ericsson and says what do you think of all this? i'm just trying to collect some data. and ericsson is literally -- you can't read his handwriting, he's so angry. and he says, we closed all these issues ten years ago, why are you talking about this? we all know -- and then he says, that the miserable lieutenant failed to win the battle because he was a coward and didn't pursue the "virginia." so. >> green never got it. >> he was commander of the "monitor" for a day or two. keeler served with him on the florida the rest of the war and they became good friends. but that wouldn't have been unusual i think for someone at that stage, because when the war ended there wasn't a lot of opportunity. i don't remember what he did careerwise after that. he was a naval academy graduate, which was rare at the time. yes. my friend sam.

>> did ericsson picture in his head the bottom of the ship which was underwater, or did he just imagine the part that was on top? >> very good question. he designed it to be what he called a submarine battery. so the whole conception of the ship was that most of it would be underwater, which allowed the most destructive ways to just sort of flow over the deck and not damage the ship. also, because the turret was there, there wasn't much to shoot at if you were the enemy. so most of the crew he felt were well protected below the water line. nothing about that is necessarily a bad idea. but again, it depends on, you know, the seals between the two decks. there were -- if you look at this classic cross-section of the ship, it's really two hulls.

there's this upper hull which is described as a raft which is wood clad by iron and this lower iron hull which hangs underneath it. and this was really one of the great weak points of this particular "monitor." and probably what happened when it sank was either on the beam or forward that split and let in an awful lot of water. that joint and that union just required a lot, a lot of thought and a lot of great deal of precision. in the later "monitors" it was a smoother transition and didn't have that sharp corner. but so it's possible to build a submarine. there's nothing inherently wrong with that idea. but it depended on the details of the construction. and ericsson wasn't that interested in managing that part. he just felt that if they didn't do it absolutely right they're not following my directions. but it was so novel and it was so hurried that it was difficult to get all that really right.

good question. >> you have talked a lot about the ship itself. but how about some of the systems inside the ship that would have advanced our technological understanding from the 1860s? >> good question. there were a lot of very state-of-the-art systems from the toilets to the anchors to the, as we just heard, the pumps. and again, ericsson really imagined this mechanical environment. it was a kind of fully automated -- it's again -- to the modern mind it's not that foreign. when you think about -- i mean, every time you go into a subway or into an airplane, you're living in that kind of environment. it was quite radical for the time. and you know, there's a myth

that people say oh, there were 15 -- there were 50 patentable inventions on the ship. nobody actually went through and counted them. but isaac newton once came on board and said, wow, there must be 50 patentable inventions here. and that number has always kind of come down as the classic number. but there were a lot of very interesting modern pieces. some of them worked better than others. and again, it's possible that the rudder -- sorry, the anchor compartment, the hass hole in the rudder may have been one of the things that contributed to the flooding and the sinking. and we just heard also there was a new pump installed in the yard period. so there were a lot of new con triechbss, contrivances as they called it at the time. although the question of the speaking tube came earlier. every crew member's account said there was a speaking tube between the pilot house and turret but it was out of commission during the battle. nobody's really clear on what

that actually means and how a speak tube can be out of commission. but again, the communications part, the internal part for how the crew was going to learn what was new, and to expect the crew to fight the ship without any training. they had no training on the ship the first day. the exigencies of war forced them there. but you would have thought they'd have thought that through a little bit more. time for more or are we getting pulled off? okay. great. thanks so much. [ applause ] tomorrow afternoon, republican presidential candidates mitt romney and newt gingrich will address the national rifle association's annual meeting, held in st. louis. we'll also hear remarks from former candidates rick santorum and rick perry as well as house majority leader eric cantor. you can see the event live tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. you can also watch online at

cspan.org or listen on c-span radio. the pope has a very famous way of being determined and that's with the camera lingo which is a cardinal-level post. the pope handpicks this person, and this person decides when the pope is dead. he hits him three times in the head with a silver hammer and calls out. he isn't dead till the camera lingo says he's dead. >> saturday night at 10:00 eastern on "after words," dick terese describes the ever changing description of death and the controversial argument that the business of organ harvesting is blurring that line. also this week on book tv former pennsylvania senator arlen specter on the split between old guard members of his former party and those supported by the tea party sunday at 8:00 p.m. book tv, every weekend on c-span

