Ten Passaic-class Monitors That Were Built During the American Civil War
Passaic-class monitors, designed by John Ericsson, were single-turreted warships that served in the Union Navy during the American Civil War. The new class of ironclad represented an improvement to the design of USS Monitor , invented by Ericsson, and there are a variety of written sources of information about the technical details of these ships as well as their service histories. John Johnson, author of The Defense of Charleston Harbor , explains that the thickness of iron that protected the turret was increased from 8 inches to 11-inches and that the the pilothouse was moved from the foredeck to the top of the turret. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships , covering the years from 1860 until 1905, claims that the length of the monitors was 200-feet and that the beam was 46-feet. Monitors of the U.S. Navy, written by Richard H. Webber and spanning the era from 1861 until 1937, explains that ships of this class were equipped with two vibrating lever engines and a pair of Ma