Iron Dawn
Recipient of the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award for distinguished naval literature.
“With muscular vitality, vast knowledge of military technology, and a novelist’s gift for capturing vivid detail, Richard Snow retells the story of Civil War ironclads as if it is unfolding before our startled eyes for the first time. The Monitor and Merrimack have never seemed more modern, dangerous, or revolutionary as they reappear in the hands of this master storyteller.”
“A masterful tale of the great Civil War ironclads, those strange, seemingly supernatural ships. One, Richard Snow tells us, looked like a rhinoceros, the other like a ‘metal pie plate.’ Their story—and that of the misunderstandings and maneuverings that preceded the Battle of Hampton Roads—is irresistible, nowhere more so than in this crackling, supremely poised account.”
No single sea battle has had more far-reaching consequences than the one fought in the harbor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862. The Confederacy, with no fleet of its own, built an iron fort containing ten heavy guns on the hull of a captured Union frigate named the Merrimack. The North got word of the project when it was already well along, and, in desperation, commissioned an eccentric inventor named John Ericsson to build the Monitor, an entirely revolutionary iron warship—at the time, the single most complicated machine ever made. Abraham Lincoln himself was closely involved with the ship’s design. Rushed through to completion in just 100 days, it mounted only two guns, but they were housed in a shot-proof revolving turret. The ship hurried south from Brooklyn (and nearly sank twice on the voyage), only to arrive to find the Merrimack had arrived blazing that morning, destroyed half the Union fleet, and would be back to finish the job the next day. When she returned, the Monitor was there. She fought the Merrimack to a standstill, and saved the Union cause. As soon as word of the battle spread, Great Britain—the foremost sea power of the day—ceased work on all wooden ships. A thousand-year-old tradition ended, and the path to the naval future opened.
“Everybody knows about the Monitor and the Merrimack, right? Well, actually, as it turns out, we don’t. In Iron Dawn, Richard Snow opens up the vast, enthralling world of politics, war, technology, maritime history, and human drama that lies just back of that momentous battle. Snow is a terrific writer. I can’t remember when I have had such sheer fun with a Civil War book.”
“Snow’s energetic account encompasses issues large and small, including discussions of arms and armament; the origin of the word ‘splinter’; the battle’s inconclusive end; a Southern joke of the day (‘Iron-plated?’ ‘Sir, our navy is barely contem-plated’); Lincoln’s special interest in the Union’s ironclad; the difference between shells and solid shot, the ‘mystery’ of the Merrimack’s name; and the enthusiastic Monitor fever that swept the relieved, almost giddy North. A few notable naval battles changed the course of wars, even history, but the clash at Hampton Roads transformed the nature of warfare itself and offered a glimpse of the ‘grim modernity’ Snow vividly captures.”
“Achieves appealing immediacy….A thorough and enthusiastic treatment, Snow’s account will capture the naval-history and Civil War readership.”