War, Technology, and Experience Aboard the USS Monitor

Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Technology

by David A. Mindell

In a familiar story, the USS Monitor battled the CSS Virginia (the armored and refitted USS Merrimack ) at Hampton Roads in March of 1862. In War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor, David A. Mindell adds a new perspective to the story as he explores how mariners―fighting "blindly" below the waterline―lived and coped with the metal monster they called the "iron coffin." Mindell shows how the iron warship emerged as an idea and became practicable, how building it drew upon and forced changes in contemporary manufacturing technology, and how the vessel captured the nineteenth-century American popular and literary imaginations. Combining technical, personal, administrative, and literary analysis, Mindell examines the experience of the men aboard the Monitor and their reactions to the thrills and dangers that accompanied the new machine. The invention surrounded men with iron and threatened their heroism, their self-image as warriors, even their lives. Mindell also examines responses to this strange new warship by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who prophetically saw in the Civil War a portent of the mechanized warfare of the future. The story of the Monitor shows how technology changes not only the tools but also the very experience of combat, generating effects that are still felt today in the era of "smart bombs" and pushbutton wars. "We find new significance in the otherwise well-known history of the Monitor . It is no longer the story of the heroic inventor and his impenetrable weapon thrusting themselves upon a doubtful and conservative bureaucracy... It is no longer the story of a heroic battle and the machine's epic loss soon after. Rather it is a story of people experiencing new machinery, attempting to make sense of its thrills, constrictions, and politics, and sensing its power and impotence―both in glory and frustration."―from War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor

Genres: History, Civil War, Naval History, American Civil War, Maritime, American History

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2000

About the author

Electrical engineer, historian, and entrepreneur. Co-Founder and partner at Unless, an investment firm focused on supporting companies at the forefront of industrial transformation.

A Professor of Aerospace Engineering at MIT, David is an expert on robotic navigation and human interactions with autonomous systems in air, sea, and space. As Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, David is a leading authority on generations of inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and workers within the great arcs of technological change. He has led or participated in more than 25 oceanographic expeditions, written seven books, and is an inventor on 34 patents in RF navigation, autonomous systems, and AI-assisted piloting. He also spent five years as a Department Head at MIT. David co- Chaired MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future. Founder and Executive Chairman at Humatics with a mission to revolutionize how people and machines locate, navigate and collaborate. David has undergraduate degrees from Yale and a Ph.D. from MIT.

Reviews

[Eric Byrd]

Needless to dwell; the story's known.
The ringing of those plates on plates
Still ringeth round the world —
The clangor of the blacksmiths' fray.
The anvil-din
Resounds this message from the Fates:

War shall yet be, and to the end;
But war-paint shows the streaks of weather;
War yet shall be, but the warriors
Are now but operatives; War's made
Less grand than Peace,
And a singe runs through lace and feather.

(Herman Melville, "A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Flight"

[Matthew Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly accessible and visceral descriptions of the iconic ironclad. More fun than most history!

[David Bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars reflect this book's quality as what it is (an academic monograph), not as a popular history. I purchased the volume at the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, which houses those remains of the Monitor that have been raised from where she sank at the end of 1862. The experience of seeing those remains decidedly shaped my reading of this book.

Mindell is concerned with the direct experience of the officers and crew (as well as the technologists of the time) and definitely owes a debt to John Keegan's pioneering work. He notes how strange the battle must have been for the majority of the crew, who were almost all in the hull under the waterline, and didn't see their adversary once the battle started.

He notes too how quickly, in the aftermath, the image of the ship became of greater policy significance than its actual combat potential, and how it became a focus of attention as, in the early days of the war, people were learning that technology had changed warfare, and old categories of heroism needed to be revised, whether that meant fighting behind iron plate armor, or in maintaining ceaseless watch from a foul and muddy trench for months at a time.

He also discusses the writings of Hawthorne and Melville on the ship, which do not figure among the major works of either author, but are nevertheless evidence that artistic minds were grappling with the changes that technology had wrought in one of the most ancient literary subjects.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't as interesting as I expected from the title. I was expecting something similar to the author's "Digital Apollo": an in-depth examination of the Monitor, and a tie-in to technology trends. Instead, it is a long and laboriously argued essay on the role of highly technical weapons both practically and as a symbol in warfare. Unfortunately, for me the key point of that description was the "laboriously argued" part: he was working so hard to make the case (instead of presenting the facts and letting the case make itself), that it actually seemed weaker as a result.

Details on the Monitor are sketchy at best. There is no good figure showing the layout of the vessel; the figures accompanying a wikipedia article on the Monitor were very helpful in understanding the book's discussion of the ship's two-hull construction, and in fact getting a better understanding of the vessel. The sinking of the vessel in a storm takes well under a page.

In general, the book felt like a real missed opportunity (especially when "Digital Apollo" was so outstanding).

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat puzzling book. The title should probably be more like, "The Human Experience of Machine-Age Technology," since it's really more about how people adapt to technology, using the Monitor as a case study. Not a bad read, mind you, but not what I expected (I expected some sort of technical study or summary of the equipment of the Monitor). It definitely should not be anyone's first book on the topic; one should first read one of the standard overviews (I like to recommend William C. Davis' Duel Between the First Ironclads, but there are many others), and read the letters written by William F. Keeler (Aboard the USS Monitor, 1862, edited by Robert Daly) and the letters of George S. Geer (The Monitor Chronicles, edited by William Marvel) before attempting this one.

[Lclawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous study of both what it was like to serve on a "monitor" and what this new type of warship meant to the people who created it. Mindell points out that there was a huge difference between the reality and perception of the USS Monitor. This difference led to many misunderstandings and hard lessons in the US Navy's search for a "game changing" technology.

The brilliance of this book is in demonstrating the pitfalls of reliance on untested technologies and the amazing extent to which some technologies are more social constructions rather than revolutionary solutions.

[Jerry Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important book on the true capabilities of the Monitor. The design of the ship put great hardships on the crew due to high temp and poor ventilation. The Monitor did not have as great effect on the navies of the world as we were led to believe. Being a crew member when not in combat was more dangerous then while in combat. Conditions on board were closer to being on an earlier submarine. Though John Ericsson was brilliant he would not accept feedback from those who used is inventions.

[Ardith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fair overview. Interesting perspective. Very dryly written, though.