bath as 140 years of salt incursion is slowly leeched out of the metal. On days when the water is clear, or when it’s merely being sprayed with a fine mist, you can see the dents caused by enemy cannon shot.
You can imagine what the Monitorgunners, working feverishly inside the turret, unable to see the enemy, must have experienced. One seaman “dropped over like a dead man” when a ball struck a few inches from his head. Another was flung over both guns from the blow.
The latest find is such a simple thing, an oil can that years of sedimentation and the marriage of metals have caused to be cemented to the engine’s condenser. But it reminds you that there were men down in that engine room on New Year’s Eve 1862, struggling to keep the steam engines running as water rose toward the fire grates. The Monitor went down in 240 feet of water off Cape Hatteras, with