2. all this week it's american history tv in prime time. and we now return to the mariners museum in newport news, virginia where a civil war navy conference was held last month to mark the 150th anniversary of the battle of hampton roads. this was the first time ironclads faced off during battle. up next, a discussion on some of the ideas and suggestions offered by northerners for fighting the confederate ironclad known as the "merrimac." this is about an hour. if everyone would grab their seats. good morning. my name is jonathan white, and i'm an assistant professor of american studies and a fellow at the center for american studies at christopher newport university, which is right across the road here from the mariners museum. it is a pleasure to welcome you this morning to the mariners museum in newport news. i know tham of you have come a long way to be here today at

this wonderful event at this incredible museum. and for our friends who are watching us on c-span, i'd like to say that if you've never been to newport news i'd strongly recommend visiting if for no other reason than to see this incredible maritime museum, the mariners' museum. before we begin i'd like to thank our response ords aors an partners without whom the conference would not be possible and the weekend events. our sponsors are bank of america, the virginia foundation for the humanities, and southern structural steel. and our partners are the museum of the confederacy, the center for american studies at christopher newport university, the hampton roads naval museum, and noah's monitor national marine sanctuary. now, i'm pleased to introduce our next speaker, david gurlman. david is an assistant editor with the papers of abraham lincoln project and an adjunct professor of history at george mason university where he teaches courses on 19th century

u.s. history and military history. he earned his ph.d. in 1999 from southern illinois university at carbondale under the direction of john y. simon. his dissertation was on the care, treatment, and use of civil war cavalry horses. now, i'd like to tell you just a little bit about the work that david does with the papers of abraham lincoln. david and his fellow editors are doing an incredibly lab-intensive but extraordinarily important job with the papers of abraham lincoln. the editors are traveling the country looking for any letters or documents sent to or by abraham lincoln. and there are many editors working at the national archives every day, 40 hours a week, going through millions of documents. every piece of paper that was generated by the federal government or sent to the federal government from the civil war years that is held at the national archives will be looked at by one of the editors of the papers of abraham lincoln. and they are daily finding new

insights about our nation's 16th president. this work is extraordinarily important, and it's shedding new light on someone who we thought we knew a lot about, and we did, but we're learning more every day. and david is a part of that project. that project has been a wonderful boon to historians like myself. and today we're going to get a little bit of what david has stumbled upon while looking at the miscellaneous letters received by the secretary of the navy during the civil war. so would you please join me in welcoming david gurlman. [ applause ] >> good morning. it's wonderful to be here. thank you, john, for that wonderful welcome. i must confess that as a youngster i very much enjoyed putting together model ships. so being here at the museum i'm positively giddy with excitement that all the models that are here to be viewed. it's true, i am an assistant editor with the papers of

abraham lincoln. and as john mentioned, it has given me an extraordinary opportunity to look at documents that i normally would never have seen, and that includes the documents that i'm largely going to be talking about today. you see all sorts of interesting things in the holdings of the national archives. so i heartily encourage you to go visit and dig through the records for yourself. the letters that i'm going to be talking about today were largely sent either to gideon wells, the secretary of the navy, or president lincoln himself. in the 19th century the president was viewed as sort of your go-to guy for if you have a question, you've got a problem, not getting your pay, you write to the president and hopefully he will respond. well, what happens is he'll forward it or one of his secretaries will forward it to

where it needs to go. i also have had a chance to see some of the letters of resignation that are handed in at the start of the civil war by u.s. navy officers including franklin buchanan, who discovers to his chagrin that when maryland does not secede he writes another letter to the president saying, can you cancel my previous resignation? i've decided to stay. no. that certainly is not permitted. i also have seen a number of what i would say rather pathetic letters of resignation from serving officers saying i know i should stand by the american flag, i know it's my duty to be loyal to the government, but i just can't do it, my family is in nashville, i would be a pariah if i did my duties, so i have to resign. and go south. who are the people that write in? certainly the letters that i'm going to talk about today, they

come from all walks of life. bankers, civil engineers, average people, carriage makers, and including a fair number of anonymous. i'm always curious when i see these letters by anonymous, either they really wish to remain completely unknown or they sort of knew that the ideas that they were suggesting were so ludicrous that they did not want their name to be attached to it. well, certainly the -- oh, i should also say that in all the letters that i looked at the words "css virginia" are never used. it's always the "merrimac." and so call her what you will. she will always be the "merrimac" to me. so if anyone doesn't approve of that, every time i say "merrimac," just mentally insert "virginia." but certainly the race to build an ironclad warship was well under way before the civil war

