The Monitor and the Merrimac and Other Naval Battles

Description

The Monitor and the Merrimac (Landmark Books, Number 16) by Fletcher Pratt. New York: Random House, 1951. Hardbound, 8.5 inches tall, 185 pages. Index. Illustrated with drawings by John O'Hara Cosgrave II. This is Landmark Book Number 16. The Landmark series presents historic and biographical books for young readers, designed to hold the attention as well as to inform. Lives of outstanding people and topics of interest in American and world history are presented in story form with illustrations. "In 1862 the Confederates built a startling kind of warship - an ironclad -- designed to destroy the blockading Union fleet. But the Union Navy built an ironclad to make the blockade stronger. When the two ships -- the Union's Monitor and the Confederacy's Merrimac (or Virginia) -- met at Hampton Roads, the resulting battle became world famous. But there was more than one monitor! That famous Monitor was only the first of a large family -- all of them the products of the clever brain of an inventor named John Ericsson. Fletcher Pratt also tells the story of the men who commanded the monitors and the ironclad vessel of the Confederate States. The pages of this book take us to Mobile Bay to hear Admiral Farragut's famous cry, 'Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!' In the same battle, Captain Craven of the Tecumseh sacrificed his life to save his pilot. A stirring, authentic history of a brilliant inventor, of proud ships, and of the stanch sailors who made up their crews."