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<p>ARLINGTON, Va. – Two unknown crewmen found in the USS Monitor's turret will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery 150 years after the Civil War sank off the North Carolina coast. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is scheduled to speak during Friday's ceremony, which will include Monitor kin who believe the two Union sailors are their ancestors. Sixteen sailors died when the Monitor went down in rough seas off Cape Hatteras on March 9, 1862. The two crew members' skeletons and the remains of their uniforms were found in 2002 when the ship's rusted turret was raised from the ocean floor. The Monitor made nautical history when it fought in the first battle between two ironclads. The battle with the CSS Virginia was a draw...</p>

Conservators speculate on last moments of USS Monitor's crew By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press Writer NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) -- As the USS Monitor sank in the Atlantic during a storm off the coast of North Carolina on Dec. 31, 1862, the sailors knew they couldn't save the Union ironclad. So instead they tried to save meaningful possessions as they watched water run across the deck and waited to be rescued. That may be, conservators figure, how nearly 30 pieces of silver- and nickel-plated dinnerware ended up in the ship's turret. Five of the pieces found during excavation of the...

Seeking to interdict Federal naval operations in Hampton Roads, the ironclad CSS Virginia (ex-Merrimack) left its berth at Norfolk and steamed out to attack the nearby Union ships. Under the command of Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, the CSS Virginia headed straight for the USS Cumberland off Newport News. Around 2pm on March 8, 1862, the CSS Virginia struck the Cumberland with its 1,500lb iron ram, smashing a huge hole in its wooden hull. Despite the mortal blow delivered to the Cumberland, the CSS Virginia, which had become entangled within the shredded hull of its opponent, was also at risk of...

"Lacking federal funding to preserve artifacts from the USS Monitor, The Mariners' Museum is closing part of its conservation lab."

Here are some amazing images taken of the USS Monitor in the early 1860's. Ready for Action 1 of 13 Sixteen men were lost when the USS Monitor went down in a storm off Cape Hatteras on Dec. 31, 1862, while it was being towed. The sunken ship was discovered in 1974 resting upside down on the ocean floor in about 235 feet (71 meters) of water; efforts to salvage artifacts from the site began in 1998. Here, a line engraving, published in "Harper's Weekly", 1862, depicting the ship "Ready for Action" after her pilothouse was modified with angled armor...

Faces of Civil War sailors from sunken USS Monitor reconstructed in hopes of identifying them Faces of 2 USS Monitor crewmembers reconstructed Recovery: The turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor is lifted out of the ocean off the coast of Hatteras, N.C. on August 5, 2002 RICHMOND, Va. — When the turret of the Civil War ironclad Monitor was raised from the ocean bottom, two skeletons and the tattered remnants of their uniforms were discovered in the rusted hulk of the Union Civil War ironclad, mute and nameless witnesses to the cost of war. A rubber comb was...

Reporting from Newport News, Va. — When archaeologists and Navy divers recovered the warship Monitor's steam engine from the Atlantic in 2001, the pioneering Civil War propulsion unit was enshrouded in a thick layer of marine concretion. Sand, mud and corrosion combined with minerals in the deep waters off Cape Hatteras, N.C., to cloak every feature of Swedish American inventor John Ericsson's ingenious machine, and they continued to envelop the 30-ton artifact after nine years of desalination treatment. This month, however, conservators at the Mariners' Museum here and its USS Monitor Center drained the 35,000-gallon solution in which the massive...

1847 - Navy leads successful amphibious assault near Vera Cruz, Mexico. 1862 - First battle between ironclads, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. Was there a black cat aboard the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor, placed inside a cannon by a superstitious but desperate sailor as the vessel was sinking? Conservators had hoped to verify the legend as they worked this month to extract concrete-like sediment from two cast iron, smooth-bore cannons salvaged from the ship's turret. A crewman who had survived the sinking off the North Carolina coast more than 140 years ago maintained that he stuffed the feline into one of the 11-inch-wide, 17,000-pound barrels. And did he stuff his new wool coat and boots into the carriage...

Silt-filled turret of USS Monitor raised from Atlantic By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press Writer August 5, 2002   6:10 pm HATTERAS, N.C. -- The silt-packed turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was raised Monday from the Atlantic floor, nearly 140 years after the historic warship sank during a New Year's storm.The turret, the largest and last retrievable artifact, was raised at the end of a heavy cable attached to a crane on a 300-foot work barge.A Civil War-era American flag fluttered from the lifting frame and water poured out of the turret as it hung over the...

By PAUL CLANCY, The Virginian-Pilot© August 4, 2002 OFF CAPE HATTERAS -- The Navy has found one of its own. At the bottom of the sea, buried in silt in the turret of the ironclad Monitor, divers uncovered an intact skeleton that is almost certainly the remains of one of the sailors who died when the Union ship sank 140 years ago, the Monitor expedition announced Saturday. A torso and skull were brought to the surface and packed in ice for shipment to the military's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. The lower half of the skeleton was trapped under one...

Special report: The Monitor MissionThe Virginian-Pilot© July 21, 2002 This month, off North Carolina, archaeologists and Navy divers plan to recover the most revered artifact of the ironclad Monitor. The first revolving gun turret, ridiculed by Confederates as ''a cheese box on a raft,'' is coming back to Hampton Roads 140 years after a storm sent it to the ocean floor. Part 1: "Raise the cheese box!"Descending 240 feet below the ocean's surface to the ancient remains of the Monitor is like visiting the great-great-grandmother of modern warships.Full story / Slide show Part 2: Divers are on a sacred questAn...