ever began. indeed, the race had begun really by the turn of the 19th century. that is, in 1800. if not before. in fact, one of the first people to propose one of these more modern warships was robert fulton. fulton actually builds, desig d s and builds the first steam warship for the u.s. navy, which eventually bears his name. he also tried to sell the french an idea for his submarine. he had a submarine called the "nautilus," which he tried to sell to the french and other governments. no one really was buying. it was quite a risky venture. no one thought they would waste money on it. also, clinton roosevelt writes in in 1840, and he sends in this

lovely color -- it's almost a painting. it's rather massive series of paper that is taped together of his invulnerable steam battery, which looks sort of merrimacesque if you go by some of the descriptions that she looked like a barn that was floating down the river up to her eaves. so clinton roosevelt submits this. and again, it really goes nowhere. but the british and french in the 1850s were already building ironclads -- well, not ironclads. we really think of them, iron-plated warships. the french had the glory, and the british had built the "warrior." and thus this first clash of ironclads that happens here in hampton roads is of immense interest not only at home but abroad. in fact, one of the correspondents tells lincoln that england is in a blaze from one end to the other.

after news has arrived that these two ships have engaged. and of course, every time you have advances in military technology, you also have people trying to find ways of counteracting that. for each and every action there is a reaction. and that is what you will see today when i get to the portion talking about all these different inventions and suggestions that people are writing in how to deal with this new weapon of war, the merrimac. whether it be throwing grenades down the smokestack, electronic-triggered mines, underwater grappling hooks, elongated pronged projectiles, or pools of fire, all of these ideas are floated for how to deal with the "merrimac." and of course, people write to lincoln because they feel, again, not only he's the president, the commander in

chief, that he can get their invention accepted. that he will work his executive magic and get them a contract with the war department. of course, lincoln had many, many other things to deal with rather than help people get contracts. and indeed, citizens from all walks of life are flooding the federal government with these different suggestions that they have. as another correspondent put it, the whole yankee world is studying and contriving some method of destroying the "merrimac." and certainly the panic that was felt in washington and especially in the eastern seaboard cities after the events of march 8th, 1862, was almost palpable. gideon wells, although he's certainly no fan of stanton, wells says in his diary and elsewhere, he describes how

stanton is panicked, that he's afraid that the "merrimac" is going to sail up the potomac and shell the white house, that it's basically a game changer, that the entire war is going to be changed because of this invention. and indeed, the northern public were very fearful of this exact thing happening. another correspondent writes to lincoln saying that if the rebels by cunning or superior skill achieve in getting her to sea, the navy department will never be acquitted or forgiven and that the whole current of the war will be changed and no one will predict how it will end. there was even a special committee formed in new york city at stanton's behest of some of the leading engineers. how to go about counteracting the "merrimac." and that the whole wealth and power of the united states would be committed for that purpose.

now, oftentimes these citizens that are writing in, they usually fall into two categories in that they either write in very humbly saying i'm terribly sorry to bother you with this idea, which you may not like, but here it is. or they're just the opposite, that theft greatest idea that has ever been invented and that the union cause will be ruined unless it is purchased immediately at usually exorbitant rates by those in authority. and what i've tried to do is narrow down or at least coalesce a number of these plans and schemes into basically 13 different categories, which i'll talk about as quickly as possible. usually, some of these ideas aren't terribly inventive. that is, after ericsson's monitor proves itself to be capable of taking on the

"merrimac," many people write in with all sorts of add-on gadgets. that this, their invention, can make the "merrimac" -- or pardon me, the "monitor" the ultimate killing machine. and again, if only the government will buy. and one of the other things that i was lucky enough to be able to find, this is an original drawing that ericsson submitted to the french government for his original "monitor" in 1854. indeed, you can tell the basic elements of the "monitor" that we know and love is there. but already in the 1850s ericsson has this idea floating around about how to create this ultimate warship. as i said, the fear that is -- that you find in northern cities, especially the seaboard cities after the events of march

the 8th is tremendous. that the fear is the "merrimac" is going to be showing up the next day in new york harbor or baltimore or philadelphia and that these cities will be either raised or laid under contribution. one of the easiest ways that some people at least first write in on is saying that we need to lock the "merrimac" in the elizabeth river, either lock her in or lock her out. and to use submerged hulks, stone boats, whatever, barges, to achieve this. prevent the ship from actually leaving its harbor and revising, or launching another attack on the u.s. navy in hampton roads. this idea also is applied to the potomac. that is, the fear that the merrimac is going to come up the

