, and Allied personnel unaccounted for from war.
"NOAA partnered with CILHI for Monitor Expedition 2002 to make sure that any human remains that were found inside the turret would be recovered and handled properly," Broadwater said.
As work continued on the Wotan, the Mariners' Museum was preparing to receive one of the largest artifacts ever to grace its collections. In 1987, NOAA had designated the museum to serve as the repository for all artifacts recovered from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. The museum's responsibility goes further than just housing and exhibiting these Civil War relics; it also includes preservation.
With Museum Conservator Wayne Lusardi working with the NOAA and Navy team on the Wotan, Museum Chief Conservator Curtiss Peterson remained in Newport News to oversee construction of a 14-foot-tall, 32-foot-wide, 86,000-gallon conservation tank that will serve as the turret's new home for the next 12 to 15 years. Students from the Apprentice School at Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding welded eight bulkheads to form this mammoth tank, with two portholes that afford visitors up-close and personal views of the turret. Underground, a complex system containing hundreds of feet of pipes carries water and chemicals to and from the turret conservation tank, as well as the engine, propeller, condenser, and other artifact tanks.
"The idea of the conservation tank was to provide something large enough to hold not only the turret, but the entire lift frame surrounding it," Peterson said. "Because of the materials within the turret [human remains and organic artifacts], we have connected a chiller to the conservation tank, which will keep the water at 47° Fahrenheit. This will preserve these materials when we are not excavating or conserving pieces of the turret."
As July crept by, Navy divers excavated farther and farther into the turret, and museum conservators, welders, and riggers put the finishing touches on water systems and conservation tanks. These various crews worked 24 hours a day preparing to recover and receive this Civil War icon. The clock was ticking; Monitor Expedition 2002 had enough funding to work on the Marine Sanctuary for 45 days. On 1 August, only eight days of funding were left, and weather over the Atlantic graveyard was getting progressively worse.
While national media sat patiently on the shores of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the crew on board the Wotan worked feverishly to prepare the turret for its precarious lift. Nature, however, had other things in mind. For two days, currents, winds, and tidal surges prevented the recovery of the turret. Hours were spent moving anchors to readjust the barge, planning how to outmaneuver rising seas, and watching the radar and an approaching storm.
By the morning of Monday, 5 August, the currents lightened and work resumed. Divers connected cables from the 500-ton lift crane to the "Spider," an eight-legged steel claw placed over the turret that gripped the artifact securely underneath the lift. Shortly before 1700 the Manson Gulf crane operator lifted the turret gingerly a few feet off the ocean floor and placed it carefully on a lift platform designed to support the base of the inverted turret, ensuring the roof remained in place. Then, at 1745 that afternoon, the turret broke the surface of the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in almost 140 years.
"The successful recovery of the Monitor's famous gun turret is the culmination of a NOAA long-range management plan submitted to Congress in 1998," Broadwater said. "The Monitor is one of the most significant icons of Civil War naval history. We are very pleased that we have saved the turret to be appreciated now and for the generations to follow."
"The recovery of one of the great icons of Civil War technology is an awe-inspiring moment for lovers of history, particularly Civil War and maritime history," said Mariners' Museum President and Chief Executive Officer John B. Hightower. "Americans have their first look since the Civil War at this extraordinary invention that held off a nearly successful fearsome challenge to the Federal Navy. As a result, naval warfare was changed forever. We are immensely proud to have one of the most important naval relics in history on display at the Mariners' Museum."
Within a day, an archaeology team consisting of scientists and archaeologists from NOAA and the Mariners' Museum entered the turret. They found all its structural elements intact. Two vertical stanchions, four gun slides, two sets of horizontal braces, and both roof hatches were exposed. The team was surrounded by implements used to work the guns, as well as by cordage and human remains.
"We're literally standing next to sediment from 1862," said Lusardi. "This is an extremely careful process to begin recording and removing each of these artifacts without damaging them."
"I suspect we'll find a variety of artifacts," said Peterson. "Some will be personal items from sailors who were waiting their turn to escape from the Monitor as she was sinking 140 years ago. Others will be tools used to man the guns. This is a time capsule from December 31, 1862, and could bring us some of the most telling artifacts ever recovered from the Monitor."
On 10 August, the turret reached the museum on the shores of the James River near the site in Hampton Roads where it made history battling the CSS Virginia on 9 March 1862. Soldiers from the U.S. Army stood poised at Fort Monroe, providing a gun salute as the turret passed. Morning traffic slowed along the Monitor/Merrimack Bridge Tunnel as the turret passed the marker where the USS Cumberland sank. The following day, hundreds of onlookers lined the James River shore, watching as the revolutionary naval icon made its way off a 200-foot barge and up to the museum's Monitor Conservation Area.
On 26 August, the archaeological team climbed into the turret for the first time since its arrival at the Mariners' Museum. For five straight days, often in pouring rain, a team consisting of personnel from the Mariners' Museum, NOAA, and CILHI sifted through hundreds of pounds of silt, chipped away at concreted coal, and carefully removed human remains. On 28 August, archaeologists were delighted when they found a gold ring on the fourth finger of the right hand of one of the Monitor's crew members inside the turret. The ring appeared to be a wedding band. It was in excellent condition and ultimately may help in identifying the individual.
