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Ten Historical Documents that Mention Monitors of the Passaic-class, Part One

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John Ericsson, who was a Swedish inventor, designed  a class of ten monitors  that were built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Turret ships, which were protected by iron plates, had been introduced in 1862 and USS Monitor was the name that was given to the first of these vessels. Ironclads that mounted their guns in rotating turrets, thereafter, were known as monitors. John Adolphus Dahlgren designed the smoothbore guns, which were 11-inches or 15-inches in diameter, that were housed in the turrets  Passaic -class monitors. Samuel Francis Du Pont, who was the first commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, received the first monitors of the Passaic -class at the beginning of 1863 and pitted them against Fort McAllister. Charleston, South Carolina, was the principle target of the Federal armada but Fort McAllister, on the Ogeechee River, allowed the new class of turret ships to test their ordnance in battle. It was on the Ogeechee River, therefore,