12/4/2023 0 Comments Civil war submarine monitorNote fire from both banks and river obstructions around the bend. The USS Galena approaches Drewry’s Bluff (under gun smoke cloud top left) with the USS Monitor on her right rear. I then took position on the line with the Galena, and maintained a deliberate fire until the close of the action.” Three plus hours later, Galena was forced to withdraw with heavy damage and many casualties Monitor and the gunboats followed. Jeffers: “I endeavored to pass ahead of to take off some of the fire, but found that my guns could not be elevated sufficiently to point at the fort. Galena anchored about one thousand yards from the fort and became warmly engaged while the wooden gunboats hung back out of range. “At half past seven I discovered an extensive fortification on an elevation of about two hundred feet, with several smaller batteries, all apparently mounting guns of the heaviest calibre at the foot of the bluff in the river an obstruction, formed of sunken steamers and vessels, secured with chains, and the shallow water piled across the river.” Monitor’s commanding officer, Lieutenant William Jeffers, reported his experiences. The Galena, unlike Monitor, was a traditional sea-going hull design with iron cladding that would prove to be inadequate. On the following May 15, 161 years ago today, Monitor joined the ironclad frigate USS Galena and a few wooden gunboats in her only other major engagement, the unsuccessful attack on Fort Darling atop Drewry’s Bluff blocking the James River approach to Richmond. As with all emergent technologies, however, she had her problems. The revolutionary ironclad USS Monitor became an icon of American ingenuity, industrial strength, and naval prowess following her famous clash with the Rebel ironclad Virginia/ Merrimack on March 9, 1862.
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