The View of The USS Monitor from The Noland Trail: Reviewed
This review is an expanded review for the mapping project TheAnthropoceneReviewed.com
Within the City of Newport News, Virginia named for one-handed privateer Christopher Newport, you’ll find the Mariner’s Museum and Park which includes a dammed lake and approximately five mile loop called the Noland Trail encircling it. It seems fitting that this review starts with a path, as John Green introduces The Anthropocene Reviewed with the story of both literally and figuratively blazing his own, just like the new path I started on at the Mariner’s Museum, years ago.
There are a few bridges that cross the water at various points along the Noland Trail, but I take my time on Bridge 3 which looks back at an expanse of still water, flanked on either side by tall loblolly pines, and features one side of the museum, as well as a replica of the American Civil War Ironclad, the USS Monitor. Today it is overcast, the wall of the museum fades into the speckled cloudy skyline, and above it’s threatening to rain. And often that’s all it is, a threat.
Nothing kills a story like too many names and dates but to appease the historians among us, here’s a tl;dr on the Monitor’s involvement in the war, despite that being one of the least interesting things about it.
One year into the American Civil War in 1862, the Union launched a concentrated effort in southeastern Virginia known as The Peninsula Campaign with the ultimate goal of taking control of the Confederate capital of Richmond. The campaign featured battles up and down the peninsula on both water and land, but arguably the most infamous in the area was the Battle of Hampton Roads where the first American Ironclads, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia clashed and ultimately drew on March 9, 1862.
It wouldn’t be truthful to say I first became aware of this story when I took a seasonal education job at the Mariner’s Museum, but it was in telling this story over and over, and over, to fifth graders that I started to understand how amazing it was. I wasn’t much older than those fifth graders when I first saw the USS Monitor — well, a replica of it. Within the large shark tank at the Roanoke Island branch of the North Carolina Aquarium sits an eerie recreation of the sunken hull of the ironclad, which met its timely fate just off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, known affectionately to sailors as “The Graveyard of the Atlantic.”
The sinking of the USS Monitor only seven months after it’s fight in the Battle of Hampton Roads comes as no surprise. Officer Dana Greene remarked, “I do not consider this steamer a sea going vessel.” It’s awkward appearance despite being inspired by Swedish logging rafts earned it the nickname “a cheesebox on a raft.” Built in a little over 100 days, the Monitor was designed by John Ericsson who deeply disliked the US Navy, and vice versa the feelings were mutual — but a job is a job.
My own job when I was telling the story of the Monitor was temporary. I’d been hired as an Educator for the school year after being let go of a job I loved; and while the change of pace was nice, career-wise it was moving backwards into an entry-level position. The timing worked well however, the school year ended in May and I would be having my first child in June.
Nine months, or approximately 280 days to make a human seems absolutely bonkers when you think about it, and so does spending half that time building a warship and expecting it to work swimmingly. Despite it containing 40 new patents, including a revolving gun turret and the novel invention of toilets on boats so many facets of the ship did not work, the odds constantly being stacked against it. The communication system failed, the revolving turret was too cumbersome to start and stop so sailors just let it continue to spin, the deck was only about 18 inches above water so it nearly sank being towed down to the Chesapeake Bay from Brooklyn’s Navy Yard.
And yet — the Monitor did not need to be perfect. It had one goal, to stop the CSS Virginia’s rampage in Hampton Roads and it did just that. Logistically the battle was a draw, both sides content with their view of the outcome. The Monitor was temporary, and did enough to move the collective effort onto whatever came next.
When I look back to the museum and the replica Monitor I feel all the duality of that time in my life, and sometimes where it persists now. Today there is a group of kids out on the Monitor’s deck. One rings the bell and it breaks me out of the trance of looking at the water. I think of that school year, temporary, just trying to focus on doing one job to get to the other. My son is here, and in a current COVID world it’s hard to be a stay-at-home mom, but it’s just temporary, it’s just a job for the here and now to move me on to whatever awaits next.
I give the view of the USS Monitor from the Noland Trail, 4.5 stars.