potomac and show the capital is palpable. and so the solution was to send ships to kettle bottom shoals just below washington. it's a rather treacherous stretch of river. and to sink ships there. two frigates if necessary. that after all, if the "merrimac" destroyed two of the navy's best ships in an afternoon, why not just sink them in the potomac and block the "merrimac" from getting up to washington so she doesn't have to destroy them, we'll do it for her. also, the suggestion is, and it's very much a strat agem, why don't we have a fake confederate ship run the blockade? that is, have the ship come sailing up to hampton roads, flying the confederate flag. the union would make not very

convincing attempts to stop the ship. it would get by the confederate batteries because they would think it was one of their own. and then once that happened the ship would sink itself in the channel of the elizabeth river and again block the "merrimac" from coming down. also popular, and admiral goldsboro favors this idea initially, what i call swarm and sink. that what we need in hampton roads with a number of hudson river steamers that are reputedly extremely fast and that we can in a sense attack the "merrimac" en masse and sink her that way. in fact, goldsboro says that success would be certain if this could actually be done. and that's an idea that will pop up in any number of letters that the "merrimac should be swarmed and either shoved into the

shoals and aground or taken out by ramming. ramming is the next very popular idea. after all, the "merrimac" had used it to great effect against the cumberland. so why not turn the tables and use ramming against the "merrimac" itself? initially, that was the navy's plan. they had tugs standing by in hampton roads, several of which were assigned to go after the "merrimac." that of course never happened. right after march 8th the federal government chartered two fast steamers, the "arago" and the "illinois," and sent them from new york to hampton roads to again fling themselves on the "merrimac" when she appeared next. the only problem was the crews, when they found out what they thought their suicide mission was going to be absolutely refused and mutinied. and admiral goldsboro basically

wrote in disgust saying that these people are refusing to do the job that they were hired to do. and it all came to nothing. stanton is concerned the navy is just not going to take care of this problem. so the warmy, the war department needs to get involved. and he contacts cornelius vanderbilt, the shipping magnate, and basically says we understand you have an extremely fast ocean steamer, the "vanderbilt," how much would you charge to use that ship to sink the "merrimac"? and vanderbilt very graciously says, i won't charge you anything. i will in a sense donate this vessel to the federal government. which he does. although the navy does not want it. in fact, wells calls it a white elephant, that in the end no one knows what to do with this vessel. it does become part of the u.s. navy blockade fleet.

but again, wells had never wanted it. also very popular, especially with new yorkers, there's a number of new yorkers who write in saying that it's not an unusual occurrence for an east river steamer do clip a pier and be no worse for wear. in fact, charles megs, who's a banker in new york, said i saw the steamer "empire" basically shear off the 19th street pier and it was perfectly fine. and thus he has this idea for creating a steel-nosed ram that would be totally unarmed, only its nose would be armored and it would be exceptionally fast. it would be what he calls fish-bottomed. it wouldn't have much of a keel. and it would therefore be able to turn very quickly. and it would be able to again throw itself on the "merrimac"

with great rapidity. and it would only cost $100,000 to build. could be ready in two months. and according to him capable of cleaning our coast of 100 merrimacs, and that entirely without risk to life or limb to her crew. also, i'm always amazed at the number of people who write in with these inventions. they're always very time specific usually. that their invention, their ship can win the war in 15 minutes. not 20, not half an hour, not an hour. 15 minutes. war is over. robert harris proposes his vessel called the "tormentor." which if it's sinking its enemy so quickly i don't know how that counts as torment. but nevertheless, this was the name he decided to give to the

vessel. then there's also the suggestion made in fact by general woll at fortress monroe saying why don't you send down professor winen's new steamer, it's reported she's very fast and could run down the "merrimac" or any other vessel. now, this nautical oddity was built in 1858 by ross winen. winen, or winans, hopefully i'm getting his name right. was an inventor, locomotive manufacturer, millionaire, and suspected maryland secessionist. his cigar boats had a revolutionary unworkable idea of the center propeller. it was of course cigar-shaped and this idea also comes to nothing. although winans' steamer had been tested in the waters around

norfolk in 1859 and had a fairly good write-up in "scientific american," that supposedly this might be the naval wave of the future. ramming. az said, the confederates had used it to great effect, why shouldn't the union also? so you have a number of northerners writing in with all of these add-on gadgets for the monitor. a ram attachment which makes it sort of sound like kind of one of those infomercial, you know, chopping dicing machines that has all these different add-ons to the "monitor." and in this particular case james wilson proposes a serrated ram. plain old ram isn't good enough. it has to be serrated to, you know, cut right through without any issue. and it could then be folded up when not in use and not supposedly