🚀 go-pugleaf

The reconstructed dead sailors were white, so the Baboon Gazette 
writes an article about blacks.  This is pure Obama ass sucking 
liberal bullshit.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130308-uss-
monitor-sailors-victims-arlington-national-cemetery-ironclads-
civil-war-navy-ships/

Members of a Virginia family whose ancestors fought against each 
other in the American Civil War will be among the thousands to 
gather Friday in Arlington, Virginia for somber ceremonies 
honoring sailors lost when one of history's most innovative 
warships, the USS Monitor, sank in 1862.

The observance will include a funeral service for two unknown 
sailors who died when the Monitor went down off the coast of 
North Carolina. The sailors' remains, recovered when part of the 
iconic warship was raised in 2002, will be buried with full 
military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

The Monitor was the U.S. Navy's first ironclad warship, marking 
a turning point in military history.

Michael Luchs, an assistant professor at The College of William 
and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia who will attend the ceremony 
with his three sons,  said the realization that he is descended 
from brothers who were on opposing sides during the bloody 
conflict makes him feel "more wholly American."

Luchs's ancestor, James Bryan of Savannah, Georgia, served in 
the Confederate Army. James Bryan's brother, William Bryan, was 
a crewman aboard the Monitor.

William Bryan was one of 16 sailors lost when the ship sank on 
December 31, 1862.

Luchs recalled hearing his mother talk about his family's 
involvement in the Civil War when he was a child. "I'm feeling a 
whole bunch of different emotions, and sadness is one of them," 
Luchs said.

Luchs's son Matthew, a fourth-grader in Williamsburg, said that 
it's "strange to know that brothers fought each other" in the 
Civil War. "I'd like to know some of the reasons, find out why 
they fought each other."

The Monitor's 63-member crew reflected the melting pot of 
immigrants and cultures that had found their way to the United 
States by the mid-19th century. The crew included sailors born 
in Wales and Scotland, as well as African-Americans who were 
former slaves.

Noel Day, a landscape designer who lives in Long Beach, 
California, is descended from Daniel Moore, a former slave on a 
plantation in Prince William County, Virginia. Moore was one of 
two African-American sailors lost when the Monitor sank.

Day can't attend the Friday ceremony but says he's glad the 
unknown sailors are being buried with honors.

"I am very happy that we have a closure for these men," he said. 
"The remains of the two men that have been found represent all 
sailors that died that night. This is a way of honoring all 16 
of them."

Day also is glad that the presence of African-American sailors 
on the Monitor has been recognized.  "I think it's been 
overlooked for so long," he said. "I grew up learning about the 
Monitor in school, and I had no idea there were African-
Americans on board."

When the war began in April 1861, Union military leaders were 
uncertain about allowing African-American men to serve in the 
Army and Navy. But as more former slaves fled from the South and 
sought to join the fight against the Confederacy, Union leaders 
warmed to the idea.

In July 1861, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles opened the 
Navy to African-American men, and the number of blacks in the 
military grew as the war progressed.

History-Making Battle

The ceremony honoring the Monitor crew is being held on the 
151st anniversary of the Battle of Hampton Roads. That epic 
naval slugfest, fought on March 8 and 9, 1862, marked history's 
first battle between ironclad warships.

The meeting technically was a draw, since both the Monitor and 
its Confederate opponent, the ironclad CSS Virginia, were still 
afloat after hours of pounding each other with heavy cannon fire.

Still, the Monitor prevented the Virginia from breaking the 
Union naval blockade, which was seriously hampering the 
Confederacy's ability to wage war. Had the Monitor failed to 
stop the Virginia, the blockade would have been broken and the 
course of the war could have been changed.

The Monitor was the creation of Swedish-born inventor John 
Ericsson. The ship was crammed with cutting-edge 19th-century 
technology, including a rotating turret housing the ship's two 
powerful guns and a cleverly designed steam engine that could 
operate in the cramped quarters of the small warship.

The ship also rode very low in the water, earning the nickname 
"cheese-box on a raft" because of its unusual appearance.

Union military leaders knew in late 1861 that the Confederate 
Navy was building a powerful ironclad in Norfolk, Virginia. The 
Monitor was rushed to completion at Brooklyn Navy Yard and 
sailed for Hampton Roads in early March 1862.

Shortly after nightfall on March 8, the Monitor arrived at 
Hampton Roads, where the Virginia had destroyed two wooden Union 
warships before withdrawing because of darkness and the falling 
tide. When the Virginia returned the following morning, intent 
on destroying the rest of the Union fleet, the Monitor 
confronted the Confederate warship, forever changing the course 
of naval warfare.

Unable to destroy the Monitor, the Virginia returned to Norfolk. 
Confederates destroyed the ironclad a few months later to 
prevent its capture by Union forces.

An Enduring Legacy

The Monitor remained at Hampton Roads until December 1862, when 
Union commanders decided to move it to Beaufort, North Carolina. 
But the Monitor and the USS Rhode Island, which was towing the 
ironclad, were caught in a winter storm off Cape Hatteras on 
December 30.

The Rhode Island rescued 47 members of the Monitor's crew, but 
16 unlucky sailors couldn't get out before the Monitor was 
swamped and sank in the early morning hours of New Year's Eve.

Although the Monitor's service career was brief, its impact was 
permanent. Soon after Hampton Roads, the world's navies were 
building warships of iron and steel.

Michael Luchs's son Andrew, a seventh-grader in Williamsburg, 
has seen a full-size replica of the Monitor at the Mariners' 
Museum in Newport News, where the Monitor's turret, engine and 
other artifacts are undergoing a painstaking conservation 
process. He thinks the Monitor's innovative design "looks like 
some stealth craft made today."

"I thought it almost looks modern," Andrew Luchs said. "Whoever 
came up with this is pretty imaginative.'"

Part of the Monitor's wreckage still lies on the ocean floor, 
where it settled a century-and-a-half ago. Howard Lowell, a 
credit union officer in Freeport, Maine who's descended from 
Monitor commander John Worden, wonders if more Monitor artifacts 
could be recovered.

"I hope the burial of the remains sparks more interest in the 
Monitor," Lowell said. "An assessment of the wreckage ought to 
be made. If any remaining parts of the ship should be saved, 
then we need to move forward and raise funds and get it done."

The burial has sparked new interest in Matthew Luchs, the fourth-
grader. "As I get older," he said, "I might like to do research 
about the Monitor and the Civil War and other things that 
happened."

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