A Brief Dry Spell for the U.S.S. Monitor

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Military secrecy was a bit lax during the Civil War, by today’s standards, but contractor deadlines were a lot tighter.

The technology that revolutionized naval warfare began with a five-sentence message delivered to The New York Times 150 years ago, on Aug. 9, 1861, and the information was not exactly classified. It was an advertisement placed by the Union Navy, to appear the following six days, under the heading “Iron-Clad Steam Vessels.”

“The Navy Department will receive offers from parties who are able to execute work of this kind,” the ad announced, describing its desire for a two-masted ship “either of iron or of wood and iron combined. The plans had to be submitted by early September, giving designers less than a month.

Less than six months later, a shipyard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, launched not merely an ironclad but an entirely new kind of warship. The U.S.S. Monitor had no masts and no line of cannons. It was essentially a submarine beneath a revolving gun turret, something so tiny and bizarre-looking that many experts doubted the “cheese box on a raft” would float, much less fight....