The News from Newport News

in 1987 and now being preserved and displayed here. Indeed, one of the best parts of the Monitor Center—besides watching reenactments of the battles of Hampton Roads and the sinking later that year of the Monitor off Cape Hatteras—is being able to climb up to windows that look down into the Monitor conservation area. There are more than a thousand artifacts here, but the star of the show is undoubtedly the part of the Monitor that even a casual Civil War buff can identify—the massive iron gun turret, which now stews in a 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