Dwight Hughes on “Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The USS Monitor and the Battle of Hampton Roads” 

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The USS Monitor was an ingenious but hurried response to both the imminent threat of the Confederate ironclad, CSS Virginia (ex USS Merrimack), and to the growing prospect of international intervention backed by powerful British or French seagoing ironclads. The United States had no defenses against either menace. This presentation takes Monitor from her inception in the mind of her brilliant inventor through the dramatic first clash of ironclads at Hampton Roads. Dwight Hughes is a public historian, author, and speaker in Civil War naval history. Dwight graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1967 with a major in History and Government. He served twenty years as a Navy surface warfare officer on most of the world's oceans in ships ranging from destroyer to aircraft carrier and with river forces in Vietnam (Bronze Star for Meritorious Service, Purple Heart). Dwight is a contributing author at the Emerging Civil War blog and author of: A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Naval Institute Press, 2015), and Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862 (Savas Beatie, 2021) for the award-winning Emerging Civil War series. His new book as editor and contributor, The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War (Savas Beatie), is due out in April 2023.