PLATE), which was a screw line-of-battle ship rebuilt in 1858-59 and armored; they also commenced the first iron-hulled armorelad (the Coltronne). The noire and Couronne were quickly fol lowed by the Warrior, which was laid down in England in 1859. In 1860 the Ital ians ordered the armored frigates Terribile and For midabile in France: a ml in the latter part of 1861 the Russians changed the plans of the wooden frigate Petropavlovsk, then building, and gave her a complete water-line belt and easement of iron. So far the applica tion of armor to vessels had brought about no I861 the Monitor and Merrimac (Virginia) were designed. They differed from all previous men of-war in being mastless; each was completely armored; one mminted its guns in a revolving turret and one in a central armored battery. If yon place a monitor's turret at each end of the llerrindac's citadel, make the sides more nearly vertical, and raise the upper deck sufficiently to give seaworthiness, you have the general features of the battleship of 1903.
In 1861, under an act of Congress providing for armored vessels, the Ga/enu, the Yew Iron sides, and the Monitor were constructed. The Ga lena was an armored gunboat of the ordinary type, except that her sides amidships inclined in ward ('tumbled home') at an angle of about 45 degrees and were covered with 2.5 inches of armor. Her plating was found to be too thin to be of much use and she was regarded as a failure. She was completed early in 1862 and took part in the attack on Drewry's Bluff forts, when her armor was repeatedly perforated. In this ease, since the forts were elevated, the inclination of her sides was a disadvantage. The Neu" frousides was finished late in 1S62 and at tached to the blockading fleet off Charleston, where she remained for two years. She was built of wood and her general plans were similar to those of an ordinary steam frigate of her day, except that she had a ram bow and a retreating stern like that of many recent battleships. Her sides 'tumbled home' at an angle of about 30 degrees from the vertical for about two-thirds her length, and over tins portion she was cov ered by 4.5-inch iron plates of large size from some distance below the water line to the upper deck. The broadside armor was joined at the ends by thwartship plating of equal thickness, the whole forming a citadel protecting the bat tery, boilers, and engines. She was 232 feet
long, 58 feet broad, and had a displacement of 4120 tons at her designed load draught. Her battery consisted of sixteen 11-inch Dahlgren smooth-bores, two 220-pounder Parrot rifles, and four 24-pounder howitzers. She was the most successful armored ship of her day, was in action more times than any other vessel ever built (so far as existing records show), and was struck by more projectiles than any other vessel, yet her armor was never pierced, she was never put out change in the type except to reduce the number of decks on which guns were carried. But in of action, and she was never forced to go to a home port or depend neon outside assistance, while in some of the actions in which she was engaged other ironclads were sunk and several monitors were disabled and forced out of action. After the war, in 1866, she was accidentally de stroyed by fire at the Philadelphia navy yard.
The third vessel was the far-famed Monitor. The contract for her construction was signed October 4, 1861, and she was launched January 30, 1S62. Her dimensions were: extreme length, 172 feet; length of hull proper, 124 feet ; extreme beam. 41.5 feet : width of hull where it joined the overhang, 34 feet ; width of hull at bottom, 18 feet : depth of hold, 11.33 feet ; mean draught, 10.5 feet; inside diameter of turret, 20 feet; height of turret, 9 feet : displacement, 987 tons.
The Monitor was a most remarkable vessel in many ways, but she was not a ship of war, but a floating battery, and useful only in smooth water. She was fortunate in meeting a craft equally unseaworthy. She was not even the first tur ret vessel to be commenced, nor was she the best when finished. Before the contract was drawn for the Monitor, Denmark had contracted with Captain Cowper Coles for the building of the double-turreted. sea-going ironclad Rolf Brake, and her keel was laid before the construction of the Monitor was authorized. The Rolf Brake was a very successful vessel, and, although slie was never in close action with another ship, she several times silenced Prussian batteries and held the whole Prussian fleet in check in 1864.