HISTORY RESURFACES

Images Show Wreck of Civil War Ship That Sank 160 Years Ago

The USS Monitor sank off North Carolina in 1862.

More than 160 years after the Civil War ironclad warship, the USS Monitor, sank off North Carolina, newly released 3D images are offering an unprecedented view of the historic wreck and its transformation beneath the Atlantic. The scans, produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and defense contractor Northrop Grumman using advanced sonar and autonomous underwater vehicles, reveal the ship in remarkable detail, roughly 240 feet below the surface near the Outer Banks. Tane Casserley, a maritime archaeologist with the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, told WAVY-TV the wreck is in “fantastic shape” despite sitting at the bottom of the ocean for more than a century. Launched from Greenpoint, New York, in January 1862, the Monitor was the U.S. Navy’s first ironclad warship and famously battled the Confederate CSS Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads that March. The vessel later sank during a violent storm near Cape Hatteras on New Year’s Eve 1862, killing 16 sailors. The ship was lost for more than 100 years, before being discovered in 1973, and is now the nation’s first national marine sanctuary.