The next two days revealed a few coat buttons, a wool overcoat, a U.S. Navy comb, a spoon, and the casing from a pocketknife. Archaeologists also managed to recover a large portion of human remains from the two individuals found inside the turret. The remains will undergo analysis in Hawaii for possible identification with the hopes of one day reuniting them with their families. Four officers and 12 crewmen died during the sinking of the Monitor. Some were swept overboard by high seas. Others were seen in the engine room, their bunks, or in the turret shortly before the ship sank.
"Working on the Monitor has been a surreal experience," Commander Scholley said. "For myself and the rest of the Navy men and women on Monitor Expedition 2002, this has been much more than just recovering the turret. It has also been a mission to return home shipmates who lost their lives at sea while serving their country."
Throughout the remainder of 2002, archaeologists will excavate the entire turret. Speculation abounds about what will be found, just as it did before the artifact was recovered from the ocean floor. Eventually the "Spider" structure will be removed; the gun slides, guns, and carriages will follow. The Mariners' Museum conservation team will then test the iron and begin the arduous process of leaching salt from the iron plates making up the turret. The museum's planned USS Monitor Center is scheduled to open in 2007 with hundreds of artifacts from the ship on display. The Monitor Center will be a worldwide resource for exhibitions, conservation, research, and education related to the Monitor and the larger story of the naval history of the Civil War.
"It just doesn't get any better than this," said the Mariners' Museum's Hightower. "For a maritime museum such as this to receive the gun turret from the USS Monitor is an opportunity that happens once in an institutional lifetime."
Live from the Expedition
On 8 August 2002, Naval History accepted an invitation to participate in an extraordinary news conference. It was being conducted from the deck of the derrick barge Wotan, which at the time was transporting the Monitor's turret up the Atlantic coast the day before it arrived in Newport News, Virginia. The conference was unusual because it was conducted by way of remote telephone with 11 members of the press, including representatives from The New York Times and USA Today. Following are answers to questions posed by Naval History to Dr. John Broadwater, chief scientist for Monitor Expedition 2002 and manager of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Commander Barbara L. "Bobbie" Scholley, U.S. Navy, on-scene commander of the expedition and commanding officer of the Navy's Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two.
Naval History: What findings surprised you most during this expedition?
Broadwater: We have blueprints of what the turret was supposed to have looked like and how it was to have been built. But when the excavation got about halfway down, we noticed there were some features that didn't show up on any of the blueprints. They eventually turned out to be some huge diagonal braces that had been added to the turret sometime after the ship's launching. It appears that the braces were put in because of the weight of the guns, especially when they were run out and fired. They were causing stresses on the turret that were deforming it enough that it may have caused problems with the turret's rotating mechanism. This is all speculation right now, but we do know these braces are not shown on the drawings.
We're now also seeing all the linkages and the rods and levers involved in the rotation of the turret. And we know that there was a steering system added. The Monitor had a pilothouse forward but during the transit to South Carolina, for the trip when she sank, they had put a temporary steering station in or on the turret, and we think we're now finding evidence of that steering station.
The amount of coal in the turret was definitely a surprise. We knew there were bits of coal down inside the turret. The Monitor's coal bunkers were almost full. They had been topped off in Hampton Roads before the tow south. Even though the boilers were operating and steam pressure was up, the ship was not consuming a great deal of coal on the way down the coast. So we knew there was lots of coal there, and we were sure from the archaeological evidence that the Monitor sank stern first. So that probably would have driven the coal further aft. What we were surprised to find was just how much coal was inside the turret. That was not expected. In looking at the blueprints of the Monitor, it didn't take long to discover that one of the coal scuttles—a circular hatch about 12 inches in diameter—ended up just above the Monitor's turret, with the upside-down hull. It appears the coal came through the coal scuttle and poured down into the turret.
Naval History: Is it now Navy policy to raise human remains from sunken ships for conventional burial?
Commander Scholley: I'm not an expert on that, even though I'm a naval officer. In this case, we're definitely treating these sailors as missing in action. We were so fortunate to have Eric Emery from the Army's central identification lab in Hawaii, an expert in recovering service members' remains. The fact that we found them in the turret was something we knew was going to be a possibility from the beginning. And we wanted to do this absolutely the right way. That's why we got the experts out here to do this. So although I'm not a subject-matter expert on this, I think we handled this very appropriately. From my perspective as a sailor and a naval officer, I'm proud to be a part of this and to be able to bring these shipmates home and hopefully identify them and give them a proper burial here on the surface.
Naval History: Can we assume this will be the last artifact to be raised from the sanctuary?
Dr. Broadwater: That's a tough one. Right now, it's the last scheduled large object to be recovered from the Monitor. The long-range preservation plan called for a partnership between NOAA and the Navy to run from 1998 during the propeller recovery through 2002 or 2003 for the turret recovery. Both NOAA and the Navy have been so pleased with this partnership, and so much has been accomplished, that discussions already are under way, although informal at this point, about how we might partner on future projects. At this point, we're keeping the options open for additional recoveries at the site. We know that everything forward of the midships bulkhead is relatively stable, but it's still deteriorating. And there are certainly more stories to be told through additional archaeological work.