in this section, david gerleman talks about some of the ideas and suggestions offered by northerners for fighting the con federal iron clad merrimac. this is just under an hour. >>> good morning. my name is jonathan white. i'm an assistant professor at christopher newport university. it is a measure to welcome you to the mariners museum at newport news. >> if you have never been to newport news, i strongly recommend if for no other reason than to see this incredible museum, the mariners' museum. i would like to thank our sponsors and partners, without whom this conference would not be possible and the weekends events. our sponsors are bank of america, the virginia foundation for the humanities and southern structural steel. our partners are the museum of the confederacy, the center for american studies at christopher newport university, the hampton roads naval museum and noaa's museum sanctuary. i am pleased to introduce, david gerleman, an adjunct professor of history at george mason university where he teaches courses on 19th century and military history. he earned his ph.d. under

i am pleased to introduce our next speaker, david gerleman. david is an assistant editor and an adjunct professor at george mason university where he teaches courses on 19th century and military history. he earned his ph.d. in 1999 under the direction of john weiss simon. his dissertation was on the care, treatment, and use of civil war cavalry horses. i would like to tell you a little bit about the work that david does with the papers of abraham lincoln. david and his fellow editors are doing an incredibly labor intensive but extraordinarily important job with the papers of abraham lincoln. the editors are raffling the country looking for papers to examine from abraham lincoln. they are working at the national archives 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. they are daily finding new insights about our nation's